Building your team
You are a leader of leaders – that is the most important part of your role. You cannot lead, however, without individuals on your team. You determine the strategy, your committee executes on that strategy. As a DAL, you are expected to:
- form and maintain committees of volunteers
- actively invite members to participate on committees. Volunteer engagement (VE) has formal recruiting activities; other DALs are expected to collaborate with VE to provide their functional area’s needs.
- Committees vary in size, structure and levels of sophistication. The standard committees under the Membership and Volunteering DAL are:
- Membership sub-committee
- Member Outreach/Orientation committee
- Radical Hospitality committee
- Lunch and Learns committee
- Volunteer engagement sub-committee
- Volunteer Placement committee
- Volunteer Tracking committee
- Volunteer Recognition committee
- There is one committee lead on each of these committees, and they should have other committee members underneath them. These are the individuals who will execute the tactical elements and implementation of your strategy.
- You define how often you meet with your committees and the delegation of work activities.
Finding your leaders
- You can never have too many and should always be prepared to have backups in place. Tapping on the shoulder is key.
- Begin with existing committees – who is still there? Who will continue? Who will step away?
- Advertise opportunities on your committee in your chapter’s monthly newsletter or on the HBA Community– speak to your DAL of marketing and communications to do so
- Ask for suggestions from your board
- Tap into your network – do you have colleagues, acquaintances that would be perfect for a role? Ask!
- Reach out to large groups on social media – use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, wherever
- Attend HBA events – your own events are one of the best places to find and recruit new talent. Attend as many as you can with your eye open for individuals looking to get involved.
Supporting your team
- Develop one of your committee members as your successor. Think about succession planning early
- Share your knowledge/wisdom
- Help your volunteers identify an HBA career path and support it, even if it means moving off of your team
- Recognition goes a very long way
Strategy setting for membership and volunteering DALs
- In addition to building and leading a team, you are responsible for setting a strategy as to how your chapter will conduct member outreach. This should be done in conjunction with your regional Engagement COE President.
- How will you contact new members?
- How often will you check in on them?
- Will you contact every new member or only select groups such as:
- Corporate partner companies
- Those who haven’t attended events
- Etc.
- Membership recruitment strategies: are there certain types of companies you will look to, will you target new members by career level, etc
- Share this strategy with your member outreach committee leader
Supports in place for you
- Regional-level: Engagement COE President – this individual is responsible for strategic overview of the membership, volunteer engagement, and market research volunteers.
- Engagement Excellence Regional Director – this individual is the Engagement COE President’s right hand, and is responsible for training chapter volunteers and filtering information from HBA Staff to the chapters.
- HBA’s membership manager (Petrina Hurtado) – can assist with specific member concerns, is available to assist when you are unable to reach the above individuals.
