I’ll have a go at adding some more ideas for #2. (Similarly to Martin, I don’t feel like this is my area of expertise and I’m sure there are others in the EA community who’ve thought about thisway more than me, but here goes for a try: )
In an organisation that has paid staff one important thing for commitment would be making sure people are compensated well. While volunteers are unpaid and to a large extent doing it for the impact of the role, I wonder whether there are easy-ish ways to optimise the non-money benefits that volunteers are getting out of the role – e.g. skills, connections and so on. I guess one way to do this would be just to pay particular attention to volunteers “as clients” when doing the group’s normal community-building activities. Alternatively, are there benefits that can be provided specifically to volunteers – like maybe connections to more established people doing similar work to the volunteer’s role, or social activities specifically for the volunteer team? (Though those probably aren’t low-cost, now that I think about it!)
Martin’s idea of a retreat could be good for the engagement goal too – at EA Cambridge, where I’m a volunteer, there was a committee retreat one year. To be honest I don’t remember what the main goals of the event were, but I think one benefit was helping me feel more engaged/committed in the committee that year.
The other main area I can think of that might help is ensuring that volunteers have plenty of ownership and space to make meaningful decisions and innovate (and that things stay that way as the team grows), both so that people feel a sense of responsibility and are more committed, and just to help the work be interesting. Like, where possible, delegating an area of responsibility, a problem or a sizeable project rather than the implementation of a specific solution; and ensuring that volunteers know what the extent of their freedom to change things is.
I’ll have a go at adding some more ideas for #2. (Similarly to Martin, I don’t feel like this is my area of expertise and I’m sure there are others in the EA community who’ve thought about thisway more than me, but here goes for a try: )
In an organisation that has paid staff one important thing for commitment would be making sure people are compensated well. While volunteers are unpaid and to a large extent doing it for the impact of the role, I wonder whether there are easy-ish ways to optimise the non-money benefits that volunteers are getting out of the role – e.g. skills, connections and so on. I guess one way to do this would be just to pay particular attention to volunteers “as clients” when doing the group’s normal community-building activities. Alternatively, are there benefits that can be provided specifically to volunteers – like maybe connections to more established people doing similar work to the volunteer’s role, or social activities specifically for the volunteer team? (Though those probably aren’t low-cost, now that I think about it!)
Martin’s idea of a retreat could be good for the engagement goal too – at EA Cambridge, where I’m a volunteer, there was a committee retreat one year. To be honest I don’t remember what the main goals of the event were, but I think one benefit was helping me feel more engaged/committed in the committee that year.
The other main area I can think of that might help is ensuring that volunteers have plenty of ownership and space to make meaningful decisions and innovate (and that things stay that way as the team grows), both so that people feel a sense of responsibility and are more committed, and just to help the work be interesting. Like, where possible, delegating an area of responsibility, a problem or a sizeable project rather than the implementation of a specific solution; and ensuring that volunteers know what the extent of their freedom to change things is.