10 Ways to Support Your Organization Every Day

by Moria R. Austin

1. Goodsearch.com. Search the web and support your charity at the same time. Sign up your charity at the bottom of the page.

2. MSN is e-mailing for the greater good; Hotmail.com and Live users can register their e-mail and IM accounts. Select Options, and then select Mail, select customizing your mail from here select “I’m making a difference.” See options your IM window for IM set-up.

3. Have your own fundraiser with all the proceeds going towards your organization.

4. Wear your organization’s gear! Wear your t-shirts, pins, lanyards, carry bags, use mugs & pens and any other products that have your organization’s logo.

5. Online social communities, make a your organization your friend on Facebook, etc. Invite your friends as well!

6. Socialvibe.com, select a sponsor and then a charity, post the widget to your page.

7. Educate yourself on what your organization offers so you can share this information with others.

8. Twitter.com; Twitter about your organization. (Make sure your profile is not set to private.)

9. Be a good example for your organization, everywhere you go you represent your organization.

10. Share this list! Customize it with your organizations name and web pages and pass it along.

Summertime Plans

As we ease into our summer, what plans do you have for the volunteer program for which you are affiliated? Is your organization doing something special? Big event? Just relaxing?

Join the conversation and post your summertime plans!

How are you celebrating National Volunteer Week?

How are you celebrating National Volunteer Week? The following is a link to some ideas: http://handsonnetwork.org/events/nvw2010!

“National Volunteer Week, a signature event of Points of Light Institute, celebrates ordinary people doing extraordinary things to improve communities across the nation.

“Commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act and the Volunteer Generation Fund, our theme — Celebrating People in Action — honors individuals who take action and solve significant problems in their communities.”

We also want to hear from you! Join the discussion to talk about this important week in our industry!

How to Make Volunteers Feel Like a Million Bucks

How to Make Volunteers Feel Like a Million Bucks
(When You Only Have Pennies to Spend)
by Helen Beamer

You want to appreciate your volunteers in a spectacular way but your volunteer appreciation budget (what budget?) does not provide the necessary funds.  Faced with this challenge, I find it works best to be creative in how you recognize volunteers.

Here are a dozen low-cost ways to let your volunteers know you appreciate them.

1. Be friendly and say thank you.  It doesn’t cost a thing to greet a volunteer and ask how things are going.  A warm, welcoming atmosphere creates an environment that meets the social interaction needs of volunteers. Encourage staff who work with volunteers to express their appreciation to volunteers each day.

2. Involve your clients in saying “Thank You.”  Client-made cards, decorations, or performances in poetry, song, or dance demonstrate appreciation in the most precious way.  The words and drawings of grateful clients (especially if your agency works with children) convey a sincerity that will touch a volunteer’s heart.  You can replicate these one-of-a-kind thank you cards with a color copier or a scanner and color printer.  They make great gift cards attached to an inexpensive gift.  The reproductions look almost as good as the originals.

3. Turn others’ trash into treasure.  Your agency may have extra items left over from a fundraising event or an in-kind donation they can’t figure out how to use.  I have uncovered expensive gift bags and colorful ribbon, discovered potential centerpieces, and framed photos with castoffs I found stuffed in boxes and hidden in closets.

4. Seek out donations.  A local business may be willing to provide exactly what you are looking for.  I once got several beautiful flower arrangements for an event at no cost with the condition that I return the empty vases to the florist the next day.  Make sure to write a glowing thank you letter and to provide a donation receipt for tax purposes.  Obtain your supervisor’s approval before you solicit donations.

5. Recruit the talents of family, friends, and staff.  My mother-in-law makes and sells dried flower arrangements.  She put together more than a dozen centerpieces one year when I asked for her help.  The volunteers loved them!  A friend who likes stamping designed a card to fit a recognition theme.  Co-workers were more than happy to give an hour to wrap gifts for volunteers.

6. Turn centerpieces into volunteer gifts or door prizes.  We had lots of small potted plants (purchased at a discount) to brighten a volunteer reception one year.  At the end of the event, each plant went home with a happy volunteer.  Months later, a volunteer with a not-so-green thumb went out of her way to let me know her plant was still thriving.

7. Shop the after-holiday sales and clearance racks.  Plan ahead.  The volunteers will never know that the New Year’s greeting was printed on holiday paper purchased at last year’s after-Christmas sale at 75% off.  Look for candy (always a favorite) that gets marked down quickly after a holiday.  The off-season red, green, or pastel wrappers can easily be worked into a volunteer appreciation theme with real savings to your program.

8. Check out what is in stock at the dollar store.  The dollar store has a lot to offer to the cash-strapped volunteer coordinator.  You can pick up tablecloths, napkins, or plates in an assortment of colors for only a dollar per package, leaving you with money to purchase refreshments!  Dollar store gift items, like candles, flower pots, or lotions look inviting wrapped in cellophane or nestled inside a gift bag.

9. Honor your volunteers with certificates.  This is an inexpensive way to make sure you can afford to recognize each of your volunteers.  Create personalized certificates for an annual recognition event or to honor the volunteer of the month.  Using your agency’s second page letterhead (think, free paper) will coordinate the look of the certificate with other agency materials.

10. Do it yourself.  Preparing vegetable and cheese trays (with food purchased at sale prices) is a lot less expensive than hiring a caterer for a reception.  Be sure to use proper food handling techniques and storage if you do it on your own.

11. Use the postage meter.  When you send cards and invitations to volunteers, remember the postage meter.  Depending on your agency’s accounting practices, using the meter (instead of stamps) may count as an indirect cost to the agency, rather than coming out of your budget.

12. When you do have money to spend, look for gifts that promote your cause.

Give volunteers a practical gift imprinted with a logo or message that will show their affiliation with your program and serve as a marketing tool.  Mugs in my kitchen cupboard remind me of organizations where once I volunteered.  A tote bag or pen with your organization’s logo will be useful to volunteers and may spark a conversation with others about the work they do for you.

You do not have to spend a lot to make a volunteer happy.  One of the volunteer appreciation gifts I treasure most from my 12 years as a school board trustee is a green clay pinch pot created by an anonymous elementary school student.  I keep loose change and spare keys in that unique clay dish.  Every time I see it, it makes me smile.

What Is Virtual Volunteering?

Excerpts  From: The Virtual Volunteering Guidebook
by Susan J. Ellis and Jayne Cravens, © 2000, ImpactOnline, Inc.

What Is “Virtual Volunteering”?
“Virtual volunteering” refers to volunteer tasks completed, in whole or in part, via the Internet and a home or work computer. It’s also known as online volunteering, cyber service, telementoring, teletutoring and various
other names.

The concept is not meant as a substitute for traditional “in person”  volunteering. In fact, one of the most exciting things about this innovative use of technology is that it is adding both to the quantity of service contributed and to attracting people who have not necessarily  volunteered before.

Virtual volunteering offers greater access to community resources and provides more ways for people to support community groups, nonprofit agencies, schools and other organizations.

For some people, service online will be a preferred avenue of volunteering but, for most, it will be an additional way of contributing time and talent.

Most organizations which involve online volunteers do so in addition to welcoming on-site volunteers. Also, only a few online volunteers work solely via the Internet. Often a combination of on-site and online tasks for volunteers works best for everyone involved (volunteers, staff, clients).

As will be described later, assignments can have different levels of virtuality. For instance, one volunteer may interact with clients online but meet on-site with a staff member regularly; another may talk with a client via e-mail in addition to regular face-to-face visits.

Why Involve Online Volunteers?
Online volunteers, just as those who come on site, extend the resources of an organization. The additional help augments staff resources and allows an organization to reach more clients.

There are many good reasons to involve volunteers via online technologies, as well as to use the Internet for recruitment of on-site volunteers:

• Potential volunteers not reached by traditional off-line means may be reached online.

• There are people who don’t read the newspaper’s column on volunteer opportunities or who don’t read bulletins from the local volunteer center, but who would, indeed, love to volunteer and are easily reached online via the World Wide Web and appropriate Internet discussion groups.

• People who prefer not to volunteer on-site may be willing to do so via their home or work computers.

• Setting out expectations online allows prospective volunteers to self-screen their interests before contacting an agency.

• Some people prefer to communicate via online means. Dashing off an e-mail or filling out an online sign-up sheet is more convenient and, for some people, preferable to calling an organization.

• Virtual volunteering programs allow for the participation of people who might find on-site volunteering difficult or impossible because of a disability, mobility issue, home obligation or work schedule. This, in turn, allows agencies to benefit from the additional talent and resources of more volunteers.

• People in their 20s and 30s are more prone to use the resources of the Internet than other age groups and like the novelty and convenience of finding and signing up for either on-site or virtual volunteering via this technology. These younger volunteers can turn into long-time supporters, including becoming financial donors.

• Online volunteers are environmentally friendly—no car exhausts, less paper waste, etc.

What Can Someone Do as an Online Volunteer?
The Virtual Volunteering Project has defined two categories of online  volunteering:  technical assistance and direct contact with clients.

Technical Assistance
“Technical assistance” assignments utilize the expertise of a volunteer to support paid staff or other volunteers at an agency, and usually involve accomplishing a project or reaching an objective. The results are readily visible:  a final product, a report, etc. E-mail is the main form of communication as the work progresses.

Here are just a few examples of what a volunteer can do to provide virtual technical assistance:

• conduct online research: find information to use in an agency’s upcoming grant proposal or newsletter, gather information on a particular government program or legislation that affects an agency’s clients, gather Web site addresses of similarly-focused organizations, etc.

• provide professional consulting expertise:  answer an agency’s questions regarding human resource, accounting, management or legal issues, write a speech, develop a strategic plan for a particular department, etc.

• conduct online outreach and advocacy: post information to appropriate newsgroups and electronic lists, prepare legislative alerts to be sent via e-mail, etc.

• design an agency’s newsletter or brochure, or copy edit an agency’s publication or proposal

• design a logo for an agency or program

• translate a document into another language

• prepare information for an agency’s World Wide Web site

• make sure a Web site is accessible for people using assistive technologies

• register an agency’s Web home page and other appropriate pages with online search engines, directories and “What’s New” sites

• design a database

• do daily searches for news articles relating to an organization or a particular topic

• provide an online orientation to all volunteers with Internet access (whether or not they are on-site or online volunteers), or survey volunteers via e-mail about their experiences with an agency or program

Direct Client Contact
Most organizations readily see the potential of involving volunteers in doing virtual technical assistance. A much more complex subject is how to create electronic links between a volunteer and a client or other recipient of service. This subject is discussed in more detail later, but here are some ideas for what an online volunteer could do with or for a client…

Download the entire Virtual Volunteering Guidebook pdf to read more.

We’d like to hear how your organization uses virtual volunteers — share your thoughts and stories.

Community Service – A National Call to Serve

On April 21st, the President of the United States made the falling call to America regarding community service: We need your service right now, at this moment in history. I’m not going to tell you what your role should be; that’s for you to discover. But I’m asking you to stand up and play your part….

What has been the response from your community? Are you receiving more
volunteer inquiries? If so, what tools have you developed to handle this national call to serve?

Do you have thoughts you would like to share about this post? Let’s start a conversation!

Volunteers Needed for United Way Staff Leaders Conference

Join us in May for the Staff Leaders Conference with United Way of America. The Staff Leaders Conference is a conference that brings together United Ways and community partners from across the country to discuss and share strategies, skills and tools to respond to the challenges facing our communities, whether they be layoffs affecting today or poor high school graduation rates affecting tomorrow.  Here is a link with more information on the SLC.

We are looking for volunteers to assist with a wide variety of activities at the SLC from greeting participants, working registration, to assisting with putting together packets of information for participants.  This would be a great way for your group to be ambassadors and welcome participants to our region.  Group sizes can range from 6-30 people depending on the volunteer role and shift.

Here is a link for information on the volunteer projects and shifts.

What are you doing Volunteer Week?

April 19-25, 2009 is National Volunteer Week. What is your organization
doing to celebrate? Join in the discussion!

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