Acronym

The folks at the American Farm Bureau Federation had a problem. Their membership has grown and grown and grown—every year for 40-some years. Their problem obviously wasn’t about getting members, it was about volunteers at the local level not being engaged.

To combat the problem, as Matt DeMarco and Margaret Wolff from the federation explained in their Great Ideas learning lab, they developed a series of training sessions, with a board game (Make It Magnetic: How to Attract and Keep Unbeatable Volunteers) as both ice breaker and educational development. The board game is rigged, of course, and has cards with scenarios, but all the scenarios are bad and no one can make any progress. Here a few of my favorite scenario cards from the game:

When you show up to volunteer at the annual meeting, someone hands you a stack of envelopes to stuff and says, “You should be able to handle this. It’s a real no-brainer.” Go back to start.

Your shoes get ruined because at the last minute you are asked to give tours of the dairy barn instead of working in the refreshment stand. Lose a turn.

At your first meeting, one of the board members leans over to you and says, “Being a Farm Bureau volunteer is easy work. All you have to do is show up and sit through the meeting. Then you get free cookies and coffee.” Go back 1 space.

What a joke! Every year we talk about new ideas for the annual meeting. But when it comes time to plan, we do the same thing, right down to the green beans and chocolate cake. Go back 2 spaces.

No one talks during the board meetings. They wait until they get to the parking lot, then trash the president behind his back. Go back 2 spaces.

(Don't worry there's a different set of cards to play with for the end of the training. A sample: "Your child comes home from school with a Farm Facts booklet donated by the county Farm Bureau.")

A snapshot of the game: