Add Tech Volunteers to Your Team

It’s almost impossible to effectively recruit and manage volunteers today without fully engaging technology.  Successful volunteer managers increasingly…

• Use volunteer management software to streamline their operations
• Maximize their organization’s website by posting volunteer applications, newsletters, position descriptions, photos,  videos, and more
• Utilize social networking sites
• Post and update volunteer positions on online recruitment sites
• Take advantage of free online software and tools like wikis and Google docs
• Blog and Twitter
• Employ multiple methods to communicate with volunteers including text messaging, Skype, and list-serves.

If you don’t have the staff or skills to manage this brave new world, you can improve your chances of success by adding tech volunteers to your team.  And, these individuals don’t  have to live in your community to be helpful!

Before you go in search of help, be sure to download TechSoup’s free manual,  Working with Technical Volunteers: A Manual for NPOs. This recently updated guide includes the latest tech specs to use during volunteer interviews. The manual also includes comprehensive worksheets, sample applications, volunteer contracts, and questionnaires.

Once you’ve developed your plan and written your volunteer position descriptions, you”ll want to begin your search.

Here are a few suggestions for building your team and finding individuals with the right skills:

1. Contact your local volunteer center, RSVP, or national volunteer matching programs such as http://www.volunteermatch.com or http://www.techsoup.org.
2. Get permission to put a notice on an electronic bulletin board or get included in an in-house newsletter at local corporations and high-tech companies.
3. Check with instructors at area high schools, colleges or technical schools for qualified students who may want some actual experience designing web sites and working on similar projects.
4. Try contacting university departments and campus organizations related to technology such as engineering and computer science.
5. Ask  colleagues at other nonprofits in  your community where they go for technical volunteers.
6. Ask board members and volunteers if they know of someone or if they can tell you where to post a job description.
7. User groups or clubs meet either in person or online to discuss different types of hardware and software. Look for them in your local computer newspaper (if you have one) or on the Internet. Yahoo! and Google user groups, Craigslist.org, and Yahoo’s hardware user groups are good places to start.

Related articles:

“Engaging Techie Volunteers,”  Judicious Web, April 23, 2009

“Technology Acceleration: Grab Hold and Hang On,”  Susan Ellis, Energizeinc.com, June 2007

Giving Is Good For Your Health

(ARA) – During times of economic downturn, you may have to dig a bit deeper into your pockets to make charitable contributions. However, you can still end up better off. In addition to the tax breaks giving can bring, as it turns out, giving is also good for your health.

“Several studies over the years have found links between altruistic behavior and improved physical and psychological health,” says Dr. Ann Vincent, an internal medicine physician at Mayo Clinic who researches the mind-body connection. “In general, I think altruism makes people feel better about themselves, which often translates into improved physical health. Other benefits that have been attributed to positive emotions include: enhanced creativity and ability to cope with stress and broadened cognition. In essence, thinking positively about ourselves is good for our physical and mental health.”

But the benefits of giving, whether in the form of volunteerism or making a donation, aren’t just a one-time deal. The more you give, the better you may feel, and that means finding ways to give back throughout the year. Generosity is also a wonderful survival skill to help you get through difficult times in your life.

“Recent studies have examined individuals who have survived trauma, natural disasters and being prisoners of war,” says Dr. Edward T. Creagan, an oncologist at Mayo Clinic. According to Creagan, people who seem to thrive in adversity have many characteristics in common, but especially a few:

• A sense of connectedness. The recognition that family and community are crucial to survival.

• A sense of altruism, somehow sharing of themselves to make the lives of others a little bit better.

• An optimistic attitude and sense of humor.

If you have trouble motivating yourself to give time, money or goods, focus on how giving back can benefit you. “There is a ‘helper’s high’ that people sometimes say they feel in connection with altruism/philanthropy,” says Vincent. “But that initial euphoria is also sometimes followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being.”

Philanthropy can also have positive effects that help people maintain or improve their physical and mental health. It often creates broader social networks, which can help people cope with stress and anxiety, and it can provide a sense of purpose and empowerment.

The emotional and physical benefits of philanthropy may be even more significant right now. Nonprofit organizations everywhere are increasingly looking for charitable individuals to partner with them in their goals for the future. Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit organization, is one of the world’s premier medical treatment and research facilities and is currently conducting a campaign to transform patient care, research and education. The gifts Mayo Clinic receives now will help people today, as well as benefit future generations of patients and medical professionals.

For more information on how giving can make a life-changing impact, visit www.mayoclinic.org/campaign.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Eight Reasons All Non-Profits Need a Website

A nonprofit organization can take advantage of the Internet for at least eight purposes:

• publicity
• public education
• fundraising
• volunteer recruitment
• service delivery
• advocacy
• research
• communication

Let us look at brief examples of each of these uses in turn.

Publicity

Good sites gain attention. Attention or awareness is exactly what all non-profits need… it accelerates fund-raising efforts, and enhances all the following essential needs:

Public Education

There’s a fine line between grabbing the public’s attention and educating the public about an important social problem or cause.Whatever the mission statement of your non-profit organization is, it needs to be presented with clarity to the various “publics” that all non-profits must influence if they are to be successful. All organizations have several different “publics” which they must influence in a positive way in order to achieve their organizational goals. Read more

It’s A Dog Eat Dog Nonprofit World

You would not be working at a nonprofit if there was not a passion for your mission that compensated for the sacrifices in salary and other benefits you could probably earn in the commercial world. That says something about the kind of people we are. Most of us are:

• Trusting. We cannot imagine that there might be bad people in our idealized world

• Optimistic. How could we survive if we did not believe we really could make a difference?

• Sympathetic. We are mostly attracted to needy causes or people;

• Non-confrontational. We mostly like consensus and seek agreement.

• Collaborative. Our comfort level is with working as a team rather than going it alone.

These are admirable and useful qualities to have in the nonprofit world. However, there are other people in your industry who do not fit this description. Read more