How to not piss off your event-day volunteers
On establishing a volunteer culture that brings your event to the next level
It’s 7:30 am on a weekend day, and I’m standing in the brightly lit, cold and unromantic delivery entrance of a theater with a small group of people. We are understandably tired and hungry, but still excited for the day: we volunteered to help make an event happen. For now, we have been asked to wait. We are standing around somewhat awkwardly, making half-hearted small talk and wondering what will happen next. After a while, one of the organizers appears and says “Hello everyone, let’s prepare the goodie bags.” She leads us into another cold corner, shortly explains what goes into the bags and leaves. There is no clear process or instructions, so everyone grabs a bag and puts some flyers in, wondering if this is the way to do it. As we start to work, I now feel confused on top of being tired and hungry, and remember less and less why I signed up for this in the first place.
You might be asking yourself which event this was. The truth is, it doesn’t matter — I have encountered this type of situation many times volunteering at events and conferences. In preparation for this post, I asked our team members and friends that like to volunteer about their experiences. Their top complaints were missing information about their tasks or contact persons, an excess of meaningless or repetitive tasks, unfair task distribution and, worst of all, a lack of appreciation of their (free!) work by the organizing team. At the same time, fellow event organizers grumble about their volunteers canceling at last minute, not showing up or otherwise not delivering on what they committed to.
Why is this a problem and why do you think you can help?
Being in charge of a volunteer-run event and community at TEDxTUM myself, I am all too aware of the potential that is lost by not paying enough attention to the volunteers helping you on the day. Almost all conferences I attended in the past recruited volunteer helpers, the most extreme example being the huge technology conference WebSummit with 70k attendees and around 2500 volunteers. Organizing so many people in a stressful, fast-moving environment sounds like a superhuman feat — unsurprisingly, according to the experiences of several friends and some reports online, the organization leaves a lot to be desired. Imagine the potential benefits of not pissing off this number of people, but enabling them to be their best selves and contribute to your event!
Over the past 4 years, the TEDxTUM team has put a lot of effort and dedication into establishing a volunteer culture, and our experiences attending and helping at other events (within and outside of the TEDx universe) make us wish others did the same.
So this article is not a rant, neither is it a brag, but a collection of information and experiences of multiple team members as an attempt to make conference and event organizers aware of some issues and help them grow in this area.
If you’re not an organizer, but like to volunteer or just attend events, this article might help you see your next event experience in a different light. I’ve previously written about how we set up our core team for longevity and some of the team building activities we organized at TEDxTUM, but this one is about our event-day volunteers who help us with operations on the days immediately before and during the event.
A rough outline if you want to navigate more quickly: jump straight to the principles underlying our volunteer culture, the description of a volunteer’s journey, and what we do to make it all work. Moreover, you can download all of the files that are linked throughout this post in one package here.
The key principles of our volunteer culture
Based on our experience in the past years, we would argue that there are certain principles that should be the base of every event volunteer culture, regardless of the exact context or scale.
Select volunteers who want to help make the event happen as opposed to just attend for free. They should be excited about helping deliver the intended value to the audience, not only experiencing it themselves (although this is also part of the package, of course). It’s a plus if they have attended one of the previous events, so you know they want to get a different perspective and have a sense of what to expect.
Make them feel like they are part of the team, even if it’s only for a short amount of time. Being able to take on responsibility goes a lot further than just carrying out pre-defined tasks. This also has another advantage: attendees will not distinguish between volunteers and core team members; their perception of them will reflect on their opinion about your event. The more professional and engaged they are, the better!
Provide a solid plan and clear instructions, but encourage critical thinking and flexibility. Upfront planning is key and enables people to enjoy their day without wondering whether they are in the right place. Never assume people will just see what needs to be done and intuitively go and do it exactly how you would want it — give them clear information on what to know, what to do and where to be at any given time, as well as who to ask for help or information. However, if something unforeseen happens, people should feel like they’re allowed to think on their feet and leave their assigned position to help.
Enable them to enjoy the event. Not all volunteer tasks are pleasant, but rotating activities and a guaranteed free section of the day where one can attend and enjoy the event give a boost of motivation. Needless to say, our volunteers get food, drinks, goodies and all other privileges of our attendees for free.
Recognize that we couldn’t do it without them, and make them feel that. This means saying thanks, being friendly at all times, appreciating them again and again, and also giving them many of the same perks our core team members have (this can be small gestures like giving away leftover goodies).
“the best case is to have volunteers who take ownership of the event. If they feel like it’s also their achievement, the motivation is usually very high. And they don’t just ‘work for the ticket’.” — Christoph, volunteer coordinator
From recruitment to afterparty — the volunteer journey
Principles are nice, but you might ask yourselves how we bring those to reality. Below is a description of the journey our volunteers go through, from their first contact with us until after the event. I will go into detail on how we plan the shifts and structure of the day in the next section.
Recruitment
We start recruiting around 2 months before our main event, which is 3 weeks before our tickets go on sale so we can make sure that applicants are not looking for a way to attend a sold out event for free. Online marketing has always worked best for our community. Below are example posts from Facebook and Instagram, which we boost as needed, typically with an amount of 30–50€. Applications stay open for about 2 weeks, depending on the success of the campaign.
The link in the post leads to an application form like this one. Note that we ask them how much time they can invest and list all the meetings and volunteer shifts we will have until the event. Our goal is to communicate expectations clearly right from the beginning so that people know what they commit to before applying. We also want to minimize follow-up questions, which is why we e.g. ask them for their t-shirt size right away. We ask them to be available on the full event day as well as pick a shift for either setup the day before or teardown the day after.
From the applications, we select candidates based on cultural fit (e.g. their TEDx story or background) as well as their motivation and perception of the tasks of a volunteer. For our 2018 event, We received over 110 applications and selected 35 volunteers.
Preparation
We have two big meetings for event-day volunteers: the kickoff meeting 5–6 weeks before the event and the rundown meeting the weekend before. At the kickoff, we welcome our newly recruited volunteers, tell them about our mission and give them some high-level information about the upcoming event, all aimed at getting them excited about what’s to come. Our volunteer coordinators make a huge effort to get to know people upfront and impress the round by already knowing everyone’s names! We also throw in some constraints and reiterate on things that they must do, but keep it light and ensure they also socialize with our core team members — not only to make them feel welcome but also to identify those who are willing and able to take on a bit more responsibility if needed. We also mention early that if they enjoy working with us, they have the possibility to join the core team in the future. After the kickoff, we create a WhatsApp group where the volunteers can stay in touch and we can communicate both organizational information as well as exciting news about the upcoming event.
The rundown meeting gets much more serious: it’s showtime and we invite all of our team and volunteers to go through the event day step by step. We make sure volunteers know our team leads and where to go if they need information on the day. Some must-know things, such as the location of restrooms, identity of speakers, or structure of the day and mission of TEDx are practiced through a quiz. We also devise small scenarios, for instance, a dissatisfied attendee coming up to a volunteer, to practice how to act in difficult situations. They get the most important information in their volunteers cheat sheet after the rundown meeting — have a look at this 2018 version to get the full picture of what we considered must-know things.
Showtime!
Volunteer work begins the day before the event. Each volunteer knows when to arrive for setup and gets their tasks from the volunteer coordinators depending on what’s needed. We make sure we have pizza, drinks and the occasional sneaky taste of event-day snacks to keep them motivated. Before they go, we reiterate on our meeting time the next day and stress that they should be on time and bring a charger for their phones to ensure an open communication channel throughout the day.
Then, finally, it’s showtime! During the event, volunteers follow the shift plan (see next section), but are encouraged to keep their eyes open for other, more urgent things that need to be done. They receive the shift plan only on the morning of the event for two reasons: first, we prefer to stay flexible to changes until the last minute (because those always happen!) and want to avoid confusion by sharing multiple versions of the plan, and second, we prefer a general excitement for the event, the mission and the team for as long as possible rather than having them concentrate on their granular, concrete tasks earlier than necessary. Spontaneous changes are made as needed and communicated via the WhatsApp group.
“In general, I think there are two kinds of volunteers: Those who take matters into their own hands and work proactively and seek out opportunities to help make the event better, because they care about it and those who simply complete their tasks and wait for further instructions. We want to ‘transform’ as many people as possible into the first group, because these are the people that make our job much easier, because they care about the big picture.” — Christoph, volunteer coordinator
Teardown, afterparty, wrap up
After the event, we tear down and then start the afterparty together. We make sure to thank our volunteers again and again, appreciating them in front of our speakers and partners just like our core team.
1–2 weeks after the event, we meet the volunteers in an informal setting such as a Munich Christmas market for a wrap-up. We collect feedback on the process from them and mention again that they are welcome to apply for a core team position in the future. The volunteers are our best source for new team members, many of them have joined our core team and even taken on leadership positions! The positive feedback we get is most often about the organization and structure of the shift plan, the fact that they can take on responsibility, the variety of tasks they are assigned to during the day, as well as the inspiring atmosphere and integration into the team.
“I can’t really remember anything bad from last year, which was also the reason why I joined the team — the positive spirit and the incredible reliable people who support each other is just incomparable to any other organization. I already felt that as a volunteer.” — Lukas, volunteer at 2017 event, now core team member
The other side of things — planning, checklists, and huge tables!
One of the main goals of this article is to paint a picture of the process from a volunteer’s point of view, but a lot of work goes into making this happen from the team’s side as well. Our Operations sub-team is responsible for ensuring a smooth run-down of our events, and 1–2 of them have the main task of coordinating the volunteers. This requires a particular combination of skills: on the one hand, they are talking to people, getting to know their strengths and interests and making them feel welcome, while on the other hand they have to obsess over huge Google Sheets and meticulously plan who does what from beginning to end.
At the heart of the obsession is the shift plan: see our 2018 version here. It is developed in several steps:
- The volunteer coordinators first make a general plan of the day including sessions, breaks, and venue areas.
- Then they think about how many people are needed in each area in each slot, depending on what activities are planned in the breaks, when and where we serve food and drinks, or when doors need to be manned. This is coordinated with all team leads to ensure we have the best possible view of what is expected.
- They determine the area head for each venue area. This person is a team lead or Operations sub-team member who is responsible for things running smoothly in their area throughout the day. They are also the first point of contact for volunteers in that area, and they communicate with other area heads via walkie talkies to keep each other informed.
- After the volunteers kickoff, they ask volunteers to give preferences regarding the types of tasks they would prefer, for example logistics, guiding people, activities in the breaks, registration, and catering.
- Based on this information, the identified needs, and the impression of individual volunteers we gained at the kickoff meeting, they assign people to the areas. The aim is to have diversity in terms of tasks (nobody wants to stand at the same door throughout the whole day) but not change their location too often so that they can develop a relationship with the area head. We put our available core team members into the same rotation as our event-day volunteers, since we see them as equal on the day! Moreover, every volunteer has one session where they are free to watch the talks or relax, which can be a challenge to guarantee since our team is busy preparing food or cleaning up while the audience is enjoying the content.
Setup and teardown are planned independently from the shifts (see our 2018 plan here), based on the time availability indicated by the volunteers. While the setup is usually very structured and everyone is working hard toward the goal of making the event possible, it is a challenge to structure teardown and keep people happily occupied for them not to wander off.
Apart from meticulous rundown sheets, an extremely important thing to mention here is the way to treat volunteers. I deliberately started this post by describing a negative experience from the perspective of a volunteer because it’s easy to forget how they are feeling when you are stressed out of your mind, keeping a million things inside your head and trying to make sure everything comes together. I get it — I myself am known in the team to be the first person who starts snapping at people as things start to become hectic and messy. This is why I would make a bad volunteer coordinator or area head, since their job is to be friendly and supportive no matter what happens. You can’t do it on your own, and people will be much more willing to help if they feel like you treat them as a person.
I know from own experience how bad it feels to not be welcomed or appreciated by the event organizer, and I can tell you, it kills motivation faster than any actual problem that can occur during the event. If you feel you can’t be friendly under pressure, find a person on your team who can coordinate your volunteers and have this be their only job so they can do their best and get the most out of it.
That’s it, folks!
Congratulations on getting through this long post. As you might have noticed, it was extremely important to me (as well as to our team, many of whom pitched in writing this post) to communicate the general importance of a volunteer process, as well as give specific examples of how it can be achieved. None of this is rocket science, neither is it the only right way — we’d love to hear about your perspective on it! Our volunteer coordinators specifically asked me to request ideas about how others handle effective communication with 35+ people, as WhatsApp can get quite messy but we want to avoid them having to install an app they aren’t using anyways. In general, please share, react, discuss, and let’s make our events better, one volunteer at a time.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped make this post possible or has shaped our volunteer process over the past 4 years!!! First and foremost, Shalaila and Christoph, our amazing volunteer coordinators, but also Lukas, Max, and Nadia from our kickass Operations sub-team, as well as all my friends who let me regularly pester them about their experiences volunteering for other events.
