October 5, 2009 has been designated World Habitat Day by the United Nations. Its purpose is to call attention to the dire need worldwide for safe, adequate and affordable housing. According to the United Nations, more than 100 million people in the world today are homeless, while millions more live without adequate sanitation, electricity and security. One out of three city dwellers lives in a slum.

The need is truly staggering—more than 2 million housing units per year for 50 years are needed to solve the present crisis. Yet, even if they were all built, at the rate the population is growing, there will still be a need for another 1 billion housing units.

What can we do? The first step is to just be aware—and to care. Most of us are lucky to have more than adequate housing—we’re comfortable enough to have a difficult time imagining what it must be like to lack sanitary facilities and clean water for our families. Compared to most of the world, we live in luxury.

The housing crisis is not just some other nation’s problem—it’s a problem we can all come together to do something about. Advocating for change is the next step toward transforming the existing systems that perpetuate the global plague of poverty housing.

In the US, about 95 million people—one-third of the population, have housing problems such as high-cost, overcrowding, poor quality, and homelessness. These conditions contribute to health problems such as childhood asthma, viral infections, anemia and stunted growth. Approximately 180 children die each year in the U.S. due to house fires attributable to inadequate electrical systems and faulty heating.

Change can happen. Advocate for it by asking Congress to pass legislation to prioritize affordable housing. Educate yourself and your community about the problem here at home and around the globe. And donate to Habitat for Humanity’s efforts to end the global housing crisis.

These days, nonprofits are more dependent on volunteers than ever. You probably cannot imagine running your nonprofit organization without them. So where do you go when you need new volunteers as a result of reduced staff, increased workload, or volunteer turnover?

Think technology! Check out these tools that can make this important task much easier:

1. Software: Volunteer Reporter is one software program you might try. It’s designed to help streamline volunteer management with reports, spreadsheets, templates, and other features, based on a powerful database model. Find the volunteer with the right skill set for a particular job in minutes, or prepare a custom report for a board meeting .The software’s online subscription service integrates with your website, and allows volunteers to log in from home to track hours, and you to post opportunities and accept applications online.

2. Newsletters: keep volunteers updated and informed with simple online newsletters. You can try a template-based online program, such as Constant Contact, for free, and if it works for you, pay a fee for ongoing use. Simply input your information, load your database of email addresses, and the newsletter is delivered instantly. Links to yours or other websites, photos, and interactivity are all part of Constant Contact’s offerings. Remember to ask volunteers for their email address so that you can add them to the list! Keep former volunteers engaged and encourage them to volunteer again with regular contact.

3. Register with an online volunteer database: Try VolunteerMatch or 1-800-Volunteer.  These services will help you get noticed and match your organization with appropriate volunteers in your area. You can easily match skills with needs, manage your volunteers, and compile reports through 1-800-Volunteer. And both services will put your organization’s name, mission, and needs in front of thousands of interested volunteers every day.

4. Use online classifieds: Think of Craigslist.org as a free online classifieds section of the newspaper. In fact, many newspapers’ classifieds sections are becoming increasingly skimpy, thanks to Craigslist’s emergence as the dominant place for buyers and sellers to meet. And, Craigslist is where employers and employees are finding each other, too. So take a cue from savvy employers and put your volunteers needed ad right where your potential volunteers will see it: Craigslist. It’s easy to get started, update, or delete your posting, so give it a try!

Using technology to recruit volunteers is easier, faster, and more effective than ever. Give these tips a try and you’ll see what we mean.

A report by the Corporation for National and Community Service’s Volunteering in America shows that about a million more people volunteered in 2008 than in the previous year.

What accounts for the surge in volunteering? Teens and young adults! The study shows that young people are increasingly interested in serving their communities and making a difference. Of the one million new volunteers, 441,000—almost half—were between the ages of 16 and 24. This age group makes up 21.9 percent of all volunteers, with a total of 8.24 million young people volunteering in 2008.

Teens and young adults are increasingly interested in assisting others. Among first-year college students, nearly 70 percent (the highest rate since 1970) believe it is essential or very important to help other people in need. President Barack Obama’s call to volunteerism, as well as an increase in service requirements in US middle and high schools, may have contributed to the uptick.

If your nonprofit organization (NPO) needs additional volunteers, consider reaching out to the teen and young adult group. They are likely more aware of volunteer opportunities and needs as growing numbers of their peers communicate their involvement.

And if you already enjoy the help of young people in your NPO, ask them to reach out to their friends. The Volunteering in America study shows that people who do not currently volunteer are more likely to do so if asked by a trusted friend.

You will enjoy a much greater rate of success promoting your cause to this age group if you utilize the same social networking communities that they do—such as Facebook and Twitter. It’s easy to create a fan page on Facebook and set up a Twitter account. With a small time investment, you can communicate with thousands of potential volunteers at once, while they learn more about your cause and your need for volunteers.

The rate of volunteerism in America has not declined, despite the challenging economy. Now is a great time to recruit new volunteers—and teens and young adults are a great group to target!

Best Buy is committed to its employees, its communities, and the environment. The company is one of corporate America’s biggest donors to charity. Through cash, merchandise and time donations, the corporation and its employees give back to America’s youth in a big way.

Best Buy donates up to 1.5% of its pretax earnings to dozens of national organizations through the Best Buy Children’s Foundation. Their focus is on social programs that help children, plus disaster relief, scholarship programs, and services that strengthen communities. Examples include Boys and Girls Clubs of America’s Tech Club, MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools & Education), and Toys for Teens (in conjunction with the US Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program).

@15 is a special segment within Best Buy Children’s Foundation, designed to empower youth. Through @15, teenagers advocate for and advise about the programs that will receive funds. It’s a wonderful learning opportunity for the teens, and ensures that the programs kids really care about are supported.

@15 Best Buy Scholarships have been helping fund higher education for needy students since 1999. This year, 1,000 students will be rewarded for their academic achievements, volunteer efforts, and work experience. Since its inception, the @15 Scholarship Program has seen awards totaling nearly $13 million to more than 10,000 students.

The Community Grants Program is administered by Best Buy employee groups through the Best Buy’s Children’s Foundation. The employees select non profit organizations (NPOs) that they would like to support. Their guidelines? The NPO must provide services and programs that provide opportunities to young teens related to education, leadership skills, life skills, or relationship development.

This year, the Best Buy Children’s Foundation will give away $1 million through the Community Grants Program!

And, each Best Buy store is individually empowered to support its local community non-profits. Stores can donate Best Buy gift cards to help NPOs with their fundraising efforts, as long as they are located within 50 miles of a Best Buy store and the funds go to support schools, libraries, educational, or after-school programs for youth.

Best Buy’s Teach Awards help schools bring more technology to students with gift card donations. Since 2004, the awards total over $17 million to over 6,000 schools nationwide.

At Best Buy, giving back to their communities is central to the way they do business. And the company’s level of giving is very impressive!

Good volunteer coordinators see their nonprofit organization’s (NPO) volunteers as more than just bodies filling positions. Knowing names and personal histories is the first step in fostering good relationships when managing people. It’s also important to know what motivates your volunteers, so you can keep them engaged and enjoying their service to your organization. It’s far easier to keep happy volunteers than to replace burned-out or disinterested ones!

So, what makes people volunteer their time and energy to service and charity organizations?

1. People like to make a difference. Whether focused on their street, their neighborhood, community or the world, people want to know that their efforts are actually making a difference to another human being. Remind your volunteers of the changes they are bringing about through their work. They may be changing one life or making the entire world a better place to live—and they should know it.

2. Volunteering makes people feel better. Giving to others without expecting anything in return is reward enough for many volunteers. Many report feeling their mood brighten by seeing how others are affected by their work. Some volunteers get “addicted” to these good feelings—a real bonus for their chosen organizations. Do what you can to help make your volunteers feel good, and they’re more likely to stick around.

3. People like to learn. Many folks look to volunteering as an opportunity to learn new skills, or do something completely different than their profession. Keep this in mind as you assign tasks to your volunteers; don’t assume they’d like to perform the same tasks they’ve been doing for years! Switch things up when you can to keep people fresh.

4. Volunteers are “people people.” Many volunteers report their love of meeting new people as a big reason they offer their help to service organizations. If you have extroverts among your volunteers who are not getting enough people contact, you could lose them.

5. People love to support their favorite causes. Step inside an animal shelter and you’ll see animal lovers volunteering their time. Look no farther than the Boys and Girls clubs and you’ll find volunteers who relish the idea of turning around the life of a kid. If you need more volunteers, a great place to start looking is at your donor base. After all, these people have already demonstrated and interest in your cause!

6. Volunteers love to be active. Most volunteers aren’t good at the couch potato thing. These folks love to be out and about in the community, knowing what’s going on, and contributing to society. Keep your volunteers busy before they get bored and move on.

7. Everyone like perks. Some people are ushering at the local theater because they want to see plays for free. Others volunteer at art museums to get their fill of paintings and sculptures. Still others just like to be included in the annual volunteer appreciation luncheon. Bear in mind any perks you can offer your volunteers to keep them happy and show your thanks.

8. Some folks love seeing how things work. Certain volunteers get a kick out of seeing how a food bank or health clinic works. Others are more event-oriented and love working on parade floats, or setting up food booths and music. These behind-the-scenes people are vital to many NPOs’ success stories. Remember that not all your volunteers want to be on the front lines.

Cisco CEO John Chambers believes giving back is not only the right thing to do, but good for business, too. The entire management team believes Corporate Social Responsibility is the foundation for their business—and it shows in how they treat their employees, the environment, their customers, and their communities. Cisco really makes a difference through their employee volunteer program, called Cisco Citizens.

During fiscal year 2007, Cisco employees volunteered over 168,000 hours in their communities and around the world. From one-day team building projects to long-term initiatives, Cisco Citizens are busy volunteers! Many projects are researched and planned by their Civic Councils, teams of employee leaders who are passionate about giving back to their communities. The Civic Councils also develop partnerships with nonprofits, coordinate product donations, and facilitate grants.

Cisco’s Volunteer Connection Tool is a matching system that brings employees and volunteer opportunities together. This powerful tool matches employee skills with nonprofit organization (NPO) needs. NPOs can register online and request Cisco volunteers for specific projects, jobs, or even mentorships. It also allows volunteer coordinators to recruit, track, manage and communicate with their volunteers from Cisco quickly and efficiently.

The Cisco Foundation matches employees’ time donations with cash contributions to qualifying NPOs. The Foundation encourages all Cisco employees to volunteer at least one day a year to qualified charities in a company-wide effort to strengthen employees’ ties to their communities.

In other displays of Corporate Social Responsibility, Cisco supports boardnetUSA, a website that helps link interested community leaders with nonprofits that need board members, and holds an annual Holiday Global Hunger Relief Drive. These two programs educate Cisco employees about issues in their communities and around the world, and show them how they can make a difference—all with the staunch support of their employer.

As Cisco demonstrates, corporate volunteer programs are good for the communities they serve and for business, too. Customer good will, employee loyalty, and positive press coverage is priceless for any size company.

In our last post, we suggested polling your volunteers to find out how they want you to communicate with them.  For many non profits, email is the best ways to communicate with both volunteers and donors. Here are some marketing tips for more effective email communication:

Reverse the order of your usual email writing process. Hit “attach” first instead of last, and you’ll avoid sending out emails without the intended attachments.

Ask for action. There is a school of thought that says no email should be sent without a request for action. Keep this in mind as you begin to compose your email: if you’re not asking for a review of a document or to confirm a meeting, or to pass on an important piece of information, is the email really necessary? And remember: ask, don’t tell. Don’t tell people what to do; ask them for their help.

Turn the “Subject” into keywords. For clarity and time savings, let your recipients know exactly what the email is about by choosing 3-5 key words for the subject line. 

How much email is too much? Amnesty International used to send 19 – 25 messages per month to their email list. That’s too many for any nonprofit email strategy, even if your supporters love and support your cause. Research from M+R Strategic Services shows that reduced email volume actually improves response rates.  Focus your email strategy on a regular schedule for fundraising, event invites, and general awareness campaigns.

Effective email communication can be reduced to three topics: a crisis, an opportunity, and how taking action will resolve the crisis. People want to know what they can do to help.

Keep it short. No matter what you have to say, say it briefly or your recipients will not bother to read your email. Respect your recipients’ time and they will be more responsive.

  

 

 

Volunteers Filling Sandbags in Fargo, ND

Ask your volunteers how they prefer to receive communication from your organization, and you will likely get a variety of answers. But you’ll also get some appreciation. Being flexible and putting your volunteers’ needs first is vital to keeping them around. One-sided communication definitely does not fit all these days.

With Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as well email, instant messaging and texting, you can communicate with all of your volunteers faster than ever–and in the way they prefer. But check in often—it can change from one day to the next!  The folks who faithfully checked their home answering machines might not even have a home phone anymore. The frequent emailers have turned to Facebook or Twitter to keep up with their circles of friends, and might now consider email an inconvenience.

If you are not up to speed on all the Social Media networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, your volunteers are—so ask one to help set up a page for your organization. With a sentence or two, you can communicate to everyone at once, and instantly receive their feedback, questions, and suggestions. Volunteers can interact and create a community through these websites, enhancing the bond they feel for your organization, while they spread the word about your cause. 

Social Media Tips for Volunteer Organizations:

• A Facebook page is a must have for any charitable organization.

• Gather cell phone numbers for all your volunteers immediately, and input them into your phone. See if your phone can save groups of numbers together.

• To communicate quickly about meeting times or events, text or online messages can easily be sent to groups. Flood-fighting volunteers in Fargo, ND used Facebook extensively just last week, keeping in touch and spreading the need for help.

• Twitter is the latest way for groups to communicate quickly and easily.

• Remember that many of your volunteers have web-enabled mobile devices (also known as cell phones), so they don’t have to be in front of their computers to receive your communication. 

Volunteering is about community building—and so are the new Social Media sites. Become familiar with them and how they work, and you’ll become more valuable to your volunteers!

Remember that proper volunteer screening will help keep your organization and clients safe.

Young People Want Meaningful Volunteer Opportunities

Demographics

As the general population becomes more diverse, so does the volunteer pool. This means more of your volunteers will be ethnic minorities and people for whom English is not their first language.  Sensitivity, and relating, to a wide variety of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds will become ever more important.

Technology

Web-based tools have become an entire generation’s mode of communication. What is your organization’s web presence? Does your website make it easy for a volunteer to learn about what you do, the volunteer opportunities that exist, and how they can apply for a position? Do you use current technology—email, text, Social Media groups—to communicate with your volunteers? If not, you are likely turning off a large section of your potential volunteer pool. Sharpen up your technology offerings to remain relevant in today’s high-tech world. All the tools you need are easily accessed, and in many cases, free.

Wants and Needs

The desire to make a difference is back in a big way, but diverse demographic groups indicate different expectations. In general, there is more interest in issues and causes, along with a desire to help. Baby boomers are retiring and want to contribute their experience, while looking for meaning and purpose.  Young people need actual experience and job skills for their resumes. Increasingly, high schools, colleges and universities require community service in order to graduate. The newly-unemployed want to keep their skills sharp while job hunting. Today’s volunteers want to be challenged. They expect a high level of professionalism, with minimal bureaucracy.

Volunteerism is in the News

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that more employers are offering perks like time off to volunteer. They realize it’s an easy way to contribute to employee well-being, and to the community, while receiving positive press. Starbucks is driving volunteerism through its website and stores. Target and Trader Joe’s advertise their community involvement as part of their core values. Volunteerism is all over the news. Be prepared to handle more inquiries.

Family Dynamics

More women in the workplace. Two-income families. The “sandwich” generation, who care for their children as well as their parents. For most Americans, family time is stretched to the limit, and parents often feel guilty about less time spent with their families. Volunteer opportunities that allow flexibility, short-term, in-and-out service appeal to busy families, as do volunteer-from-home projects. These people are also attracted to family-friendly tasks so they can contribute to their communities while spending time with their families. 

Think about how each of these trends could affect your organization, and then craft creative ways to respond!

Photo credit: EveryStockPhoto.com

During his run for the Presidency, Barack Obama called on US citizens to step up and serve our country, saying, Everybody’s going to have to pitch in. On January 19, he and his family participated in Martin Luther King Day of Service, boosting the program’s press and awareness, and helping make 2009 its most successful year ever—with over 13,000 projects completed!

And then mega-coffee chain Starbucks unveiled its mega-volunteer campaign, I’m In, on Inauguration Day. The program makes it easy for folks to pledge five volunteer hours to their community. Helped along by an Oprah plug, the initiative took off, exceeding the goal of 1,000,000 hours pledged nationwide. The Pledge5 website’s total hours ticker was at nearly 1.3 million hours a few moments ago, and it increases by five every few seconds as another person pledges.

What could this mean to you?  Simply put, more volunteers. Of course, that’s a great thing! More volunteers means more brain and muscle power—and a lighter workload for everyone.

But before you send a volunteer out into your community representing your organization, ask yourself, “Who is this person?”  Even if you think you know the answer, consider online volunteer screening. It’s a quick and easy way to ensure the safety of your community and credibility of your organization.