Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan generated loyalty in politics that was unheard of at the time. A former actor, he was best known as the great communicator! When he died, the outpouring of loyal leaders as well as citizens was amazing. Keep in mind that the torch bearer for the original conservative movement in the 1980′s had changed parties from Democrat to Republican. So even this man had to work his way through political minefields to get settled, all while keeping a loyal fan base later called Reagan Democrats.

Loyalty in sports is legendary. Sports fans around the world will stay with their teams through thick and thin. From basket ball to base ball to football, loyal fans are generated by the skilled use of marketing as much as winning records.

For some who root for the underdogs, the Green Bay Packers are a choice that has resulted in sports bars catering to Packer fans in most major metropolitan cities in the United States! That is a fan base folks, with tons of loyalty to go around. Several other sports franchises would love to have such a loyal set of fans spread all over the world, in football or other sports.

How did the Packers generate such a fan base and more importantly how can those lessons apply to our empowered volunteers? Let’s examine this a bit more to find out.

Football appeals to a wide audience, including women and even high status people. It isn’t a one social class attraction. This is true of volunteering as well. Interestingly enough, the very successful are often giving of their time on weekends for volunteering, just as football fans devote their time on weekends for their team in stadiums across the United States.

From a recent Forbes article I read recently, “Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast (Portfolio, 2012) and What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend (Portfolio, 2012), says successful people know that weekends are actually the secret weapon in professional success. “You need to hit Monday ready to go,” she says. “To do that, you need weekends that rejuvenate you, rather than exhaust or disappoint you. Cross-training makes you a better athlete, and likewise, exercise, volunteer work, spiritual activities, and hands-on parenting make you a better worker than if you just worked all the time.” The bold on volunteer work is mine in this quote.

If the rich and successful see volunteer work as worthy, so should everyone who is aspiring to be successful, no matter how far they have managed to get towards that goal.

With the health benefits of volunteering already established long ago, another study furthers that truth.

A national survey of 3,351 adults conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of UnitedHealth Group demonstrates that volunteering is good for your health.

Here are some of the takeaways from this research: “Companies that encourage and sponsor volunteer activities are also likely to engender goodwill and loyalty among employees. And of the employed volunteers in the survey who volunteered through their workplace, 81% agreed that volunteering together strengthens relationships among colleagues.

The survey suggests that nationally, more than half of all employees have volunteered. At UnitedHealth Group, 81 percent of employees and 96 percent of executives volunteered last year, so they clearly believe in the benefits—both tangible and intangible—of having employees engaged in their communities.” Again, the bold word loyalty is mine in the  above quote.

How does all of this help the empowered volunteer? If the wealthy and successful find volunteering worthy, then it can apply to anyone else who aspires to be either wealthy or successful.

It most certainly can apply to the poor also, but the health benefits for the poor will outweigh the other aspects gained from volunteering. The wealthy have access to better health management so this nails down what volunteering can also do for them, it is the social and intangible features they are looking for, as well as networking.

Loyalty, what is it worth? Well, ask the sports franchises who have had winning seasons but then when they are down their fans abandon them.

Fan loyalty is a study all in itself and I am not going to dwell on it very long, I only offer to point out that for the only major sports franchise in the U.S. who are still owned by the public and not owned by one wealthy owner the Green Bay Packers have a loyal fan base second to none! Other sports have the NY Yankees with a great loyal fan base that travels well. There are other teams that would qualify for high fan loyalty, such as the Dallas Cowboys.

So how did these teams do this and how can it apply to volunteering? First off, the Packers use volunteers throughout the year to help with their program. They even pay low wages for volunteers to shovel by hand the entire stadium every time a snow fall threatens to interfere with the next game! They always have to turn away the volunteers they have so many show up when they put out the word for help! Talk about loyal.

The second thing is that winning helps, a bunch. Consistent winning helps enormously. 

The Packers have several TV and radio programs every week where players make guest appearances and fans can meet and get signed stuff from that player. So if you are willing to wait an average of 3 hours before taping the show, you can meet a player or the coach. Pretty nice, and this is NOT the norm in every NFL football program by the way. Some teams I have found out don’t even support a short program each week for the coach to meet the fans live! Wow, what a missed opportunity to build loyalty.

Shriners

How do you apply this kind of thinking to volunteering?

Well, an example of one group’s success is the Shriner’s promotion of their Shrine East/West Football game by inviting the public to enjoy dinner and a presentation with the college players who are hoping to be drafted a few months from the game to visit with fans the night before the game. It costs money for the event, but most of us never get close to real players in this type of setting. Meeting the players and getting photo’s and autographs is exciting and intimate, just like being in the audience of a  Packer TV show, no matter which of the shows you visit each week. It promotes goodwill and loyalty! Fans love it and so do volunteers.

Several volunteer groups have sponsored race cars over the last few years. NASCAR fans are so loyal and they are very energetic. For the volunteers who manage to get passes to the drivers area or pit row, the effect and resulting loyalty is dramatic. It lasts for a very long time.

Loyalty is valuable, it is coveted and it is required for long term success in most organizations. In the next post we will continue exploring how to generate loyalty.

Share on Tumblr

Many people have found that for them volunteering was a worthy use of their time. Some of the reasoning for volunteering can be found in the quotes below.

Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another. –Erma Bombeck

No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it provides, it can never take the place of volunteers. –Ronald Reagan

After I became a volunteer, I discovered that networking and volunteering are almost synonymous. A lot of what I’ve learned about selling, public speaking, raising money, working as part of a team, management, and organization — in other words, a lot of what I learned about everything worth learning in running a business — I learned by being a volunteer worker. When I made mistakes, and I made plenty of them as a volunteer, they were part of a learning process that I could apply to my own business situation. And when I learned a new technique, I applied that too. –Harvy MacKay

Throughout my life, I’ve seen the difference that volunteering efforts can make in people’s lives. I know the personal value of service as a local volunteer. –Jimmy Carter

We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give. –Winston Churchill

Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. –Martin Luther King Jr.

A volunteer is a person who can see what others cannot see; who can feel what most do not feel. Often, such gifted persons do not think of themselves as volunteers, but as citizens – citizens in the fullest sense: partners in civilization –George Bush

Though government has an important role to play in meeting the many challenges that remain before us, we are coming to understand that no organization, including government, will fully succeed without the active participation of each of us. Volunteers are vital to enabling this country to live up to the true promise of its heritage –Bill Clinton

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. –Mahatma Gandhi

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for someone else. –Benjamin Franklin

Neither arduous vocation nor higher education has transmitted the positive self-reflection I required at crucial times in my life that volunteering has managed to provide. My faith in God provided me with the needed social cushion to merely survive. Coupling this with just the right amount of volunteering feedback repeatedly allowed me to continue with my Navy duties while still employed in the vigorous pursuit of personal happiness. –Paul R. Swanson

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. –Mother Teresa

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. –Margaret Mead

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being. –Goethe

We ourselves must be full of life if we are going to make life fuller for others. –David Sawyer

We can do no great things — only small things with great love. –Mother Teresa

I was taught that the world had a lot of problems; that I could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate; and that service is the rent each of us pays for living — the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals. –Marian Wright Edelman

I can’t be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others. –Hugh Prather

If you want to innovate, to change an enterprise or a society, it takes people willing to do what is not expected. –Jean Ribould

Giving kids clothes and food is one thing but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important, and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people. –Dolores Huerta

We need love and creative imagination to do constructive work. –Paula Ollendorf

Work is love made visible. –Kahlil Gibran

We ourselves must be full of life if we are going to make life fuller for others. –Davod Sawuer

No man or woman, even of the humblest sort, can really be strong, gentle, pure and good without the world being better for it; without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness. –Phillips Brooks

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on . . . The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully. –Walter Lippmann

Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like. –Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Service to youth is the rent we pay for the space we occupy on earth. –Jane Deeter Rippin

How can we expect our children to know and experience the joy of giving unless we teach them that the greater pleasure in life lies in the art of giving rather than receiving. –James Cash Penny

Volunteering creates a national character in which the community and the nation take on a spirit of compassion, comradeship and confidence. –Brian O’Connell

The soul is healed by being with children. –Feodor Dowtoevski

We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give. –Winston Churchill

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who ave sought and found how to serve. –Albert Schweitzer

I have been the recipient of love and service, therefore I can love and serve. There is great satisfaction in service to others, in … seeing people and their conditions change. –Clarence E. Hodges

We seldom stop to think how many people’s lives are entwined with our own. It is a form of selfishness to imagine that every individual can operate on his own or can pull out of the general stream and not be missed. –Ivy Baker Priest

We’re put on this earth not to see through each other but to see each other through. –Anonymous

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Caring must strengthen into commitment and commitment into action if we are to preserve and nurture one of the greatest forces for rebirth and renewal this nation has … voluntarism. –Marlene Wilson

Volunteering can be an exciting, growing, enjoyable experience. It is truly gratifying to serve a cause, practice one’s ideals, work with people, solve problems, see benefits, and know one had a hand in them. –Harriet Naylor

It is a rare and high privilege to be in a position to help people understand the differences that they can make not only in their own lives but in the lives of others by simply giving of themselves. –Helen Boosalis

Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. –Anonymous

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington

There is a tremendous strength that is growing in the world through . . . sharing together, praying together, suffering together and working together –Mother Teresa

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. –George Washington Carver

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. –Mahatma Gandhi

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. –Eleanor Roosevelt

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but the one thing I know; the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. –Albert Schweitzer

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. –Edmund Evertt Hale

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. –Aesop

Our nation will succeed or fail to the degree that all of us — citizens and businesses alike — are active participants in building strong, sustainable and enriching communities. –Arnold Hiatt

You will find as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others. Source Unknown

The miracle is this – the more we share, the more we have. –Leonard Nimoy

Share on Tumblr