Newest Trainings

Community Organizing

Jules Goins — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:01:59 -0700

Conflict Management

Jules Goins — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:45:40 -0700

Negotiation Preparation Worksheet
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddgq9mtp_132gnt436dv

Project Management

Jules Goins — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:06:57 -0700

Strategic Planning Webinar

Jules Goins — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:24:49 -0600

Many organizations go through a strategic planning process that seeks to answer the basic questions "What have we done? Where are we going? How will be best get there?" A formal strategic planning process may take several months and involve staff, board members, volunteers and members of the community. While you may not be directly involved with a strategic planning process, the analysis and tools that are used for strategic planning may be relevant to your own projects or programs: better helping you analyze strengths and weaknesses, create strategies to improve effectiveness, and interpret your recommendations for other staff or community members.

Reasons to plan
Strategic planning is typically a 1-3 year forecast of what the organization will look like and how it will “get there”. Over the last several years, strategic planning has become key to being more "competitive" within the social service sector as limited funding is spread over an ever increasing population of nonprofit organizations. We believe that planning should be a proactive, integral and ongoing process of any organization or program. In reality, planning usually takes in reaction to perceived faults or weaknesses. These may include:

* No clear or agreed upon vision among staff or stakeholders
* Mission drift (programs and initiatives don't closely align with the purpose or skills of the organization)
* Internal changes such as a large staff turnover
* External changes such as changing community demographics or needs

Strategic planning can be a long and intensive undertaking; because of this, we believe that planning should come as a result of internal needs and dialogue, producing practical ideas and strategy that will be regularly referred to and implemented. Some organizations may institute strategic planning as the result of outside requirements: for example, some grantmakers may require a Strategic Plan as a requirement for funding. Strategic planning instituted at the behest of outsiders risks being perfunctory and producing a result that is irrelevant or ignored.

Non Profit Culture

Belinda Rawlins — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:31:45 -0600

This training will help you understand a few of the unique characteristics of nonprofit organizations. You'll review the nonprofit life cycle, decision making, and constituencies. At the end, suggested investigative questions to further understand the culture of the organization in which you serve are provided.

Download a PDF of the Presentation

How to Access In Service Training Money

Josh King — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:35:24 -0600

IST, or In-Service Training funds are a resource that we encourage you as a VISTA to access in order to further your ability to effectively pursue your projects. Up to $500 can be used for training that relates directly to your project. These can be any kind of training class, seminar, or retreat that gives you skills that you can apply to your work at your host organization. However, there are several major restrictions imposed by the government that make this resource less than easy to use. We are here to provide you with a step-by-step process to make it as easy as possible.

The major restrictions for using IST monies are:

Only available for the first 5 months of your service, so make use of it quickly.
You must apply for a reimbursement of no less than $100 at a time, so you may have to bundle expenses together in order to receive payment.
Training must be approved by your supervisor.
Requests for training must be submitted at least 14 days before the training event, so make sure you get everything in on time.
Unfortunately, you can only be reimbursed for the class itself, and not for travel or for training materials (unless they are provided to you as part of the primary cost of the class). Keep these other expenses in mind when shopping around for training opportunities.

So, what do you have to do in order to actually apply for it? Here's a step-by-step process:

At least 14 days prior to the training opportunity, submit a training request either by fax to (617) 565-8607 or by email to MA@cns.gov with the following information:
- The name and cost of each training. Each request must total more than $100 worth of trainings.
- A description of the training event, preferably with an included link to the event's website.
- Place, time, and date.
- A brief description of how exactly this training opportunity will be of benefit to you in your work.
- Supervisor Approval: Indicate in the request that it was approved.. If you submit by fax have them sign the request, or if submitting by email, CC them on the submission.
You should receive a response from the CNCS state office by a week before the event about whether your request was approved or not. If you didn't get a response, make sure that you call Christine Robles at (617) 565-7017 or email her at crobles@cns.gov, because if you do not receive a written response in advance then you will not be reimbursed.
This is a reimbursement, so you or your organization will have to front the money for the training with the intent that you will be paid afterwards. Make sure to save any receipts from the event!
CNCS should provide a reimbursement voucher. Complete the voucher, and attach the original receipts from the event. If you don't have the original receipts, then the training organization must provide a letter on their organizational letterhead with the following information:
- Title of the course.
- Cost of the course.
- The date the training was paid for by you or your organization.
- Your name, with written confirmation of your registration.
- The amount that you place on the voucher must be the same amount as in the letter or in the original receipts. If that is not the case, contact Christine Robles before submitting the voucher and receipts.
Finally, you will get your check. Checks are only made out to VISTA members, so if your organization fronted all or part of the money for the conference, it is your responsibility to reimburse them.

Nonprofit Structure: Legal and Regulatory Frameworks

Ben Sheldon — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:06:26 -0600

This training will help you understand the legal and regulatory frameworks that shape nonprofit organizations and determine their purpose and benefits. You'll also learn about the primary components of a nonprofit and, through the worksheet learn how to search public records to research your own or any other nonprofit organization.

Recording of the Training

Simple Slideshow

Worksheet

The worksheet provides links and information for performing a search about your nonprofit's public documents and some questions for you to answer. Download the Worksheet

Other Resources

IRS: Tax information for Charities and other Non-profits: The IRS's landing page for information about nonprofits. Exemption Requirements; Application Process; Life Cycle
Wikipedia: Types of 501(c) Organizations: A list of all of the different types of organizations that live within the 501(c) statute.
Craigslist Foundation: Nonprofit Basics Podcasts: A series of great audio recordings on beginning and building a nonprofit.
Online Book: "A Corporate Form of Freedom" by Norman Isaac Silber: Explores how courts and legislatures have decided which nonprofit groups can pursue their missions as corporations. You can read the entire book online: click the "Preview Book" tab near the top of the page.
Film: The Corporation: A documentary that outlines the history, structure and influence of corporations, and the impact they have had upon society. While focusing on for-profit corporations, there is a lot of information about how corporations operate.
Reagan's Legacy: An overview of the shrinking of government spending that would create the vacuum for nonprofits to fill.

Question & Answers

A Nonprofit is to a Community as a ____________ is to a _____________.

Nonprofit	Community
Miracle Gro	Flower
Government	Socialist Society
Chef	Restaurant
Protein Bar	Michael Phelps
Hamburger Helper	Hamburger
Oil	Cast-Iron Pan
Snarf	The Thundercats
Person	Dog
The Wipers	Sonic Youth
Milkman	1950s Society
Cafe	Coffee
ODB	Wu-Tang Clan
College	Students

Answers contributed by AmeriCorps*VISTA members.

Nonprofit 101: Structure

Kevin Palmer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:19:20 -0600

Nonprofit, or Non-Profit, or Not-for-Profit, organizations are entities that are formed for a public purpose or mutual benefit and not the pursuit or accumulation of wealth. Most nonprofits are recognized by having a 501(c)3 designation granted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)---organizations must apply for this exemption.

501(c)3
501(c)3 is a specific tax-code that has been created by congress to allow public purpose or mutually beneficial organizations to function with different tax-rules than standard for-profit organizations or corporations. The two main benefits of nonprofit organizations are:

Exemption from Revenue Taxes: Nonprofit organizations are not required to pay Federal taxes on their revenue. Note that nonprofit employees must still pay income tax
Tax Deductible Donations: A major encouragement for individuals to donate to nonprofit organizations is that their charitable gifts are tax deductible on personal income taxes.

Why Start a Nonprofit?
Nonprofit organizations are formed for a wide variety of functions, and while the standard idea of the social service (soup kitchen, food bank, early education) predominates, those are by no means the only purpose nonprofit organizations are formed. Here are some of the broad needs and services nonprofits fill:

Education
Health Services
Religiously Related
Economic Development
Arts and Culture
Human Services (shelters, food banks)
Environmental
Disaster Relief
Zoos, Aquariums, Gardens, Humane Societies
Civic Benefit (public policy, civil rights)
Historic Societies

More than anything, nonprofits are started because there is a pressing social need that is not being addressed by the Public Sector (government) or the Private Sector (business).

There were more than 800,000 nonprofit organizations registered with the IRS in 2005 with combined assets in excess of $1.5 trillion. Half of those assets are owned by less than 2,000 organizations. Most nonprofits are also fairly small with only a quarter of registered nonprofits with annual revenues above $100,000 (source: National Center for Charitable Statistics).

How Does a Nonprofit Form?
There are several legal steps necessary to successfully form a nonprofit organization. These steps occur at both state and federal levels. Here are some of the requirements needed to be a fully formed 501(c)(3) nonprofit (in rough chronological order):

Prohibitions on Nonprofits
Nonprofit organizations are prohibited from political campaign activities to influence elections to public office, though they can perform limited lobbying to influence legislation.

Nonprofits must avoid any conflicts of interest with board members, family members, or staff. This means they cannot engage in activities that privately benefit individuals such as getting paid to perform services that may not be relevant to the organization’s mission.

Excessive executive compensation is also prohibited; meaning nonprofit directors cannot be paid exorbitant salaries. Excessive compensation, which is overseen primarily by the IRS, is determined by the size and complexity of the organization along with the skills and experience of the executive.

One of the most important prohibitions is that nonprofits cannot share profits amounts private individuals (this does not mean salaries cannot be paid however). Any revenues must be put towards activity that goes towards serving the organization’s mission.

Distinctions Between For-profits and Nonprofits

Differences
There are several key distinctions between nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies. The most obvious difference is what the “bottom line” for each is. For-profits companies’ “bottom line” is making money and profit while the “bottom” line” focus for nonprofits is their mission and public benefit.

This public benefit “bottom line” makes nonprofit accountability and success difficult to quantify because, unlike for-profits who only need to look at profits, nonprofits need to look at a complex array of variables, outcomes, and impacts to determine if they’ve achieved their “bottom line.”

Similarities
However, nonprofits and for-profits are similar in that each requires large amounts or entrepreneurship to start up as there is substantial work and risk in founding any organization.

Nonprofits and for-profits are also alike in that each must have money and funding in order to survive and grow. In this sense, nonprofits have “a double bottom line” of both garnering enough funding to at least break even (and be account for fiscal performance for the IRS) while also ensuring it is achieving its mission and benefiting the public.

Nonprofit Management

The primary structure and management of a nonprofit organization is determined by its Articles of Incorporation and/or Bylaws. These documents usually describe the organization's mission and sets out general rules for oversight and management of the organization. These articles and bylaws are usually written by the Founder, who may wield considerable influence throughout the organization's lifespan.

Board of Directors
Most nonprofits have a Board of Directors that oversees the long term, and strategic vision of the organizations. They usually meet several times a year in "Board Meetings" to set these long-term goals. The Board of Directors is usually made up of socially influential persons, though sometimes there will be "diversity" positions in which other people from the community, youth or program participants can serve.

A practical function of the Board of Directors is to fundraise and perform outreach, using their influence and connections to raise money and awareness of the organization. This fundraising need is sometimes referred to as the Three-Gs: "Give, Get, or Get Out", the idea that members of the Board of Directors have minimal value if they are not actively fundraising, either through their own donations or acquiring the donations of others.

The Board of Directors is ultimately responsible for the functioning and legality of the organization. In this respect, they assume liability for the organization, and in some cases can be directly sued. In response to this, most boards carry Board Insurance that removes some of the personal financial liability of the members of the board.

Advisory Boards
An Advisory Board, on the other hand, performs some functions similar to a Board of Directors, but has no governing power or responsibility. These types of boards provide advice, contacts, guidance, and their professional skills and experience to nonprofits. Advisory Board members also do not receive any monetary compensation usually for their services, as sometimes can be the case with members of a Board of Directors.

Executive Directors and Boards
Beneath the Board of Directors or Advisory Board, most nonprofit organizations have an Executive Director that acts as a liaison between the long-term priorities of the Board and the day-to-day activities of staff. The Executive Director is usually ultimately responsible for ensuring that the nonprofit is operating properly and effectively---though ultimate accountability rests with the Board.

Who funds nonprofits?

Nonprofits have multiple sources of income and these generally change and shift throughout a nonprofit’s lifespan. These come typically from public sources (federal, state, and local governments) and private sources (individuals, corporations, foundations, etc).

Here are some statistics on all private contributions in 2005 (from Giving USA Foundation – AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy/Giving USA 2005):

How are Nonprofits accountable?

Nonprofits are accountable to a wide cross-section of stakeholders. To funders, nonprofits must prove they are doing with donated funds what they specified in grant applications or understandings with donors. They must be good stewards of contributions and are often required (though less so by individual donors) to show ‘results’ backed up by impact data.

To the state government, nonprofits usually must file annual reports (includes statement of activities, financial data, and other relevant information) and also file documentation of any changes to their Board of Directors or Bylaws.

Nonprofits are accountable to the IRS by ensuring their organization does not engage in restricted political activity, filing appropriate documentation (such as the Form 990 detailing annual financial information), demonstrating they are not overcompensating employees, or operating for private gain.

Internally, nonprofit Board of Directors or Advisory Boards hold Executive Directors accountable for organizational development and day-to-day operations.

Nonprofit accountability within the communities they serve is not as strong as with the IRS, state governments, or funders. There are no official or standardized ways of ensuring the work that is done is consistent with the public good. While nonprofits are accountable to funders for “results” they are not beholden to community members.

Current Trends in the Nonprofit Sector
Here are some emerging trends in the nonprofit sector culled from Nonprofit.about.com and Worth.com that you may notice, become involved with, or have to confront head on during your service year:

Increased competition for funding as the number of nonprofits grows with stagnating or decreasing funding
Greater calls for nonprofit results accountability from the government, funders, and general public
Increased focus on management and governance as an effect of calls for increased accountability
Greater focus on “data-driven decision making” as more performance metrics and indexes are used in evaluating success
Intergenerational challenges between old and new styles of management and leadership
Work in the nonprofit sector is more “professionalized” as more colleges and universities offer nonprofit related degrees and programs
Public perception is generally favorable towards nonprofits (much more so than the private sector or government), however the public does not have an understanding of what a nonprofit is or how it functions. There is also a credibility gap between the nonprofit sector and the public fueled by recent scandals and unethical activity.

Further Resources

Hutton, Stan and Phillips, Francis. Nonprofit Kit for Dummies. Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2005.

Welytok, Jill Gilbetrt and Welytok, Daniel S. Nonprofit Law & Governance for Dummies. Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2007

Nonprofit Trends @ About.com
(http://nonprofit.about.com/od/trendsissuesstatistics/Trends_Issues_Stati...)

Nonprofit Trends @ Worth.com
(http://www.worth.com/Current-Concerns/News-Briefs/NB-nonproift-trends-12...)

Curriculum Development

Kevin Palmer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:16:11 -0600

Do Your Research
Your curriculum is likely going to be incorporating and synthesizing your local community needs with national or field-specific trends (what others in the field are doing). To ensure that both of these aspects will be addressed in your curriculum, look at some of the following resources:

A local Community Stakeholder analysis
Literature, research, and publications related to your topic area
Any previous curricula developed by your organization or by others doing similar work
Seek out input prior to starting curriculum from the practitioners, trainers, or teachers who will be the ones directly implementing your curriculum

Statement of Philosophy
After you’ve sifted through your research and information collection, you should start to develop a statement related to the philosophy and motivations behind your curriculum that includes the following information:

Why the curriculum is being developed
Why it is necessary to be taught in the community
How the methods are sound and in line with national/field trends and standards
The overarching goal of teaching the curriculum
Why your organization is the authority to be developing the curriculum

These pieces should all be fairly obvious from your previous research and from input from your organization, collaborators, and community.

What kinds of Curriculum have CTC VISTAs developed before?

Digital Video Bootcamp
Media Literacy
Digital Storytelling
Basic Computer Skills
Online Youth Radio Programming
Digital Photography
Youth Web Design

Starting the Process

Of Curricula and Lesson Plans
A curriculum and a lesson plan are not the same thing. A curriculum is a broad overarching plan and timeline that determines skills and knowledge learned, the timetable for doing so, and how progress or learning will be assessed. A lesson plan is a day-to-day breakdown of what specifically is going to be taught, in what order, by whom, what resources will be needed, etc.

In other words a curriculum is macro focused while lesson plans are more micro focused. A curriculum is designed to be adopted and implemented by practitioners. These practitioners then incorporate their own teaching style and realities of the teaching environment into creating their own day-to-day lesson plans.

However, curricula and lesson plans are often used interchangeably and will mean that when your nonprofit asks you to write a curriculum, they will almost always mean curriculum plus individual lesson plans.

Break Out The Calendars
To start the process of mapping out your curriculum by days, weeks, and months, first grab all relevant calendars and schedules. This includes any institutional calendars (such as school calendars), your organization’s calendar, your personal calendar, and a schedule of the times allotted to your course (M-W-F? Tu-Th?).

Make sure you account for any conflicts between the calendars (such as an event at your organization on the same day as a class) and also for any holidays or breaks (which are typically listed on institutional calendars).

Incorporating Standards
If you ware working in schools or any other public institution, take some time to research if there are any official standards or assessments you need to be aware of. Teachers in public, private and higher education have to constantly ensure that their curricula are in line with government standards.

For example if you collaborating with a teacher and are designing a curriculum for an in-school history & media course, then you should probably review any state standards related to language arts standards and/or technology standards. Even if it is not in an in-school environment, there still may be formal or informal standards you should be meeting. Do your research to make sure.

While you will not likely be creating a curriculum where you’ll have to worry about state or federal standards, you will have to impose some form of accountability standards to ensure your curriculum is actually achieving the goal and objectives you set out. Your organization might want to set out its own standards if they run several different courses or programs.

Developing Objectives

What Skills or Knowledge Will Be Learned?
List out any and all the technical skills, knowledge, etc. that will be learned throughout the course. Examples of skills could be video editing on Final Cut Pro, operating a digital video camera, writing code in HTML, how to use a mouse, or writing a resume. Some examples of knowledge would be working in collaborative groups, historical aspects of journalism, how to run a field shoot, how to conduct a interview, or how to access technical support.

An easy way to think about it is by putting it this way: By the end of the course, the student will be able to [enter skills here].

Curriculum Grid
You can begin to map out your curriculum on a grid that plots your skills and objectives up with different courses (if you’re creating a broad curriculum that incorporates a number of different courses), different classes, or different projects (if learning is going to be mostly project based as is usually the case with tech curricula).

Here is a basic example of how to create a curriculum grid for a project-based curriculum:

Again, you can replace “Projects” with “Courses” or “Classes” if that fits the orientation of your curriculum better.

Setting Your Outputs
Aside from acquired skills and knowledge, you will want to set outputs in your curriculum, which will also act as great benchmarking and assessment metrics. Outputs differ from skills and knowledge in that objectives can be looked at as the “deliverables” of your curriculum.

Here are some examples of potential course outputs:

Each student will have 4 finished videos
Each student will have completed their resume and sent it to three employers
Each student will have a portfolio of work

Knowing the Resources Needed
You will without a doubt need to utilize a variety of resources throughout your curriculum. Knowing and pinpointing specific resources and when they’re needed makes coordinating classes much easier for those teaching it.

If you are generating a project-based curriculum, then the resources needed should be fairly evident based on the requirements of each project. For example, if your projects center around creating a series of community podcasts, then required resources will be a microphone, recording device, computer, internet connection, audio software, etc.

Resources refer not just to hardware or software, but also any prepared materials or documents you need to hand to the class. For example in Class 1 you will probably want to hand out a course guide or in Class 8 you may want to use a Powerpoint presentation to explain a concept or idea.

Accounting for the Realities of the Classroom
A lot of CTC VISTAs develop curriculum to work in specialized environments such as computer labs. It is important, especially for CTC VISTAs, to document exactly what is going to be need to make the teaching environment conducive to the curriculum.

If your curriculum calls for a media lab, then specify that the room should have one computer per person, be well ventilated, have a sign-in policy, have an equipment check-out policy, have a locking cabinet to store equipment, etc.

Make sure to list and document all considerations to have about the teaching environment since there are a number of environment issues that affect technology curriculum that are absent from traditional curriculum.

Make sure to document any and all proficiencies that instructors must have as well. Often with nonprofit programming, staff turnover is high so the skills and knowledge of trainers/instructors/teachers is extremely variable.

Setting Performance Indicators/Evaluations
You should establish regular performance indicators that will be used throughout the duration of the course so that the instructor will be able to accurately judge the health and progress of their students and the course in general.

These indicators, or metrics, are used to make adjustments to content, methods, and timetable of the curriculum and also for individual students. Typically for most courses these come in the form of tests, quizzes, homework grades, and project grades.

Thankfully, if you’ve already set the skills and knowledge as well as course outputs, then most of the work of developing assessments and performance indicators is already done for you. If your curriculum is project-based then you can simply look at the curriculum grid and also the timeline to see if projects are on-track.

It is often difficult to administer tests to students in afterschool programs or adult education classes since earning a good grade has little bearing or effect on them individually. This is why for a number of nonprofit curricula, performance indicators and assessments are ‘baked in’ to project-based work.

Formatting

Formatting your curriculum should be fairly simple if you’ve done all the preceding work. The worksheet for this section provides some templates to use.

However, any format you choose will have several overlapping components in each unit of the curriculum including:

Statement of Curriculum Philosophy/Purpose/Vision
Resources Needed (included type of teaching environment)
Skills and Knowledge Gained
Outputs/Deliverables Produced
Performance Indicators/Assessments Used
Timeline

Lesson Plans

In order to make your curriculum actionable, individual lesson plans will need to be developed. You can develop full lesson plans yourself and include them with the curriculum or you can rely upon the instructors/trainers/teachers who will be delivering the curriculum to make their own plans (so long as the curriculum is complete and thorough enough).

Activating Prior Knowledge
When completing the process/procedures sections of your lesson plans, try to incorporate as much prior knowledge as possible. Activating prior knowledge such as life examples, applications, or real-world situations tied into your student’s lives or education makes new learning more ‘sticky,’ meaning it is acquired and adopted easily. Referencing skills or ideas taught in previous lessons can also activate prior knowledge.

Lesson Plan Format
Formatting for lesson plans varies, yet content is fairly uniform across lesson plan templates. The standard content in each lesson plan usually includes:

The subject of the lesson
What prior knowledge or skills are needed or will be activated
The lesson objectives (should reference aspects of broader curriculum objectives)
Step-by-step procedural on how to execute the lesson
What assessments or performance evaluations will be included and where for the lesson
Outputs or deliverables by the end of the lesson
How the instructor/trainer/teacher will assess themselves and the lesson for improvement or alteration

Get as Much Review and Input as Possible
Lastly, make sure that as many people as possible look over and give feedback on your curriculum. This includes staff at your organization, other practitioners, volunteers, any instructors/trainers/teachers who will use it, potential students, and other CTC VISTAs. Get as many eyes on it as possible to ensure that it will be relevant, effective, well paced, and in line with reality.

Further Resources

Note: there are a multitude of specific curriculum guides available for a wide range of subject areas (particularly for medical or K-12 education) but very few on general curriculum development (for an afterschool program for example). You may find it useful to gleam as much information from specific curriculum development guides, as they can be applicable across subjects, fields, and purposes. Some of the resources below fit this description.

Informal Education (INFED)
(http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm)

How to create a (clerkship) curriculum
http://familymed.uthscsa.edu/ACE/chapter3.htm)

Curriculum Models from Chicago Public Schools
(intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Training/Curriculum_Model_Catalog.pdf)

Framework for (math) curriculum research and design
(http://www.mathcurriculumcenter.org/research_framework.php)

Volunteer Program Development

Kevin Palmer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:40:01 -0600

Volunteers are the backbone to most any nonprofit. VISTAs (who are also a type of volunteer) often have to set-up and develop volunteer recruitment and management programs and systems. Occasionally this is part of a VISTA workplan, but typically VISTAs create volunteer programs because they find that accomplishing their work without additional help would be nearly impossible.

What can volunteers do for you? Well, just about anything. Some nonprofits even have executive directors who are volunteers. Volunteers can fill any type of role, need, or niche.

Before You Recruit

Keep Outreach Materials on Hand
Outreach and recruitment materials are key towards getting qualified volunteers to come work with your organization. You should have a ready-to-go set of solid recruitment materials at your organization, which should include:

Single-sheet flyers or posters
Promotional DVDs
Ready-made “blurbs” about your organization and its volunteer opportunities (to be posted in community newsletters, college newsletters, volunteermatch.com, etc.)
Volunteer Fair kit (includes flyers, posters, reports, DVD’s, fold out display, banner with organization name)

Know the Legal Requirements
Your organization needs to be up to speed on exactly what the legal requirements for your volunteers are. For example, if you are finding volunteers to work with an afterschool media production program in a Boston Public School, you need to have each volunteer CORI checked (essentially a criminal background check) before they can work with any students or youth.

Create Applications and Agreement Forms
You may want to create a volunteer application form, but most nonprofits CTC VISTAs serve with are rather small, so often times volunteers will be brought on ad hoc and informally without an application. However you should definitely have a volunteer agreement form drafted that each volunteer must sign that stipulates their responsibilities and your organization’s responsibilities.

Recruitment

Define Your Ideal Volunteer
Draw up a list of the skills, availability, and qualifications for what you would call your ideal volunteer for each opportunity your organization has. For example an afterschool youth media program volunteer would need to be able to relate to youth, have the necessary media/production skills, be available from 2:00 PM - 4 PM Mondays through Fridays, has mentorship experience, etc.

Find Your Targets
Hopefully if you've fully defined your ideal volunteer, the process of finding such a volunteer will be easier since you can isolate and target the areas where your ideal volunteers live, work, study, and visit.

For example, if you are looking for more long-term or technical volunteers, for example someone with skills in web design or media production, then go find a local college or university that has a program strong in those departments. If you have a concert fundraising event, you can probably recruit unskilled volunteers locally through personal contacts or through posting at community centers.

There are also many effective online volunteer matching services as well such as volunteermatch.org, idealist.org and craigslist.org to post opportunities (especially easy if you keep ready-made recruitment ‘blurbs’).

Colleges, Universities, and Service-Learning
Colleges and universities are excellent sources of skilled and motivated volunteers. Nearly every college now has a volunteer or community service center that coordinates volunteer opportunities with local organizations for their students. Contact the volunteer/community service center director and explain your needs and they will likely recruit on-campus for you.

Service-Learning is a new movement at colleges and universities. S-L (also sometimes referred to as ‘experiential learning’) connects students’ course work with real-world community action. Typically these opportunities must be coordinated 2 months prior to the start of the next semester.

Individual professors may offer S-L opportunities or a local college/university may even have their own Service-Learning Department. S-L volunteers typically can do both direct service and/or capacity building depending on the course and the professor. It is highly recommended to seek out S-L opportunities.

Volunteers are not Made, but Asked
Most people will be more than happy to volunteer with you if you simply ask. Passive methods of volunteer recruitment such as flyers and online posting may get some volunteers, however research shows that most people will not seek out volunteer opportunities, but will volunteer if asked directly.

The Independent Sector, a nonprofit think-tank, published research stating that of “51 percent of teens reported that they were asked to volunteer, 93 percent actually did. The results were stark if young people were not asked: among the 49 percent who were not asked, 24 percent actually volunteered. In other words, teens were nearly four times more likely to volunteer if asked than if they were not.”

Interview Process

You will probably want to conduct an interview with potential volunteers unless it’s for one-off, informal events. During the interview you will want to lay out expectations of both the volunteer to the organization and your organization to the volunteer. It’s a good idea to get a ‘feel’ for the volunteer and make sure the opportunity is actually in line with their personal or professional interests of the volunteer.

When possible the staff person who will most closely work with the volunteer should be present during the interview. Definitive scheduling and availability of workdays, dates and hours should also be determined during the interview process.

Orientation

All volunteers should receive a basic orientation to your organization and how their volunteer work fits in with your organization and its mission. If necessary be ready to provide any training to ensure the volunteer is up to speed and prepared, for example if a volunteer is working with a youth media program that’s doing a photo project, make sure the volunteer is trained on digital camera use and Photoshop prior to volunteering.

You may also want to give the volunteer a printed out detailed job description, contact information for their supervisor, and even an organizational handbook (if you have one). If nothing else, make sure volunteer tasks are clear, concise, and communicated. Nothing extinguishes a volunteers’ spirit like not knowing what they’re supposed to do or being unable to say what they’ve accomplished after they’ve finished.

Management (VISTAs cannot directly do this!)

As you can guess, and hopefully what Project HQ informed you of during your PSO, VISTAs cannot be direct supervisors of volunteer labor. VISTAs can develop outreach materials, run recruitment drives, create orientation materials, but cannot be the direct supervisor of volunteers.

But this does not prevent you from creating volunteer management systems or databases, which are essential to managing any volunteers. The database system should include the name of the volunteer, phone number, address, why they joined, when and where they volunteered, etc.

There are a number of cheap and easy ways to set-up a volunteer management system/database on a shoestring budget. Here are some low-cost methods:

Spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel
Open-Source Content/Constituent Relationship Management software such as CiviCRM, Drupal, and Joomla
Google Docs spreadsheets and documents which are free and can be shared with anyone else who has a Gmail account
Salesforce.com Foundation donates free licenses to nonprofit organizations (www.salesforce.com/foundation/)

Retention

Informally known as the “60 day window”, the first 2 months a volunteer is with your organization is the length of time it takes to shape the volunteers’ attitudes towards the work, their supervision, and your organization. Make them feel like they belong or you may lose them after this period. Building volunteer relationships, recognizing volunteers, and maintaining open and clear communication are all key to retention.

Tips toward keeping volunteers happy, productive, and committed:

Take time to know your volunteers’ personal and professional skill-sets so you can put those to work for your organization
Make organizational language and terminology easy to understand (ditch confusing acronyms)
Proactively communicate news and events about your organization with volunteers
Reimburse volunteers for reasonable expenses incurred such as travel or food
Take your volunteers out to lunch
Have a volunteer recognition event or dinner with your volunteers and organizational staff

Evaluation

You will want to evaluate your volunteer program so you can:

Assess the quality of volunteer experiences with your organization
Measure the impact your volunteers have had with your organization and its programs
Find ways to improve your volunteer program
Identify causes of volunteer turnover
Develop recruitment strategies based on how people found out about volunteering at your organization

If you have already set-up a volunteer tracking database, evaluating your volunteer program will be much easier since some data will already be available to assess. This data is typically demographic and will help define the “who”, “what”, and “where” of your volunteers and program.

Beyond your database, you should develop and schedule regular volunteer surveys and exit interview questions. Here is where you can find out the “how” and “why” behind your volunteer program. All you have to do is gear your questions towards the information you want to see, such as “why was your experience as a volunteer good or bad?” or “how can we improve our volunteer opportunities?”

Further Resources

Free Management Library/Management Help
(http://www.managementhelp.org/staffing/outsrcng/volnteer/volnteer.htm)

Idealist.org Volunteer Management Central
(http://www.idealist.org/en/vmrc/)

CiviCRM
(http://civicrm.org/)

Salesforce.com Foundation
(http://www.salesforce.com/foundation/)