We're always looking for ways to raise awareness about the scope and impact of volunteering. As with anything else, personalizing a subject makes a greater impression. So I want to make the case for nametags as an educational tool.
Every conference gives out name badges of some sort, yet these are often totally non-informative (not to mention unreadable with small print and long neckbands lowering the tags to our navels). Less formal "hello, my name is" sticky tags or name tents appear at smaller meetings, without much more data than a scribbled first name.
Whenever possible, consider adding some information on nametags to bediscussion starters. For example, wouldn't you want to know how someone might answer:
- What was the very first thing you remember doing as a volunteer?
- What was something you did last week as a volunteer?
You could ask either of these of anyone to respond about volunteering anywhere, or you can limit the answers to volunteering in your organization.
Other topics might be:
- What was the most fun you had through volunteering?
- Name 3 things you learned through volunteer work.
- What does your favorite movie star volunteer or raise money for?
You get the idea. If the meeting is of people who think they know one another well - and usually don't even wear nametags with each other - skip the names but keep the tags and answer a different question at each meeting!
If you are convening both volunteers and paid staff together, you might ask volunteers to put on their nametags what they currently do for pay in the work world (or did before they retired) and have the employees write in what they do as volunteers on their own time. Both sets of answers might be surprising.
Making It Happen
As a practical matter, you can either ask one or two questions when people register or RSVP for the event or meeting and then prepare the nametags with their responses before they arrive on site, or you can post a sign at check-in with the key questions and ask people to handwrite their answers onto the nametags right there.
A variation that I love to suggest but rarely see implemented is getting meeting goers with many professional credentials to list all their formal "identities" and then (ideally in another color) add one more line to reveal what they are doing as a volunteer in their private lives. Discovering that a CEO is a youth sports coach or an IT specialist is a volunteer firefighter is priceless - and insightful - information to counteract stereotypes of who volunteers and for what.