Greetings from The RIngling in Sarasota, FL!
Our efforts to keep volunteers engaged over the past few months are very similar to what you've described.
To boost participation in virtual meetings and programs for volunteers, we facilitated several sessions of Zoom training to get everyone comfortable with the audio and video settings and using the chat function. A weekly training for new docents that was already underway when our museum closed has continued via Zoom and it's worked pretty well so far.
Weekly emails have kept the volunteers updated on behind-the-scenes museum activity and the Education Department's wonderful Museum From Home opportunities. We also solicited input from our volunteers about their favorite works of art to share on social media. And we even managed to inspire some of them to participate in the "recreate a painting from our collection using household objects" challenge that was popular at the Getty and other museums. As we look ahead, we'll likely be planning some kind of virtual volunteer recognition event instead of hosting our traditional in person gathering.
Although our museum began welcoming back visitors after the Memorial Day weekend, we're slowly working through a phased approach to reopening. We're located in a current COVID hot spot, the overwhelming majority of our volunteers are in high risk demographics or care for loved ones who are, and a significant percentage of our volunteers are seasonal residents. Additionally, most volunteer roles involve direct contact with visitors. About half of our staff members are still working remotely and will likely continue to do so through the end of the calendar year at least. Until we can safely repopulate our venues with staff, our on site volunteer assignments will remain on hold. We've had little luck so far identifying remote opportunities as much of that work requires a level of technological proficiency that few of our volunteers possess.
So, our challenge now is retaining volunteers when it will likely be several more months before they can resume their duties. I'm very interested to see how others are handling this dilemma and staying connected.
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Hollie Corbitt
Volunteer Program Coordinator
John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art
Sarasota FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-04-2020 02:01 PM
From: Kelly Gascoine
Subject: Volunteer Engagement during COVID-19
Good afternoon,
Many of us were (and maybe still are) trying new ways of remote volunteer engagement this year due to the pandemic and museum closings.
I'm curious to hear what other institutions have found to be successful engagement with your volunteers since this spring and what may not have worked as well? Has your engagement mostly been open lines of communication, or are you also reaching out with continuing education/skill building? Have you encountered any issues with volunteers who may not have access to the technology to participate in virtual engagement and how do you handle that?
Since this spring, we hosted a few Zoom calls with volunteers and found that the calls with a clear purpose (meet the staff or discussions about reopening) saw better participation than Zoom calls that were just informal catch-ups or virtual happy hours. We sent weekly emails to our volunteers that include news and updates about the museum, which volunteers like as they appreciate being kept in the loop. Those emails also include some engagement efforts – sharing some of our social media posts and virtual education videos that staff were producing for families during the closure for example. And we're hosting a Zoom resume workshop for some of our teen volunteers later this month.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and feedback.
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Kelly Gascoine
Manager, Volunteer and Internship
Carnegie Science Center
Pittsburgh PA
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