Photo CC by marc falardeau

Every small town is struggling to find enough volunteers to keep projects going and start new ones. It’s not just you!

The trick is that people have changed, but volunteering really has not.

If you want to be part of making your community a little greener, you have to volunteer to be on the beautification committee, promise to attend a year’s worth of boring committee meetings, and then you can be part of one day of actual tree planting.

Today, though, we expect to be more flexible. We don’t plan our schedule a year in advance. If we’re going to give up some of our valuable busy time, we want to matter. We want to get straight to the doing, skip all the meeting.

Everyone is a volunteer, if you give them a small enough role

Everyone in your town who cares even a little is a potential volunteer. Not everyone has to care as much as you do. Not everyone has to care a lot.

Everyone who cares a little can do a little, but only if you let them know what their little role could be. They have to know what they could do and know that their part matters.

Give everyone in town a small but meaningful role. It goes back to what community expert Carol Colletta said:

The time has passed when a few influential people could gather in a room to decide what a city will be. Instead, a city’s future is determined by hundreds of actions taken daily by thousands of people based on what they believe about a city’s future and their role in it.”

Everyone has a small but meaningful role. If you want more volunteers, help people see that new role for themselves. Then they’ll take action.

A Tree Grows in Baltimore

Here’s exactly what that looks like, in a story from my friend Justin Kownacki:

The city recently planted dozens of new trees in my Baltimore neighborhood.

To make sure they grow properly, two slim wooden beams are planted in the soil on opposite sides of each tree’s trunk— which, at this stage, looks more like a a twig. Then a slim chain is wrapped around the trunk and stretched between the beams.

This balance between the beams keeps the tree growing straight upward until its roots take hold and it gets strong enough to stand on its own.

This morning, I watched as a guy who was walking by stopped to adjust the chain that’s holding one of these new trees up, and pull it a little tighter to help it stay upright. Then he walked away, on his way to wherever he was going.

And I realized that tree will likely still be here 100 years from now, providing shelter and sustenance to this neighborhood, all because one guy took a few minutes out of his day to help that tree get back in the right direction.

Justin Kownacki
Armchair Sociologist & Perpetual Contrarian

Yes, Justin is from a big city. But that’s exactly the personal action we’re trying to create in all our small towns.

More ideas for finding volunteers

Deb Brown and I share more ideas like this in our latest webinar at SaveYour.Town, Finding More Volunteers.  The video is available on-demand starting Monday October 15, 2018, and it is only available for two weeks. If you sign up now, you can also participate in the live Q&A session October 22. We welcome your questions, stories and examples from your own town.

• About the Author
• Latest Posts

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

• How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
• The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
• Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
• Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
• Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
• Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
• Economic self defense for small towns  - June 7, 2020
• The best things you can do for local businesses in light of coronavirus - March 27, 2020
• How to get more parking downtown without adding any spaces - March 7, 2020
• Exact Yeti Blue mic volume and Windows settings to reduce background noise - February 17, 2020