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Leap into the Unexpected this Leap Day!

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

Today’s blog post originally appeared on the VolunteerSpot daily blog on February 28,2012. This post was written by  Jessica Young, a social media specialist at VolunteerSpot. Jessica also coaches volunteer leaders in getting the most out of social media and her organization’s free online tools.

Leap Day comes but once every four years – a day that does’t exist 75% of the time!  It is truly a GREAT opportunity to take action and do something out of the ordinary.

Do the Unexpected!

Involve your family and friends in random acts of kindness and LEAP into to the UNEXPECTED!  Here are 29 ideas for inspiration!

  1. Hand-deliver a muffin and hot cocoa to your child’s teacher Leap Day morning (click to find more teacher appreciation ideas).
  2. Secretly pay for the coffee for the person behind you in the drive-thru line.
  3. Deliver a vase of bright tulips to an elderly neighbor.
  4. Love Bomb the front office at your school with Thank You notes!
  5. Surprise your kids with a trip to the movies after school.
  6. Surprise your kids with a ‘picnic’ lunch during their lunch hour at school.
  7. Surprise your teenager with sushi for lunch, and bring enough for her two best friends as well!
  8. Walk to a neighborhood park with gloves and plastic bags, and do a quick clean sweep.
  9. Find a totally random non-profit online and make a one-time, quick-click donation.
  10. Take twenty minutes for yourself: walking, sitting on the porch, or just relaxing.
  11. Treat yourself to the unexpected – a movie in the middle of the day, trying out the new cafe you’ve been talking about, or checking out that book you’ve been meaning to read.
  12. Prepare dinner for a community member going through a tough time.
  13. Mail out a card to a friend you haven’t connected with in a long time.
  14. Sneakily pass a  local restaurant giftcard to the bank teller, grocery store clerk, or café barista who serves you on a regular basis.
  15. Call the local animal shelter, ask what they are in need of the most, buy and deliver it that day!
  16. Collect canned goods, gently used clothes, or books and make a family trip to donate them.
  17. Gather loose change in your house if you plan on being by a parking meter and fill up all the nearby meters as well.
  18. Purchase several boxes of granola bars and a bag of apples – when you happen to see homeless people out in your community, without judgement, dole out the snacks.
  19. Use social media to send out a thank you to the world – find a poem that expresses your thoughts and share it with your facebook friends.
  20. Use old school methods to connect with elderly parents/grandparents and friends who appreciate a real phone conversation!
  21. Bake a sweet treat with your kids and doorbell ditch a neighbor with the unexpected goodies.
  22. Celebrate an ‘unbirthday’ party with a handful of your children’s friends over for a playdate—bonus points if it REALLY is someone’s birthday!
  23. Surprise a co-worker with a handwritten note of appreciation, JUST because!
  24. Depending on your weather, beautify your family’s green space by raking, shoveling, weeding and planting.
  25. Offer to pick up groceries or run quick errands for a homebound neighbor.
  26. Capture a special moment of a new mom and child with your camera and frame as a kind surprise.
  27. Drop by the local fire station with a homemade cake and thank you notes!
  28. Break into a jammin’ kareoke session with your kids – hand out hairbrushes and wooden spoons and turn up your favorite old school tunes.
  29. Say hello to strangers you pass, hold doors for others, and smile!

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Volunteer Recruitment Ideas

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Recruit Your Friends

  • Send an e-mail to anyone you think might be interested.  Personalized e-mail will be much more effective than a mass e-mail!
  • Pick up the phone and call.
  • Post an invitation on your Facebook page and/or send personalized invitations to your Facebook Friends and / or other social and professional networks online.
  • Recruit your followers on twitter.
  • Post a video of yourself asking for help and direct your friends to it.
  • Make phone calls and ask.
  • Ask them in person.

Recruit Volunteers through Neighborhood Schools

  • Work with a principal, teacher or administrator to recruit students.
  • Create a flyer to send home with students inviting their families to volunteer.
  • Create a “teacher challenge” to encourage the school staff to volunteer.
  • Hang posters in the hallways.
  • Write an article for the school newsletter or website.
  • Recruit teams or clubs from the school.  (i.e. the football team or marching band)
  • Ask to make an announcement at the next all school assembly or teachers meeting.
  • Publish an article in the school newspaper.

Recruit Volunteers through Places of Worship

  • Address the congregation, a religious text study group or the governing body.
  • Publish a notice in the weekly service bulletin, the newsletter or website.
  • Hang a poster in the entrance.

Recruit Volunteers through Local Businesses

  • Encourage teams of employees to participate (suggest the team wear company t-shirts to promote their corporate community spirit!)
  • Ask to publish announcements in employee newsletters.
  • Hang flyers in the windows or on community bulletin boards at local businesses.
  • Speak at a chamber of commerce meeting.

Recruit Volunteers through Local Clubs & Organizations

(Rotary, DAR, PTA, The Peoples front of Judea…)

  • Speak about your project at a local meeting.
  • Ask to publicize your project in any club newsletters, blogs, listserv e-mail, websites or online fan base/follower groups.
  • Ask that the club or organization “sponsor” the project and agree to send a target number of volunteers.

Recruit Volunteers using Traditional and Social Media

  • Create a press release about your project and send it to the local media.
  • Write a PSA for local radio stations.
  • Ask a local newspaper, radio station, television station, online magazine, website or blog to sponsor the project and promote it in print, on air or online.
  • Some print and online publications list community events.  Find out which ones list events in your area and send them information about your project.
  • Some newspapers and websites reserve unsold advertising space for nonprofit ads.  Find out what size and format ads your paper and/ or the website accepts and have someone design an ad for your project.  Submit the ad in the appropriate size(s) and format.
  • Ask a local media celebrity to volunteer on the project.  As part of their commitment, ask them to recruit readers, listeners or viewers to participate with him or her.  For example, a radio personality could hold an on-air contest where winners would be able to serve on the celebrity’s volunteer team.
  • Investigate posting your message on local cable TV public access message boards, online forums, etc.
  • If it’s an ongoing project, consider starting a blog where you can share your experiences and reflections.  Try using a free blog platform like Blogger or WordPress.

Other Ideas

  • Host an “open,” potluck meal.  Invite friends to come with any guests they’d like to invite.  Talk about your project and invite guests to get involved.
  • Go viral. E-mail the details of your project to everyone you know locally and ask all your recipients to keep forwarding the message to more people.
  • Hold informational meetings at the local library.
  • Organize a booth to promote your efforts at a street fair or festival in your community.

Be sure your recruitment message includes the project description, date & time, any special skills, tools or other resources needed and information about how you want them to sign up.

What ideas do you have?

What would you add?

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Posted in Equip, Mobilize, Service, Tools You Can Use, Uncategorized, Volunteer Leader, Volunteer Management, Volunteer Project Development, Volunteer Recognition, Volunteer Recruitment, Volunteer Reflection, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 7 Comments »

Friday Digest – Nonprofit & Volunteering News & Links

Friday, February 26th, 2010

On Friday’s I try to share interesting articles and resources from around the web as well as news from HandsOn Network.  So here goes…

This week on the Internet

  • The are now accepting nominations.
  • In this interview with Mitch Nauffts, Anthony Bugg-Levine of the Rockefeller Foundation talks about .
  • .
  • At the upcoming SXSWi conference in Austin, Beth Kanter and friends will host a session called  “Crowdsourcing Innovative Social Change“.  To prepare for the panel, they decided to crowdsource by asking people to submit examples of how they are using social media to deliver programs that have a real world impact.   You can see what was submitted and rate the entries to help them pick the best ones to share during the panel.  The deadline is February 26th.  To review and rate the submissions or submit yours, see this post on Netsquared.

This Week at HandsOn Network and Points of Light Institute

  • National Volunteer Week is April 18 – 24, 2010. Download the logo and toolkit.
  • HandsOn Network and University of Phoenix are accepting nominations for the LEAD Awards through March 10th.  The award will recognize 10 outstanding volunteer leaders who motivate others and are a true catalyst for change in their communities.  Nominate someone!
  • Scholastic’s BE BIG! Campaign invites everyone, big and small, to take action and raise awareness for how Clifford The Big Red Dog®’s BIG IDEAS can make the world a better place.  Volunteers, schools and community partners can enter their BIG Idea for a chance at $75,000 in grants that will bring the best ideas to life.  The contest launched on February 1, 2010, and will continue accepting entries until June 30, 2010. Check out last year’s winners.

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Michelle Nunn’s Reflections on National Volunteer Week 2009

Monday, April 27th, 2009

It has been an amazing week that has demonstrated the power of people in action changing their communities, their world, and themselves in the process. On Tuesday, April 21, I had the great privilege of joining together with other service leaders and Congressional leaders for the Bill signing of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. It was an electric moment when President Obama walked out with Senator Kennedy and Bill Clinton to join Congressional Leaders on the stage. After 16 years, we have new authorizing bi-partisan legislation for service, and it is a transformational bill that calls for the largest expansion of service and civic action since FDR.

The day after the bill signing, we celebrated National Volunteer Week with two momentous events: The Extra Mile Induction Ceremony and the National Volunteer Week Reception. We inducted eight “service greats” that included John Muir the Founder of the Sierra Club and Wallace Campbell, Founder of CARE. Dr. Timothy P. Shriver, Chairman, Special Olympics, keynoted the ceremony with extraordinary inspiration and passion — helping us see this special monument and these change agents as examples that invite and beckon us to believe that anything is possible and to make the invisible injustices that society blindly accepts visible.

A special thank you to more than 300 national leaders, members of Congress and corporate, civic and community leaders who paid tribute to Senators Kennedy and Hatch. We had the pleasure of having Grammy Award winning artist Usher Raymond IV attend the National Volunteer Week Reception — a strong supporter of service and volunteerism for youth. Another round of thanks to our corporate partners: Chevron, The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines, GE, The Home Depot, SAP, Textron, Inc.

Also this week, in partnership with Nike Stores, we recognized 20 outstanding Athletes*Serve Gamechangers, youth between the ages of 13 – 25 who leveraged the power of sports as a tool for social change.

And in partnership with Scholastic, we launched the Be Big in Your Community Contest with everyone’s favorite Scholastic character, Clifford. Clifford visited five elementary schools across the country with our affiliates in Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia to get children excited about the Be Big! contest by engaging them in BIG thinking about how they would use Clifford’s Big Ideas to make their own community a better place.

Our four-year partnership with L’Oreal Paris also took on a new dimension this week as we aligned the nominations for the Women of Worth program to begin during National Volunteer Week and extend until July 13th. The program honors women whose service and dedication to volunteerism are making a difference in the world.

History has truly been made this week, but this is only the beginning. There is still so much more work to be done and it begins this weekend with service projects happening at our HandsOn affiliates across the country — including a 5,000 person Hands On New York Day (sponsored by HSBC) to restore green spaces and parks. With this new bi-partisan legislation inspiring a nation of people with a renewed call to service, we are excited to work together to fulfill the promise and hope of this week.

Yours in Service,

Michelle Nunn

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