Crash Courses: Recruiting & Keeping Volunteers
Are you struggling to find and retain the right volunteers for your ministry?
You’re not alone—but there is a way forward. While there’s no magic formula, our course offers the next best thing: a collection of best practices and a proven method to transform your volunteer recruitment from a challenge into a success.
In this course, you’ll learn what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to building a strong, committed volunteer team. Say goodbye to the frustrations of high turnover and volunteer burnout. We’ll provide you with practical, easy-to-implement tools to keep your volunteers engaged, motivated, and ready to serve.
Drawing from the content of two essential Crash Courses in Youth Ministry – “Recruiting Volunteers” and “Keeping Volunteers” – this comprehensive guide covers everything from identifying ideal volunteers to creating sustainable volunteer appreciation programs. Topics include:
- What Makes Volunteers Great
- When Someone Leaves
- Leading Effective Trainings
- Providing Appreciation and Support
- Identifying Volunteers
- Four Things That Get People To Say Yes
This course is more than just theory. It’s a practical, actionable roadmap that will help you, as a ministry leader, recruit and retain volunteers more effectively, giving you the freedom to focus on other critical aspects of your ministry.
By the end of this course, you’ll be equipped and encouraged to meet the challenges of the volunteer lifecycle head-on. You’ll understand how to support your volunteers in ways that directly enhance the effectiveness of your youth ministry. Plus, you’ll learn how to set your volunteers up for success with clear pathways (“on-ramps” and “off-ramps”) for how and when they serve.
To deepen your understanding, the course includes video supplements featuring the authors of the Crash Courses in Youth Ministry. These videos dive deeper into the strategies for recruiting and keeping volunteers, complementing the downloadable content of the original courses.
Don’t let volunteer challenges hold back your ministry – start building the volunteer team you’ve always needed!
Note: Registration for this course will end on Friday, February 28, 2025. The course content will be archived on Monday, March 31, 2025.
Your Instructor
Chris Wilterdink serves as the Executive Director for Congregational Vitality and Intentional Discipleship, and as the Director of Young People's Ministries for Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church. As a lay person, his educational background in English, learning, and project management form much of his approach to ministry. With over 15 years of experience at the local church level and more than a decade of serving the general level of the UMC, Chris continues to be passionate about leadership development and discipleship with every generation, as well as helping ministry leaders understand their value in the lives of young people.