Abstracts Category : Other

Best Practices and Strategies Used by Church Leaders to Mitigate and Prevent Burnout Among Church Volunteers

by Katie Donihoo

The purpose of this study is to explore successful strategies implemented by church leaders to mitigate and prevent church volunteer burnout. Volunteer training in the church must be set up for success relationally to create long-term sustainability. Burnout among volunteers and church leadership is common but effective training can help to prevent and mitigate burnout. The insights gleaned from the literature for preventing burnout can be incorporated into volunteer training programs within the church in order to provide long-term sustainability for volunteers. Armed with the findings of this study regarding insights gleaned from successful burnout mitigation and prevention programs used in churches currently, churches that are in need of these programs can become empowered to assist their volunteers with training. Qualitative research provided this study with a flexible framework to encompass the dynamic relationships that existed between church leadership, church volunteers, and burnout mitigation and prevention. Data was collected from 10 church leaders in charge of volunteer training within the Southern California area. Nine semi-structured interview questions were formulated from the four research questions in order to gather burnout prevention and mitigation data from these church leaders. The findings have strong implications for those developing and implementing burnout prevention and mitigation programs.