Archive for February, 2011

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40 Ways to Love Your Community on Valentine’s Day

Monday, February 14th, 2011

1. Organize your child’s classroom to make Valentine’s cards for residents of a local senior center.

2. Plant trees in a local park or green space.

3. Visit and entertain the patients at a local children’s hospital.

4. Tutor a child.

Volunteer
5. Volunteer to be the story hour reader at the local library.

6. Help a deserving neighbor shovel snow, rake leaves, clean gutters or wash windows.

7. Donate to the local food bank.

8. Cook and serve meal at a local shelter.

9. Lead a coat drive and deliver gently worn coats to a local homeless shelter.

Volunteer

10. Make and send care packages to service men and women overseas.

11. Collect combs, toothbrushes, shampoo and other essentials for a homeless shelter.

12. Adopt a grandparent.

13. Volunteer to pick up groceries or medicine for a senior citizen.

14. Give some time to delivering meals to the homebound.

15. Organize a dance or sing-along event at a local senior center.

16. Teach someone something you know.

17. Paint an educational mural at a local school.

18. Teach English to someone who needs help learning it.

19. Turn a vacant lot into a vibrant community green space.

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20. Plant flowers instead of giving cut flowers.

21. Organize a public issues forum in your community.

22. Create a wildlife habitat, nature trail or outdoor classroom for a local school.

23. Recycle.

24. Carpool.

25. Give your time to the local animal shelter.

26. Be a mentor.

27. Give up your seat on the bus or train to someone who looks tired.

28. Give blood.

29. Sign up to be a scout leader.

30. Coach.

31. Organize a project for Global Youth Service Day.

Volunteer32. Be a good listener.

33. Advocate for legislation you care about.

34. Shop and eat locally.

35. Thank someone.

36. Trust.

37. Recognize someone who’s been a “point of light” in your life. Nominate them for a Daily Point of Light Award.

38. Recruit a friend to help.

39. Find a volunteer project at HandsOn Network.

40. Look for the good in all people.

volunteer

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Posted in Equip, Inspire, Service, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

An AmeriCouple’s Story: Colleen and Adam

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Today’s story comes from Colleen Holohan, Member Development Manager at Massachusetts Promise Fellowship.  Colleen tells about how she met her husband through service.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Eight years ago this summer, I had just finished college and was excited to begin my first year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA with the Massachusetts Campus Compact (MACC). I was a service nerd in college and spent my free time volunteering at afterschool programs and organizing student service events, so I thought AmeriCorps would be an appropriate next step. I was looking forward to new experiences in Boston and meeting new and interesting people. I never would have imagined that I’d meet my husband!

My favorite part of being an AmeriCorps member is that you get put in challenging situations with people you wouldn’t normally cross paths with. I’ve met people from different parts of the country (and the world) with a variety of life experiences and backgrounds. This diversity within my experience has led me to forge close friendships with people I never would have thought I had any commonalities with…which leads me to Adam Reinke.

When I first saw Adam at Pre-Service Orientation, I thought to my self, “Wow, I’ve never met someone so genuinely nice and simultaneously obsessed with Wisconsin sports!”  I learned later that this was something called Midwest charm. Growing up in New York and not have strayed much from the east coast, I had never been to Wisconsin nor had I heard of Marquette, the alma mater he was so extremely passionate about.

Our first year of service together kicked off a great friendship. The dozens of icebreakers and early morning service projects taught us a lot about each other-you’d be surprised at what several rounds of Two Truths and a Lie can bring out! After our first year of service, we both decided to keep the experience going and became VISTA Leaders for the MACC program. We spent countless hours together planning workshops for our peers and supporting them through their challenges. Eventually, our friendship turned to more and the rest is history!

This past September, Adam and I got married in Boston and several of our fellow AmeriCorps*VISTA friends were there to celebrate with us!  We both continue to be involved with AmeriCorps through our non-profit work. I serve as the Member Development Manager with the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship, a statewide AmeriCorps program that places members at non-profits, city agencies, and schools to create, lead, and manage youth development projects.

I love my job because I work towards creating a service experience for AmeriCorps members that was just amazing as mine! Adam serves as the Director of Community Engagement with ACCESS, an organization that works to ensure that all young people have the financial information and resources necessary to find an affordable path to college. In his role, he works to create new community partnerships for the organization, manages the Center for College Affordability, and has supervised numerous AmeriCorps members throughout the years.

I’m so grateful for my years of AmeriCorps and all of the opportunities the experience provided me with. It has definitely shaped my life. I kick off every service year by telling my Massachusetts Promise Fellows that the year ahead will be an amazing experience-and may even lead to finding their perfect match!

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Posted in Just for Fun | 1 Comment »

8 Volunteer Management Behaviors that Lead to Effective Volunteer Programs

Friday, February 11th, 2011

1. Recruitment
Word-of-mouth continues to be the primary gateway into service. Effective recruitment strategies offer variety, flexibility and meaningful experiences.

2. Supervision
Volunteers who are supported, coordinated and well managed are likely to feel positive about their volunteer experience and stay.

3. Role Clarification
Written position descriptions equip volunteers with the tools they need to deliver maximum impact and receive a sense of personal fulfillment.

4. Development
Training and development is important to nourishing strong volunteer leadership and extending the volunteer life cycle.

5. Resource Procurement
While volunteers are unpaid by definition, they are not cost free. Resources are needed to deliver effective volunteer management programs.

6. Balancing Skilled & Unskilled
Volunteers bring a wide array of skill sets to the table. Assessing the required skills for specific tasks enables the best use of volunteer man power and minimizes resource expenditure.

7.  Appreciation
While volunteers do not participate for the sole purpose of reward or recognition, it is important to acknowledge and thank volunteers to promote an ongoing culture of service.

8.  Retention
Engaging volunteers is only the first step. Incorporating the seven aforementioned volunteer management behaviors helps to avoid the costly cycle of recruiting and training new volunteers.

These ideas originally appeared as a sidebar in IBM’s Service Jam White Paper and were contributed by The Department of Communities, Queensland — Australia’s lead government agency addressing issues in service and volunteerism, managing volunteers requires time and resources. We loved the list and wanted to share it.  You can download the full Service Jam white paper here.

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Posted in Equip, Service, Tools You Can Use, Volunteer Management, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

8 Standard Practices of Service Learning

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

“How do we institutionalize a culture of service so that it transcends calls to service, generations, countries, cultures and time?  I often thought that if we could make service a true rite of passage in a person’s life – starting early in school, providing opportunities and inducements along the way, and igniting a passion to something beyond the pursuit of material goods, it would be a good start.” —John Bridgeland, President and CEO of Civic Enterprises, IBM Service Jam.

The difference between teaching service in schools and service learning is that service learning is integrated into the curriculum.

Every service learning opportunity should be tailored to meet specific academic goals.

The National Youth Leadership Council suggests that successful engagements will incorporate the following eight elements:

1. Meaningful Service

Service learning actively engages participants in meaningful and personally relevant service activities.

2. Link to Curriculum

Service learning is intentionally used as an instructional strategy to meet learning goals and/or content standards.

3. Reflection

Service learning incorporates multiple challenging reflection activities that are ongoing and that prompt deep thinking and analysis about oneself and one’s relationship to society.

4. Diversity

Service learning promotes under­standing of diversity and mutual respect among all partici­pants.

5. Youth Voice

Service learning provides youth with a strong voice in planning, implementing, and evaluating service learning experiences with guidance from adults.

6. Partnerships

Service learning partnerships are collaborative, mutually beneficial, and address community needs.

7. Progress Monitoring

Service learning engages participants in an ongoing process to assess the quality of implementation and progress toward meeting specified goals, and uses results for improvement and sustainability.

8. Duration and Intensity

Service learning has sufficient duration and intensity to address community needs and meet specified outcomes.

“Service-learning is not an add-on to the classroom lesson, it is the classroom lesson.” -IBM Service Jam

Learn more about Service Learning at the upcoming NYLC Conference to be held in Atlanta, April 6-9, 2011.

You can also find great service learning curriculum and ideas at generationOn.

These standard practices originally appeared as a sidebar in IBM’s Service Jam White Paper. We thought it was great and wanted to share it.  You can download the full Service Jam white paper here.

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Posted in Education, Equip, Service, Service Learning, Tools You Can Use, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

The Benefits of Not Knowing What You Can’t Do

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

There is something awesome about being a young person and being bitten by a passionate bug to make the world a better place.

We’re big fans of Nancy Lublin, CEO and Chief Old Person of DoSomething.org

She tells a really great story about not knowing what you can’t do and a box of Milk Duds.

When you don’t know that you can’t do it, you can move mountains.

Something happens to us when we grow older–we figure out what we can’t do.  When we’re young, there’s nothing we can’t do.  We can be heroes, space cadets, knights or princesses.  As we grow older, though, we learn a lot about what we can’t do.  We can’t eat , we can’t take naps in the afternoon, and we can’t wear a cape to work.

There’s something that we can learn from the young adults in our lives.  They can teach us how to forget the things we “can’t” do.

The next time you’re thinking about making some kind of change in your community, try thinking like a young adult.  Think about the things that you can’t do, then do those things.

You’d be surprised how easy it is to move mountains.

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Posted in Inspire, Volunteerism | 2 Comments »

Five Great Ways to Engage Youth as Leaders in Service

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

volunteer, volunteering, volunteerism, Hannah Dalporto, youth service, generationOnToday’s post comes from Hannah Dalporto, a Youth Leadership Intern with generationOn.

[Today is the last day to nominate a middle or high school student for generationOn's Youth Advisory Council.  Find out more here.]

Whether you’re planning a small service project in your community, or creating a youth council for young leaders, follow these simple steps to empower youth in your next project!

1.  Establish Roles

By establishing distinct roles for youth, you will be able to provide the kind of structure that will allow young leaders to flourish while also being better equipped to address challenges as they arise. Consider: Will youth be in a supporting role or will their participation be integral to the planning and implementation of the project? Will the youth be working alongside other youth or with other adults? Remember, youth can provide more than just input on an existing project, they can be the drivers of the work itself. Creating meaningful roles will generate buy-in.

2. Share the Power

When determining roles, consider ways of sharing responsibility, and giving youth leaders decision-making tasks to keep them invested in the project. Think about how much freedom, flexibility, and responsibility you’re confident handing off, and consider ways in which you’ll offer that responsibility. Will you assign a specific task to your youth leaders? Or will you allow your youth leaders the chance to create or decide on their own tasks and responsibilities? By giving youth a say in their own roles, they’ll have ownership and responsibility – both of which will also keep everyone on task and committed to the project. Double the win!

3. Be Relatable

While a quick quip about Blanche from The Golden Girls might provoke a laugh from your adult leaders, will your youth agree? Think about shows, music, sports, extracurriculars, and current events that will spark the greatest interest in your young leaders. Consider hosting a survey to gauge interests. Then, you can tweak your programming and focus accordingly. Or, better yet, as was suggested above, you can let your youth leaders tweak the agendas themselves.

4. Provide Support

With a sturdy foundation of support, youth can become vested with the confidence that brings them from a bystander to active catalyst. Decide how you will offer your guidance and support to youth leaders. Will there be opportunities for open brainstorming and planning? Will you provide a tool to structure the thought process such as a graphic organizer? (I’m partial to the generationOn Do Your Own Thing Guide.) When and how will you check-in with youth leaders, and with what frequency?

5.  Recognize and Reflect

Make your project even more meaningful to youth volunteers by recognizing their efforts and reflecting on their progress and achievements, as well as any challenges or road blocks they may have encountered. You’ll want to decide how you’ll help generate reflective thought – will you create a list of questions, or would you rather have a more organic conversation? Will everyone sit together in a circle? Will you read a quote or offer a related statistic to spark conversation and reflection?

Hannah Dalporto just completed a term as a Youth Leadership Intern at generationOn where she promoted generationOn’s mission to engage youth in service from a young age by planning and co-leading several youth leadership programs within generationOn. She is currently heading off on a Fulbright fellowship to work with university students in Argentina.

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Posted in Tools You Can Use, Volunteer Management, Volunteering | 2 Comments »

Defining Success

Monday, February 7th, 2011

When it comes to volunteering and volunteer programs, “success” can be an elusive target.  What makes a project successful?  Is it the number of volunteers that show up?  Maybe it’s the hours of work contributed to a project.  What about the number of people impacted by the work?  How do you know if your project was a success?

Defining what makes a project successful depends on the goals of the project and the organization.  Success can relate directly to the outcome of the project, such as collecting a certain amount of food for a canned food drive, or it can have an indirect goal like ensuring the participants’ happiness and enjoyment of the project or helping students to learn while performing service.

After you have set your goal for a service project, you have to figure out a way to measure whether you’ve achieved that goal.  There are many different ways to this, from individual and group interviews to asking volunteers a set of questions before their service and asking them again after their service.  Each measurement tool can tell you different information about your volunteer project.

What’s the best tool to use?  That depends on what you’re trying to measure.

A one-on-one or group interview might not be the best tool to find out if your volunteers have learned something from participating in an event, but it’s a great way to find out what volunteers did and whether they enjoyed their service.

Once you’ve found out that your project was a success, it’s important to share that information.  Report back to the people you’ve worked with on what your goals for the project were, and how you met them.  Include information about the success of the project in the thank you notes that you write to the volunteers and the project’s supporters.

How did you know that your last volunteer project was successful?  Tell us about the project and how you measured its success in the comments below!

If you’re looking for some help defining and measuring your project’s success, check out the Assessment and Evaluation section of our Tools and Resources library!

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Posted in Tools You Can Use, Volunteer Project Development, Volunteer Reflection, Volunteering | 1 Comment »

Change Notes: MLK Day 2011 Highlights

Friday, February 4th, 2011

"Volunteer"

Friends,

As we continue to tally the impact of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Day of Service last month, I wanted to highlight some results and share with you how we are carrying Dr. King’s vision forward through two recently launched initiatives that continue to build on the strategy of service as a solution.

Martin Luther King Jr., Day of Service

More than 120,000 people volunteered in 4,900 projects through HandsOn Network, the volunteer arm of Points of Light Institute, for the 2011 Martin Luther King Jr., Day of Service. Our Community Cinemas and Sunday Supper programming drew an additional 5,000 participants. In the realm of social media, our Martin Luther King Jr. Day messages potentially reached an audience of 7 million through Facebook, Twitter and the HandsOn Blog.

Many stories came out of this day of national engagement, like the one we received from Lyndsay Tyree, an AmeriCorps VISTA member in Issaquah, Washington. Lyndsay was scheduled to lead a project on MLK Day for 40 volunteers at a local organization serving the homeless.  But just 24 hours before the start time, unexpected flooding caused the project to be cancelled. Lyndsay now had 40 eager volunteers, and no place for them to serve.

With assistance from Katie Weber, another AmeriCorps member Lyndsay had met at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the group was quickly connected with Seattle Works. Even with an extremely short turnaround time, Seattle Works was able to place Lyndsay and her 40 volunteers on a project at Rose Hedge, an organization that provides transitional housing and health care to those living with HIV and AIDS.

The day, which had threatened to prove unproductive for Lyndsay’s team, ended up being a moving experience for them all. While working at Rose Hedge, many of the volunteers got the opportunity to speak with men and women living with HIV and AIDS. By the end of the day, the team was touched and changed by their interaction and work on the project.

This story illustrates the importance of connections and relationships, and speaks to the power of a robust service Network. Hands On Network, through its volunteers, AmeriCorps members, the National Conference on Volunteering and Service all build a powerful infrastructure for action

Follow the Leader

In order to channel the energy and engagement of Martin Luther King Jr. Day into a deeper and more consistent commitment to volunteering, Points of Light recently launched Follow the Leader, an innovative campaign driven by a thriving online community.

By simply registering for Follow the Leader at www.gethandson.com, members gain access to official Project Playbooks. These step-by-step guides, for some of the most successfully implemented volunteer projects, let anyone start, manage and complete a high impact project.

To inspire activity in Follow the Leader, we are offering some extraordinary incentives, including an all expense paid trip for two to the Philippines for a one week “Volunteer Vacation” coordinated by HandsOn Manila.

Overall, Follow the Leader, which runs through May, will help us reach more service minded people, increase and mobilize the number of Americans involved in volunteer service, and magnify the power of service as a solution.

As always, we value your ongoing support to help people take action to change the world.

In Service,

Michelle Nunn

CEO, Points of Light Institute, and Co-Founder, HandsOn Network

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Follow the Leader

In order to channel the energy and engagement of Martin Luther King Jr. Day into a deeper and more consistent commitment to volunteering, Points of Light recently launched Follow the Leader, an innovative campaign driven by a thriving online community.

By simply registering for Follow the Leader at www.gethandson.com, members gain access to official Project Playbooks. These step-by-step guides, for some of the most successfully implemented volunteer projects, let anyone start, manage and complete a high impact project.

To inspire activity in Follow the Leader, we are offering some extraordinary incentives, including an all expense paid trip for two to the Philippines for a one week “Volunteer Vacation” coordinated by HandsOn Manila.

Overall, Follow the Leader, which runs through May, will help us reach more service minded people, increase and mobilize the number of Americans involved in volunteer service, and magnify the power of service as a solution.

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Posted in Change Notes | No Comments »

Tools Don’t Fade Away

Friday, February 4th, 2011

volunteer, volunteering, volunteerism, paleolithicEarlier this week on NPR there was a story about how inventions and technologies don’t die off.

There’s a lot of talk about how new technologies can make volunteering easier both on volunteer and volunteer managers, but a lot of those tools and technologies are based in the best practices of traditional volunteer management and volunteerism.

Even the folks over at Sparked.com, a microvolunteering site that couldn’t have existed ten years ago, make a point of saying how important it is to say thank you to a microvolunteer that has completed a challenge.

We’re taking traditional ways of engaging people in leadership roles and adding a few new twists. At the core of what we’re doing is the idea that anyone can be a leader and a set of best practices that help support leadership.

Want to know what kind of tools are available for taking action and changing the world?  Check out this list of traditional (and more technology based) tools:

Go Social, Change The World

How to Focus a Conversation to Facilitate Volunteer Reflection

Nonprofit Listening 101: Google Reader

Volunteerism on Foursquare

5 Steps to an Organized Community Volunteer Project

The Nine Basic Rules for Volunteer Recognition

You can find even more tools and resources on the HandsOn Network website, and in the Tools You Can Use category of the blog!

Let us know what tools you use to help support your volunteers!

https://handsonblog.org/2010/04/28/the-nine-basic-rules-for-volunteer-recognition/

https://handsonblog.org/2010/09/15/10-things-to-consider-before-starting-a-volunteer-recognition-program/

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Posted in Tools You Can Use, Volunteer Management, Volunteer Project Development, Volunteer Recognition, Volunteer Reflection, Volunteerism | No Comments »

9 Quick Tips for Successful Group Projects

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

Planning a volunteer project for a group of people can be difficult.  There are a lot of things to consider; from what the project should accomplish to how to ensure the project has a lasting impact.  Here are some quick tips for planning successful group project:

1. Define Your Goals

Develop a set of expected outcomes for your volunteer project. These form the base of your planning. For example, if your goal is to help improve youth literacy in a local school, your plan is going to develop differently than if your goal is to help your community plan and prepare for a disaster.

2. Create a Project Team

Gather together a group of people to help get the project off to a good start.  Inclusive projects start at the planning stage, so create a team that is made up of people with a wide range of abilities and experience.

3. Select a Project

Good group project ideas match real community needs with the skill level of volunteers.  With a little bit of forethought, you can find a partner organization and project that could not be done without the added energy and dedication of volunteers.

4. Plan the Project

The planning process can help bring members of your project team together and create a sense of ownership of the project.  Be sure to think about who will handle what tasks and the logistics involved in executing the project and getting volunteers to the project site.

5. Recruit Volunteers.

Volunteers help people change their lives and transform communities.  Group projects give citizens a special opportunity to demonstrate caring and sharing, and encourage more people to give their time and skills to the issues of their choice.

6. Resource Development

What resources are in place to support the project, and what will you have to get to support your project?  What type of equipment is needed to support the project?  Will it need to be purchased or can you partner with an organization that already has equipment that you need?  Don’t forget to think about what will be needed after the project day – thank you notes and follow ups with your project volunteers.

7. Engage the Media

Get the word out.  Group projects can make a big difference in your community and can be a powerful signal for positive change.  The good news is that publicity for your project is often free.  Making an investment of time in publicity and working with the media can help to spread the word that volunteering helps solve serious social problems and helps to build communities.

8. Implementing the Big Day

The key to success on the project day is good management and planning.  The more that people know about what is going on, the more likely it is that things will go well.  Make sure that the project organizers and leaders are easily identifiable and have some way to communicate with each other.

9. Sustaining Service

Just because the project is complete, doesn’t mean that it’s all over.  You may find that you and your team want to continue planning projects in the community.  Take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned through the process and start planning another project.  If the team doesn’t want to plan another project, encourage everyone to continue volunteering as individuals to help support the work that was accomplished on your project day.

SUPER BONUS TIP

Don’t forget to have fun. Planning a group volunteer project is a lot of work, but there’s a lot of opportunities in the process to make it a great experience for everyone that’s involved from the project planning team to community partners to the volunteers.

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Posted in Impact, Mobilize, Volunteer Project Development | 1 Comment »

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