Posts Tagged ‘Volunteer Project Development’

Conducting A Site Visit

Thursday, August 16th, 2012

The idea of planning a volunteer project can be daunting! With all of the step involved, be sure to take time to visit the potential project site to determine the greatest needs. Whether you are working at a shelter, a park or a community service organization, a site visit will help you identify potential projects and ensure your project runs smoothly.

Here is what you should accomplish during the site visit:

  • Verify directions. As you drive to your initial site visit, take note of the driving directions that were given to you. Make sure that they are accurate, as you may need to provide driving directions to volunteers.
  • Learn about the organization’s needs. During the site visit, ask questions that will help you understand what the organization’s greatest needs are and the ways that ongoing or one-time volunteer support can have the greatest impact in meeting those pressing needs.
  • Begin planning. Discuss possible project opportunities with the agency or school. What projects can you work on together? What goals do you both wish to accomplish within the community?
  • Identify tools and materials needed. Brainstorm with the agency or school about the types and amounts of materials that will be needed to complete prospective projects. Also, discuss how the organization has secured tools and materials in the past. Can they provide any of the materials needed? Do they currently have partnerships with that provide in-kind donations for project materials?
  • Confirm the organization’s involvement and participation. Determine the type of participation you can expect from the organization during projects. Will they have supervisors and potential volunteers to work with you at the project? What will their level of involvement be? Are they donating any materials or services? Will they speak to volunteers before or after projects? In addition, discuss how they have recruited volunteers in the past.
  • Create backup plans. Identify projects that can be expanded or reduced based on weather, volunteer attrition or other unforeseen circumstances.
  • Become familiar with the site and its amenities. Important details about the site should not be overlooked, including accessibility to water (for clean up or drinking), restroom facilities, adequate parking, first-aid kits and the nearest hospital.

What do you like to focus on during site visits? Let us know in the comments below!

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Organizing an MLK Day Event

Monday, January 9th, 2012

“Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Next Monday January 16 is the Martin Luther King Day of National Service. What will you do to keep King’s dream alive in your community?

Dr. King imagined a community full of neighbors who were willing to help each other no matter the circumstances. He believed in the power of brothers and sisters rather than strangers who just live by each other.

Anyone can serve, no matter his or her age or physical ability. How? All it takes is some planning and decision making on your part to make this event, “a day on not a day off.” Follow these five steps to make your service planning a breeze, so that you can keep the memory of Dr. King alive, not only on this day, but also in the future!

  1. Organize:
  • Form a group of friends, neighbors, teammates, etc. to participate in the project.
  • Decide how many times your group needs to meet during the duration of the project.
  • Choose a responsible adult to head the project if your team is primarily composed of younger members.
  • Try to recruit community partners to help with the planning and project.

2. Select or create your project:

  • State your goals and desired outcomes.
  • Discuss your ideas and choose what project will work for you
  • Develop a way to connect your project to the meaning of Martin Luther King Day.

3. Plan your service event:

  • Timeline: Set timelines to ensure your project is completed in time.
  • Select event location: How much space do you need? Is there a business or community center willing to donate space for the project?
  • Obtain permission: Discuss whom you need to get permission from to obtain a space.
  • Assign jobs: Who will be the leader? Who will pay tribute to Dr. King’s legacy during the day? Who will participate in what project?
  • Get the word out: Get the word out publically through fliers, community publications, etc. Decide who will be in charge of getting the word out and who needs to be contacted.
  • Organize materials: Discuss what supplies will be needed. Who will donate these supplies?
  • Create a budget: How much money will you need? How will you raise the money? Who can you ask for donations? Put someone in charge of coming up with the budget.
  • Engage community partners: Make sure to keep the public informed.
  • Register your MLK Day project.

4. Run your service project:

  • Make sure all aspects of the event are covered the day of
  • Manage your project group to make sure everyone is doing their part
  • Hang any posters, banners, etc.
  • Conduct a sign in for volunteers when they arrive
  • Recognize all volunteers, sponsors, and donors.
  • Make sure you discuss Dr. King’s legacy and relate it to the service project.
  • Take pictures of the project.

5. Follow up and reflect:

  • Reflect about your experience with the group. Discuss what went well and what could be approved upon.
  • Thank volunteers on the day of the event. Send handwritten thank you notes as well.

Sounds a little easier to get involved in service this MLK Day? Good, now you can get out there and volunteer! It is important to keep the legacy of Dr. King involved all year, and this day of service is the perfect way to start the process!

Are you planning a service project for MLK day? Tell us about it we’d love to hear!

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The How, What, and Where of Volunteering

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

So it is the holidays and you want to volunteer this year? This is a great desire, but how do you even begin to find a volunteer opportunity that will not only make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but will also promote your personal interests? Choose a foundation that promotes your interests at its core!

Volunteering for a cause that you are truly passionate about will not only make your volunteering experience more enjoyable, but also more frequent. The holidays are a great time to start volunteering for your favorite cause or organization.

You may be passionate about animal rights, women’s rights, or homelessness. All are great passions but they go no further than passions if you cannot find somewhere to promote your interests.

So where can you find these amazing volunteer opportunities? The internet has great resources that place volunteers such as:

Now you’ve found somewhere to find volunteer opportunities, but you have no idea what to look for? Reflect on these questions:

  • What do you enjoy doing most or what do you like doing for others?
  • What do you see yourself accomplishing at this time in your life?
  • What kind of service projects do you enjoy doing?
  • How much time do you have to devote to service?

After you have answered these questions for yourself, choosing a service project that best suits your schedule and interests will be a breeze! Still looking for ideas? Here is a list of service opportunity ideas based on interest to get your project started!

  • Hunger or housing:
    • Help cook and serve meals at a soup kitchen
    • Gather clothing and donate it to a local shelter
    • Make hygiene kits
    • Make care packages filled with warm clothing
    • Help repair a homeless shelter
    • Partner with Habitat for Humanity and build a house
  • Elderly:
    • Spend time with a senior citizen in your community
    • Deliver meals to homebound individuals
    • Perform home repairs or yard work for senior citizens in need
    • Hold a social event for your local nursing home
    • Adopt a “grandfriend” and make regular visits to your local retirement center
  • Education:
    • Raise money for Braille or large print books for the visually impaired
    • Plan a back-to-school drive to collect school supplies for needy children
    • Set up a buddy system for kids who may be lonely
    • Bring toys to hospitalized children
    • Read books or newspapers to the visually impaired
    • Raise money to purchase and install new playground equipment at a school.
  • Health:
    • Participate in a local AIDS walk or breast cancer walk
    • Volunteer at a Special Olympics event
    • Host or give blood
    • Help a local agency compile health promotion kits
    • Host a health screening at your local stores, libraries, or schools
  • Environment:
    • Set up a recycling system for a local school or retirement community
    • Clean up a vacant lot or a river bank
    • Raise a fund to adopt an acre of rainforest or other habitat
    • Clean up trash along a river bank or local park
    • Partner with children or teens in the community to design and paint a mural at a school or in a local park
  • Children:
    • Read to students at a local elementary school
    • Host a tutoring drive for your local elementary school
    • Host a book drive in your local school, so that students can donate their old books
    • Organize a team of volunteers to mentor children or participate in a Big Brothers Big Sisters program
    • Host a youth volunteer fair
    • Create a “safe zone” that includes a play or study area for children in the community
    • Sponsor a youth sports team in your community
  • Animals:
    • Volunteer at your local shelter
    • Donate a bag of pet food to your local shelter
    • Volunteer to take the dogs for a walk
    • Clean up a your local dog park
    • Adopt an endangered animal

The holidays are the perfect time to start volunteering in your community. Thanks to generationOn and Hasbro holiday volunteering has never been easier. From November 29 through December 13, for every pledge of service made through generationOn, Hasbro will donate a toy to a child in need.

We hope that these tips help turn your pledge into a plan of action! Happy volunteering!

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Taking Service From Nice to Smart – Using Service-Learning Techniques to Build Your Service Experiences with Youth

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Today’s post comes from Laura Rog, Director of Training and Technical Assistance with generationOn.

As a service-learning trainer with generationOn I meet regularly with inspiring educators from around the country. I get to hear amazing stories of how these educators  work to help youth make their mark on the world, and it often strikes me that in a world of demanding schedules and standardized testing, these teachers and principals make service skills as much a priority for students as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

These stories prompted a question I like to ask during workshops – “Do you want to conduct a nice service project, or do you want to facilitate a smart service project?”

excited about volunteering, volunteer, volunteering, volunteerism, kids volunteeringObviously, we all want our service projects to be nice.  We want youth to have fun and be excited about what they do.

We love to talk afterward about how cute they were with the senior citizens, or how funny they were when they had to wade in the creek while collecting water samples.   Nice is a core element of service projects.

But what about smart?  A smart project takes service up a notch and connects it to a higher purpose.

One of the things I am increasingly aware of is that it’s no longer enough to do things because they are nice.  As individuals we are faced with increasingly complex changes in the world we know; as educators our communities rely on us to address perceived societal deficits; as a human race we are responsible for what we pass onto future generations.

It may seem that I am stating the obvious, but it’s worth putting it out there in black and white – service needs to MEAN something if we expect youth to take something from the experience and internalize it.

To truly engage and enlighten, projects need to be smart about how they connect youth to issues larger than us all.  As a service community, we must be proactive about elevating service to a higher purpose and providing youth with rigorous experiences while they volunteer.

These ideals can be quite overwhelming when you think of them in the abstract.  But taking a few cues from best practices in service-learning will help you take some concrete steps to make your service projects “smart”:

  1. Connect to a genuine community need.  Have youth seek out information on the needs in their community, whether it is through interviews, guest speakers, or other information gathering techniques.
  2. Involve youth in developing a plan of action.  Brainstorm with youth and listen to their ideas – allow them to develop the steps they think they’ll need to accomplish in the project.
  3. Let youth lead themselves.  Let youth lead their peers during the service project and find ways for everyone to serve as some type of leader based on their talents.
  4. Provide ample time for reflection before, during, and after the project.  Youth need explicit time set aside to think about their experiences throughout the entire project. 
  5. Celebrate what the youth have learned.  Celebrating isn’t merely rewarding youth or telling them they’ve done a good job; it’s letting them demonstrate what they know by sharing it with others and serving as an expert on your service topic. 
  6. Evaluate your efforts.  Don’t forget to reflect in the end and let youth determine what went well, what could be changed, and what they want to do next time.

GenerationOn has a number of resources to help you develop your smart service project.  You can learn more about the six stages of service-learning and hear directly from teachers and administrators using service-learning at the Max M. Fisher Training Institute.

And for a fantastic youth-based project development resource, check out our Do Your Own Thing Guide for Kids and our Do Your Own Thing Guide for Teens.

Have you planned a smart and nice volunteer project with kids? Tell us about it in the comments!

 

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3 Steps to a Successful Volunteer Project!

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Are you looking for a new way to volunteer? Have you thought about planning your own volunteer project? Volunteering in a group project brings highly motivated people together for a common mission. Here are three steps that can make your volunteer project a success.

Establish Goals, Plan, and Budget: 

Establishing goals at the onset of your group project, allows for you to measure the outcomes of your project. Consider these questions: Is there a current event that has emotionally affected you or might have emotionally affected others around you? What change would you like to see in your community?

Once you’ve established goals, accomplish them! Will you need any supplies, transportation, volunteers, etc? How much money will you need? Contact foundations, private businesses corporate donors and local merchants for funding and in-kind donations. Consider these expense categories: postage, printing/copying, telephone/fax, space rentals, refreshments during your volunteer project, and planning meetings.

Recruiting Volunteers

Find volunteers or contact other local nonprofits that can help provide volunteers. If your project is important to the community, you will find many people eager to be involved. Place flyers at your local post office, park, grocery store, school, community bulletin boards. Volunteer recruitment will also help make people aware of your group project. Social media outlets will also help with volunteer recruitment. Websites such as , , , and a personal blog can easily reach a wide range of people.

Here are some more tips for finding and recruiting volunteers:

Thank You!

Remember to thank your volunteers! Thank your volunteers so that they can feel appreciated and want to volunteer for future projects. Whether it’s a hand-written note filled with a simple message and encouraging words or talking to your volunteers individually-thank them! If you’re not quite sure how, we have a few tips for saying thank you.

Have you planned your own volunteer project? What did you learn from it? Tell us about it in the comments!

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