I don’t have any experience with organizing EA groups at a university so I’m not the best person to answer these questions but I’ll do my best.
Regarding bullet point #2, I think there are two things that are worth doing. First, praise them publicly and privately about their work. If they contributed to something that went well (such as an event), then public acknowledge their effort to the larger community and thank them. Volunteers (and operations folks as a whole) do a lot of thankless work that is largely seen as “easy” by a lot of people so having leaders acknowledge them is helpful. I also think you can praise them privately as well with a simple thank-you email or simply tell them face-to-face (or virtually these days). I often like to tell any operations assistants or volunteers that their work matters. I like to explain the causal link between the successful completion of their duties and the end goal. For example, if the volunteer doesn’t create a template for the invite, then this delays the invites for the event and this puts the event in jeopardy. I think volunteers don’t have a keen sense of how their work impacts the end goal of a project because they don’t have the birds-eye view of the project like leaders do; they don’t possess the ability to see the causal link between their work and the end goal. It’s important for leaders to clearly draw that line for them so they understand how their work integrates with the larger picture and hopefully, how integral their work is to the project.
Regarding bullet point #3, I think having publicly available resources is a good idea. For example, at CHAI, we use Notion to document all of our internal logistics so any new member can familiarize themselves with our inner workings. If you haven’t already, perhaps writing a set of guidelines for new/small organizations is useful. You can write a guide on organizing events, recruitment, marketing, etc and all of the different aspects when it comes to running an EA university organization. Also, documentation of your “missteps” is valuable. What lessons did you learn along the way as you organized events on campus? What former processes did you use before settling on your current one and why did the former one “break”? This gives new/small orgs an insight as to how to think about their own internal systems as they begin to grow and can learn from your previous mistakes and know what to avoid.
Another thing you can do is hold small retreats (virtually for now, obviously) where you invite leaders from new/small orgs and hold talks about various aspects of running an organization.
I don’t have any experience with organizing EA groups at a university so I’m not the best person to answer these questions but I’ll do my best.
Regarding bullet point #2, I think there are two things that are worth doing. First, praise them publicly and privately about their work. If they contributed to something that went well (such as an event), then public acknowledge their effort to the larger community and thank them. Volunteers (and operations folks as a whole) do a lot of thankless work that is largely seen as “easy” by a lot of people so having leaders acknowledge them is helpful. I also think you can praise them privately as well with a simple thank-you email or simply tell them face-to-face (or virtually these days). I often like to tell any operations assistants or volunteers that their work matters. I like to explain the causal link between the successful completion of their duties and the end goal. For example, if the volunteer doesn’t create a template for the invite, then this delays the invites for the event and this puts the event in jeopardy. I think volunteers don’t have a keen sense of how their work impacts the end goal of a project because they don’t have the birds-eye view of the project like leaders do; they don’t possess the ability to see the causal link between their work and the end goal. It’s important for leaders to clearly draw that line for them so they understand how their work integrates with the larger picture and hopefully, how integral their work is to the project.
Regarding bullet point #3, I think having publicly available resources is a good idea. For example, at CHAI, we use Notion to document all of our internal logistics so any new member can familiarize themselves with our inner workings. If you haven’t already, perhaps writing a set of guidelines for new/small organizations is useful. You can write a guide on organizing events, recruitment, marketing, etc and all of the different aspects when it comes to running an EA university organization. Also, documentation of your “missteps” is valuable. What lessons did you learn along the way as you organized events on campus? What former processes did you use before settling on your current one and why did the former one “break”? This gives new/small orgs an insight as to how to think about their own internal systems as they begin to grow and can learn from your previous mistakes and know what to avoid.
Another thing you can do is hold small retreats (virtually for now, obviously) where you invite leaders from new/small orgs and hold talks about various aspects of running an organization.