“The Commitment Crisis: Why Transactional Motivators Fail in Volunteer Organizations”

So why are some people so prone to cancel on a commitment or a role within your volunteer driven organization? If their primary motivator is community, recreation, belonging, free coffee, or some other transactional item, then the moment something enters their purview that takes priority they can quickly cancel their commitment or become inconsistent. However, when somebody is personally invested in the mission, with a purposeful vision, then it becomes important to help the team advance that mission. (Vision and values rule and preventing vision drift becomes critical.) When things arrive in their lives that pull their attention, their first response is not to simply cancel and say, “sorry, deal with it”. Their first response is to reach out to other teammates to ensure that the mission is taken care of. Maybe they will find a replacement or a substitute, or they will come up with an alternative solution to help ensure things are taken care of when they need to get away or maybe just need a break for a period or season. There’s a big difference in the attitude and sense of team between someone who’s primarily motivated by the transformational instead of just the transactional.