Getting the volunteers to come around

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Permalink Reply by Joe P. on April 9, 2009 at 6:41pm

This might be a radical idea, but have you tried paying people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

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Permalink Reply by Laura Vandegrift on April 9, 2009 at 7:46pm

I think there are several factors in this. When I joined my former department in 1991, it was the same thing you described. Nearly turning people away at the door because there was no room on the apparatus for them. Once people get older, have families, horrible commutes (DC metro area) and the like, we stopped getting them volunteering and our membership dwindled. We started doing a few things to attract people.

1. Community events that bring people into your department. And I know this sounds silly, but do kids events. The parents have to bring them there and you can get people to do some recruiting of the parents - this actually worked VERY well. (Breakfast with Santa, Easter/Halloween events like making baskets/trick-or-treat bags)
2. Have some sort of incentive. For instance, our county had a program that if you volunteered more than 40 hours per month with a county VFD, you received a significant property tax discount on your primary response vehicle. Last check (mid-90s) it was the difference in $3.45 per $100 assessed value vs. $0.45 per $100 assessed value. We also had a program through The Hartford Insurance called Length of Service Award Program (LOSAP) After 10 years of service, you were vested in the program and receive a retirement of $10 per year of service per month (For instance - 15 years of service = $10x15yrs) when you reach their retirement age of 60. You can still take from the LOSAP as an active volunteer over the age of 60. We had different hour requirements for our active members and our supporting members.
3. Training - We were fortunate that 99% of our training was paid for. We paid nothing for training, so I was able to go from EMT to Cardiac Tech to NREMT-I/99, haz-mat, CPR Instructor, PALS, ACLS... pretty much anything, for free. This is HUGE. I ended up in a career department for education I paid nothing for out of pocket, only my volunteer time. Offer as much as you can with little cost to your volunteers. Now, I realize this is easy for me to say since we had huge budgets for volunteer stations via fire levy, etc. But this is a huge help.
4. Check the VA OEMS website. They have lots of info on recruitment and retention.
5. Go for the younger members. I mean, you want them to be reasonably responsible, but show them that this early training they can receive can lead to a good career. Unfortunately you may lose them when they go to a career department but we got a lot of very enthusiastic 17-18 year olds and they have been wonderful.

Good luck to you!

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Permalink Reply by Mark A. Duell on April 9, 2009 at 10:32pm

You know, I think there are a couple of factors here. Of course this is just my opinion, and some things that I have observed in other organizations as well, but I truly believe that they are the heart of the problem.
1. Leadership: you have to have good leadership right from the top. If you have a leader that only does what he/she has to do to get by, doesn't show a whole lot of effort, those under him/her are going to do the same. If the leader is sloppy in setting standards, those around him/her are going to do the same. You get my drift. Whatever the leaders do others will follow until that person is replaced. This leads me to the next one...
2. Professionalism: If we don't act professional at our job, people consider what we do as a joke. They tend to look at the company/org. as a hangout for a bunch of losers. A bunch of wanna be's . So it is up to us to set the tone and how the community views us. So how do we go about setting this standard of professionalism? Get them while they are young. As mentioned before, Jr. Firefighters/EMS. Don't use them for your gophers, but train them up in the way you would like to see the company go in setting standards and acting professional. LEAD BY EXAMPLE! Set goals, give incentives, act like you care about the people you serve.
Some other reasons could be that people just can't afford to DEDICATE any time due to finances. They don't have the time to go to all the required training, which is becoming more and more required. Today's world isn't the same as your fathers or grandfathers was. So it is up us to to set the standard, to make people want to be a part of something great. And THANK YOU to those that are doing this! Enough from me! Take care and stay safe everyone.

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