Do your Vice Chairs or Team Captains ever ask what type of people make the best volunteers?

As expected, we have tips of all sorts, but sometimes the best tip is to remind your Vice Chairs and Team Captains that anyone with a wide range of business contacts can succeed in a Total Resource Campaign. Never discount someone’s motives or professional drive.

One of my favorite volunteer stories comes from a top performer who surprised everyone with her success. She was not recruited by anyone to be on a team, in fact. She volunteered. She requested that her boss, the TRC Chair, assign her to a team.

As we were doing our wrap up sessions, we asked this volunteer why she wanted to be a part of the TRC. With no hesitation she said, “I was pissed.”

After the group stopped laughing, I asked her to explain.

“I was pissed because no one asked me to join a team. I am the executive assistant to the CEO of one of the largest companies in town, but no one saw me as capable,” she explained. “And I wanted the opportunity to prove them wrong.”

Prove them wrong is exactly what she did. Each week, she was one of the top three performers in the TRC.

She took the knowledge she had gained of the business community through her job and systematically paired businesses with sponsorships that would work well for them. She was highlighting how the sponsorships were going to benefit both the Chamber and the business and, in the process, she was strengthening her own personal business contacts.

At the first few Rally Sessions, you could hear people asking about her and how she was doing so well. By the third or fourth, everyone knew she was one of the ones to emulate.

She proved to her boss and to the others who passed her by initially that she was more than capable. She showed that Vice Chairs and Team Captains need to be relentless in their search of people who have a vast business contact base… that employees can make the TRC work for them… that they can be a success in the TRC with the right mindset.