The Heroes with a Heart Grant Celebrates Unsung Non-Profit Heroes

If you’re like most people, you get most of your inspiration from people who are quietly changing the world each and every day. They’re not on the front page of the newspaper, and they’re not mingling with the Gates and Buffets of the world. They’re everyday people like you and me who have shown extraordinary commitment to making this world better than when they found it.

The CTK Foundation “Heroes with a Heart” Grant Award asks YOU to nominate a “Hero with a Heart,” and give them a chance to win $5,000 – a simple thanks for the hard work that they do.

What are the details of the
“Heroes with a Heart” Grant?

Here’s an overview of awards the CTK Foundation will offer and details on how you can nominate your Hero:

• $15,000 for Three Heroes One Hero with a Heart from each of the three categories of Health and Human Social Service, Animal Rights and Environmental Protection and Arts and Literacy will be awarded $5,000 USD and a professionally produced video about their affiliated nonprofit for use in public awareness or education.
• $1,500 for One Hero The CTK Foundation will also be offering a $1,500 (USD) President’s Choice Award (the Susan Lee Winter Grant Award) for an individual working to provide creative and innovative approaches to HIV/AIDS education or prevention.
• Blogger’s Choice Award Lastly, there will be a Blogger’s Choice Award of $1,000 (USD). The CTK Foundation will choose a blogger (hopefully me) who will hand-pick one winner from any category.

Applications for all Heroes with a Heart grant awards open on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 and close Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at midnight. Finalists will appear on the CTK Facebook page for public voting during April and winners will be announced on May 1, 2012. This award is open to registered nonprofits or charities of all types and sizes, worldwide.

Go to www.communitytech.net/foundation to nominate your Hero with a Heart today!

For regular updates on the Heroes with a Heart Grant, check out the CTK Facebook Page.

Good luck, Heroes!

Do you have a favorite volunteer? Want to thank them, with MONEY? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on February 1, 2012.

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You don’t have to look hard in the nonprofit world to find lots of advice about how to get your board to “get over their fear” for asking for money, to become more engaged in fundraising, to just get out there and raise money. The fact that there are so many books, webinars, blogs and workshops on this topic should tell you something to begin with: it ain’t working.

This isn’t surprising to me, because in thirty years of serving on boards, and after having asked dozens of people to join those boards, I can tell you that the single most common question I have been asked by prospective board members is, “I won’t have to make phone calls to ask for money, will I? I hate to ask for money.”

And yet somehow we continue to believe that these volunteers – who are, by the way, willing to take on the liability and accountability for an organization – can be transformed into askers who will ceaselessly pound their well heeled friends for money. They probably won’t. They most likely haven’t.

Okay, so if many of the board do not want their board role to cross into their personal life, what’s teh staff of nonprofits supposed to do to work most effectively with the board?

1) First and foremost, focus on seeing the board as a group of leaders, not a collection of individual donors. This mindset is critical to the success of nonprofits, who tend to focus on the short-term “What funds can this board member provide or get for us?” rather than the long term overview that is really the board’s job. And that’s the whole board as a group, a body who collectively make decisions and have one voice. Their roles as individuals are rarely critical to the life of the organization, but the organization is completely reliant on their decisions as a group.

2) Don’t turn your board meetings into pep rallies for donors. If your board meetings are thinly veiled sessions designed to increase board donations, the real work of your board is being undermined (and of course the board understands that they are being treated as donors, not overseers.) Focusing only on the board as donors gets in the way of the complex and demanding work the organization needs them to do. Let board meetings be about the board’s job.

3) Use the board as a sounding board. Ask their opinions about events, about people, about plans you have for development. And then listen. Really listen. A frequent complaint of board members is that they are smiled at too often, in a somewhat patronizing way. These are your organization’s most committed volunteers, your leadership. If you want them to take your work seriously, take them seriously.

4) Don’t dismiss the idea that “the ask” is costly for some. It can set up a quid pro quo system (if your friend buys a ticket to your benefit you have to buy one for theirs, etc…) as well as personal obligations that are often uncomfortable for people. Take this discomfort seriously – just because board members are well connected doesn’t mean that they are obligated to use their personal connections. Board members who feel too pressured about fundraising are rarely effective or committed board members because they will shy away from being around the organization.

5) Encourage board members to participate in ways that they enjoy. The credibility added by having a board member in a public role, or coming with staff to meetings, is an enormous asset. Try inviting board members to join you in your work, or suggest interesting options for them to consider in which they can shine as board members representing your organization, like these:

• Joining the staff on any advocacy meetings and site visits. This not only lends credibility, and also brings the perspective of board leaders, but it’s great training ground for board members.

• Accompanying the executive director or development staff on fundraising visits, again speaking as a board member. Individual board members have a powerful voice here, and again, lend credibility. (“Our board really cares.”) A lot of board members really enjoy doing this – it doesn’t put them personally on the spot.

• Speaking in public. People listen when a board member speaks out about the program and the organization. It’s impressive when the speaker is a member of a board and wants to talk about their experience and the work of that organization. Some boards have offered training in public speaking to their members.

• Writing editorials and opinion pieces, and responding to the writing of others, signing everything as a board member. It packs a punch when the voice is that of a leader of the organization.

Utilizing the strengths of your board members to represent the organization in their leadership role creates an engaged and committed board. And those are exactly the people you need to make the long term decisions for your organization.
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Thank you very much Ms. Peters for sharing your wisdom on engaging boards! You are so right on. You should follow Alexandra Peters on Twitter @alexandrapeters

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Are you pressuring your board? Guest post by Alexandra Peters originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on June 8, 2011.

Okay, enough of ME offering to help you! Here’s how other people can help you!

Have you ever wanted to get MORE done every day?

Have you ever been frustrated with how little it seems like you can accomplish in your office?

Have you ever just been totally stuck with everything you have to do, and wondering, “HOW can I become 5 people so I can get all of my work done?”

I have a host of resources for you!

Idealist.org

It’s for more than just jobs! It looks like they have a blog now as well, and possibly, if you post a volunteer request there, people will come and volunteer for you.

VolunteerMatch

Volunteermatch.org
Volunteermatch is an excellent source of volunteers. Do you need an extra pair of hands at your big event? Perhaps volunteermatch can help you.

HandsOn
Another volunteering site!

Sparked.com

The Extraordinaires have turned into: http://www.sparked.com/.
Go there! Microvolunteering opportunities! Maybe you need a lawyer to look over a legal document. Maybe you need someone to edit your appeal letter and make it better. Check them out. It’s virtual volunteering at its best.

One thing I’ve noticed though, is that sometimes volunteers can’t always do what you need them to do, to your standards.

I’m thinking of one cringe-worthy day when I had people from a company come to volunteer at my nonprofit and I got together phone-a-thon resources and thought that everyone knew that we needed them to come and do a phone-a-thon and they got there and 90% of the people said, “Oh hey, I don’t want to do fundraising, I just want to, you know, do some clean-up tasks or something.” So then I had to scramble to find things for them to do while simultaneously trying to direct the phone-a-thon. It was a MESS. They left in a huff after doing some random tasks. I stayed and finished the phone-a-thon with the 2 volunteers I had left. It was better than nothing. We got a few thousand dollars that day.

So, if you have a little bit of money, may I suggest “Fancy Hands”?

I love Fancy Hands

Fancy Hands is Ted Roden’s new company. It will take $35 per month and do 15 tasks for you. They must be virtual tasks, they can’t be stuff like “Go pick up my drycleaning” (which is just as well, because I don’t DO drycleaning.) But for example, I asked them to research some things for me, and they GOT ON IT, and DID IT! It was incredible.

If you want unlimited tasks, it’s $55/month. Pretty sweet.

And before you say, “Oh, they must outsource all of their tasks to India,” let me tell you, no, actually, everyone I’ve talked with has been in America, and they are all very nice, and all write English perfectly. So, it’s helping to employ people in America, while at the same time getting things done for your nonprofit, at a higher standard than a volunteer might be able to do!

So they’re not paying me to say this or anything, I am just so happy with their service that I thought I would share.

Also, I’ve used Ted Roden’s service http://enjoysthin.gs for awhile, and I really like it, and now I like his new project too! he’s always doing fun things to help people.

Oh yeah, PS! Another little fun thing that my friend Cait Stuff turned me on to is http://750words.com. It’s a place to help you write, and it has cute little graphics that track your mood and what you write about, but you have total privacy, it doesn’t share your writing with anyone. It’s like doing the artist’s way, with more details, and it reminds you to write every day too! So this is a place to help you do your journaling. Which is part of self-care, remember! Take care of yourself! Get help! Have fun!

Do you need some help? Where can you get it? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on May 5, 2011.

This post is 3 posts for the price of one!

Today I have a post on Causevox about how fundraising is like ice cream. Go check it out!

Excerpt from that post:
“You have one lick, and then you want more and more! It’s so delicious that you wonder why everyone isn’t eating it.

You get totally inside of it, and then you remember, oh, snap, I can’t create a whole fundraising meal out of this!

It’s, like, fun, but, like, lacks nutritional value.

And by nutritional value, I mean that you wouldn’t want to make every meal out of ice cream. You’d want to include it once in awhile.

What DOES have nutritional value?”

Read more.

I never told anybody this, but this is the story about how I started fundraising, a guest article on Empowered.org.

“I’ve never told anyone this, but I started out fundraising as a volunteer.

When I was twelve, I walked the 26 mile Walk for Hunger in Boston two years in a row. I got pledges on my pledge sheet that people would pay depending on how many miles I walked. I remember eating the juicy orange slices, and the blisters on my feet the next day. I remember feeling the sweet relaxation that total exhaustion can bring.

Somehow, this experience didn’t come to mind when I started to think about what to do with my life. Fast forward to sitting in NYC at my job at the Economist, 7am, September 11th, 2001. It was quiet, but eerily quiet. Something felt odd. Someone came running into the room. “A tower exploded! We can go home!”

So I started to walk slowly down towards where the towers were. Dust filled the air. Mobs of people ran to and fro. I was strangely calm. The next day I walked to work on deserted streets, where not even a cab went. That was the day where I decided that there was more to life than New York and commuting and editing at the Economist. I handed in my resignation that month.”

Read more.

And a post up on http://YouStartMonday.com about how getting a job in the nonprofit sector is a good idea, and how you can start to transition into the sector.

Here’s an excerpt from that post:

“If you are an HR professional, a web programmer, a graphic designer, an accountant, or even a plumber, you can find a place in a nonprofit. How do you take your skills and core competencies and translate these into a nonprofit job? Check out this worksheet from the Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College.

If you’d like to read more about the Texas Nonprofit Sector, I’ve got a blog post with the latest stats here.

How much do jobs at nonprofits pay? You can research this for each nonprofit that you look at. Go to Guidestar.org. Go to the nonprofit’s 990 form. You can see if they have made more money for the last several years, or if they are in the red instead of the black. You can see how much their chief executive makes. You can extrapolate from this what your salary range will be.”

Read more

Why Online Fundraising is like Ice cream! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on March 7, 2011.

From Barbara Bedoni on Flickr

So, I’m going to speak it out loud, this is the dirty little secret of our profession, as development staff, as fundraisers.

Some of us, not all of us, but some of us are Type As. We like to be in control of every little thing. We like to be in charge of grantwriting, events, appeals, graphic design, newsletters, everything. We do. We take pride in the accomplishments that we achieved alone.

But sometimes, I mean, this responsibility gets too much. You CAN control everything, but then, also, you’ve got some serious burnout to contend with.

So, you know you need to learn how to delegate. Don’t lie. Come on. Delegation will keep you sane. Delegation will make people less dependent on you. And you WANT that. Because if you can have time to do other things, you will be able to do a better job.

SO GET YOUR ASS IN DELEGATION MODE!

Answer the What, Who, When and How, and you will be halfway to having the help you need.

First, WHAT can you delegate?

Let’s see. Everyone knows that you can have volunteer ushers and event staff. You can even get people from your local starbucks to volunteer at your event and have that be another way you can make money. What else? Grant research. Grantwriting. Interviewing program staff for grants. Volunteers can help you stuff envelopes, if you haven’t farmed that out yet. Writing e-newsletters. Designing your newsletter. Redesigning your website. Calling in a phone-a-thon. Gardening at your facility. Getting inkind donations for your office by calling around to local businesses.

Second, WHO can you delegate to?
Where do you find volunteers? Here’s a post I wrote about that.
It goes into the MANY places you can find volunteers.

If you want to create a compelling description that will have interns BEATING DOWN YOUR DOOR, you can use this one that I have used, with great effectiveness.

Third, WHEN can you get help?
Create a schedule for people who will be helping you.

Fourth, HOW will people be helping you?
So you’ve got to match people to tasks. But it’s not as simple as that. You need to match the right person to the right task. If I were you, I would buy this checklist that you can give volunteers to help them feel valued for their unique strengths and talents, which will keep them coming back, again and again!

Make the most of your volunteers. Give them this checklist, and help them use their strengths! From The Wil…

Fifth, and finally, assign the tasks and CHECK IN with people and see how they’re doing.

Yeah, you know you need to learn how to delegate, how about right now? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on March 2, 2011.

> Thanks so much for your follow up. Ours is a nascent nonprofit, established
> in August 2010. As a brief backgrounder, I’ve spent the bulk of the previous
> four months establishing the legal structures, building a board and
> a network for supporting long-term growth. I have a media/advertising
> background (both church and state; prepress/on air/design/placement). In all
> of my heretofore volunteer efforts with nonprofits, I’ve served as the
> marketing chair.
>
> Our nonprofit applies a solution to systemic poverty for women that I
> haven’t found in my research prior to establishing Women With Drive
> Foundation. Our mission is to provide a woman with a car (including assuming
> maintenance costs) for two years. In exchange, she undergoes an extensive
> assessment to identify her specific barriers to independence (ie. education,
> financial acumen). With the results of the findings, she and a program
> officer draft a two year plan designed to address her challenges with our
> common goal being her independence. Many nonprofits provide interview
> skills, clothing and other training, but when the rubber literally needs to
> meet the road, few provide an actual vehicle and none provide our two year
> program.
>
> Therefore, a lot of what I’m doing is building the basement and the roof at
> the same time, so to speak.
>
> With little to no immediate funds on hand, I need to do three things:
>
> 1. Build a strong, engaged donor base.
> 2. Explore grants.
> 3. Determine how to become self-sustaining.
>
> I know nothing about any of those things. I value your expertise and welcome
> anything you can do to help. I’ve served as a free-lance consultant
> for marketing, social media and general design, and so I completely respect
> your right to be paid for your expertise. One of my solutions to square the
> circle regarding our staffing needs is to strategically retain professionals
> to provide interim skills until we need/can afford full time staff.
>
> Please let me know what I may do to help you.
>
> Again, my thanks for your consideration.
>
> Best,
> M.

Hi Molly!

First off, I love that you’re helping women get wheels. When I worked in a domestic violence shelter, this is something that would hamper women in getting the services that they needed, whether baby-sitting, counseling, welfare, etc. A car can mean the difference between a job and no job, and between a woman having to return to an abuser or not. Thank you for recognizing this.

Fundraising and marketing are kind of similar, so don’t sell yourself short when it comes to saying you don’t know about fundraising. Chances are, a lot of the same principles you learned in marketing, you can use in fundraising.

1. I checked out your web presence, and you need a website, not a ning group. The ning group is closed, and you need to be OPEN. Open for business! Open for taking donations! Capeesh?
2. You need to figure out who you know.
3. You need a comprehensive fundraising plan.
4. You need someone to help you WORK your fundraising plan. SO, you need training for your fundraising volunteers.

So first, let’s see who you know. This link takes you to a place where you can get a worksheet that will help you identify potential areas of overlap for funders and donors in your community.

For a fundraising plan,
Think about what you can reasonably do, and what you can unreasonably do.

When I first started fundraising, I thought fundraising was grants. I then found out that it was much much more, but this was over time, and it took me a long time to figure out what it was.

So that’s why I wrote my book, to be the fun, engaging primer to fundraising that I never had.

Fundraising is grants. It’s also appeals, marketing, mobile giving, events, social media engagement, lean systems, conflict management, volunteer recruitment and management, teaching other people how to fundraise, major giving, e-newsletters, and more. It’s a big job. Best done by a team of people. Who I teach you to find and train. My book covers all of this. It’s really too long to write in a blog post. It took me 180 pages to do it, and 80 pages of a resource CD on top of that.

Since you said you wanted to learn the process of fundraising, I would suggest that you buy my book, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, because that is an excellent primer in every major aspect of fundraising, with the exception of Major gifts. Mal Warwick’s books are a big help there.

My book is a good investment, as it ALSO comes with an 80 page resource CD with templates to help you start to apply the tools I give you IMMEDIATELY to your nonprofit, whether grants, marketing, getting volunteers, or even creating a one-page development plan. (You can buy the book here.)

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Reader Questions: Bootstrap your nonprofit startup in 4 steps! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on February 8, 2011.

The New York Times may ALSO have some style pieces about women that are not based in reality. Perhaps “small but growing” is code for “three people I found on the corner two hours before deadline.”

ORLY. Have YOUR volunteers pushed back?

GUILTING
Hilary Stout writes, “Some complain that the system preys on maternal guilt and that it creates a sense that a mother’s worthiness is measured in how many hours she puts in at her children’s schools.”

Don’t get me wrong, volunteers are the thing that makes our organizations move.

There’s no way we, as a sector, could survive without volunteers. They do everything from drive buses for our seniors to chaperoning field trips to cleaning our offices and answering the phone.

The last thing we want though, is a volunteer who doesn’t want to be there. And I do not know about you, but I don’t think GUILT is a very good motivator. Do you agree?

VERY DEMOTIVATIONAL
Have you ever had a volunteer for whom everything was a chore, they were always texting on their phone, and couldn’t wait to get out of there?

Did you ask them to do something, and did they sigh a lot, and sidle away and did you catch them an hour later just taking a walk instead of doing the job?

How can you avoid the situation of over-pushing volunteers, or getting volunteers who don’t want to do the task assigned?

How can you make sure that volunteers feel valued and appreciated?

Perhaps Schools Need a Little Help?
If you’re involved in a primary or secondary school, advocate and agitate for more money to be given to teachers, classroom aides and to people who are actually doing the work on the ground in schools.

Our art, music, and shop programs have been systematically divested of funds across the USA, from Florida to LA. (Follow links for more details)

That money has gone somewhere else. We need to put it back into the people providing the service of education.

If people are so burnt out from volunteering at schools, we need to look at another way of fixing our broken educational system.

Namely, actually hiring enough people to do the work. And making the quality of education better with electives like woodshop, electronics, painting, sculpture, choir, dance, and band.

There is no reason why kids and parents should have to struggle so hard to get a decent education. The money is out there.

In the meantime, if you want to do something to help you fit your volunteers with the correct task in your organization, use this checklist.

And, of course, fact-check all of your New York Times “Style” or “Trend” articles.

Make the most of your volunteers. Give them this checklist, and help them use their strengths! From The Wil…

Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering? REALLY? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on December 6, 2010.

Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist

First off, who is Brian Massey and why should you care?

Brian Massey was recommended to me by my good friend Vicki Flaugher. When she makes recommendations, I listen, so I started to research Brian. He runs a consulting business called “The Conversion Scientist.” What this means is that he helps people buy your products or services.

The way this relates to you and your nonprofit is that we can easily apply these principles to getting people to donate to your cause.

I scheduled a phone call with him last week, and he gave me lots of good ideas on how to get more people interested in what I’m doing, and help them buy.

You, as a nonprofit marketer, are in the unique position of being able to address a larger social issue, and then boil it down to how your nonprofit helps, and then parse it down even more specifically into how a donor can take action to help you.

You go from ‘BIG SOCIAL PROBLEM’

to ‘WHAT WE DO’

to ‘NOW YOU CAN DO SOMETHING TOO.’

You are solving the problem that they have, and if the donor likes what you’re doing, they are primed to give to you.

Here are two things that I learned from Brian Massey.

1. Your front page design needs to make it easy to see what you do.

How easy are you making it to buy? What is a pain point?

Now here’s how I’m going to break it down for you.

Have you ever gone through the donation process on your own website? Have you watched someone else do it?

How easy are you making it to give?

Is your donate button above the fold? (The fold is where the screen cuts off the rest of your website, when someone first comes to your website.)

Is it clear what your nonprofit does, how transparent you are, and how the problem gets solved, all above the fold?

Can people sign up for your newsletter above the fold?

Can people find you on Twitter and other social networks above the fold?

Do you have social proof, above the fold, that lots of people are supporting what you do?

(If you answered yes to ALL of the above, you’re in good shape, really, tell ME what to do sometime!)

It may be impossible to put ALL of this above the fold, but you can prioritize which ones you’d like to emphasize, and make sure they’re SOMEWHERE on your front page.

2. Are you optimizing your donate page?

When it comes to donating, what’s on your donate page?

Is it JUST a form for their credit card information?

Shame shame!

What if they want to do a monthly gift?

What if they are interested in bequests?

What if they want to make a request for your nonprofit to come and speak to their social group?

What if they want to learn more about corporate giving?

What if they want to have their donation deducted from their paycheck?

What if they want to donate AND volunteer?

What if they want to give in-kind donations to your nonprofit?

What if they want to blog about your nonprofit after giving?

What if they want to organize an event for your nonprofit?

What if they want to set up their own donation page on your website and direct their friends and family there?

Do you see now how you could be leaving more than money on the table, but other opportunities to engage with this donor?

You could easily put checkboxes on your site where people could sign up to do MORE for your organization.

Here are some articles Brian Massey’s written. You can apply these to your nonprofit. If you need some support with that, I am available to help your nonprofit.

Making your e-newsletter

Making a landing page

Measuring your social media return

Reading your web stats and making sense of them

Helping set up a place to experiment and make mistakes

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What you can learn from Brian Massey about using social media to get donations originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on November 4, 2010.

The nonprofit has a phone-a-thon going on.

You don’t WANT to do a phone-a-thon, even though the nonprofit stated this was the opportunity.

So the nonprofit staff person tries to find something else for you to do.

You are asked to organize some file folders.

You feel annoyed, and think, “Isn’t there some other way I could be making a difference?”

The nonprofit staff person feels angry. “Isn’t it hard enough to run a phone-a-thon without also having to supervise people doing something else too?”

And then, someone says, “This is AWKWARD. I’m leaving.”

Bad feelings all around.

How can you avoid this type of situation?

When you’re going to volunteer at a nonprofit, whether it’s for one hour or one year, be clear about your expectations.

Email or call the person in charge of volunteers before the assignment. Ask for details about the assignment.

If you have any doubt about whether or not you will enjoy the assignment as stated in the volunteer job description you received, don’t do it.

The nonprofit person’s job is not to make sure you have a good time, but to carry out the mission.

Your obligation is to make sure that you honor your commitment, once you make it.

It’s not a terribly difficult equation, but it’s remarkable how many nonprofits and potential volunteers screw this up.

If a nonprofit is organized enough to offer you a series of jobs that need doing, and ask you to pick one, that should be a good sign that they care about who you are and what you are capable of. If there is one job to do the day you show up, then do it or bow out gracefully.

Want to see a volunteer job checklist that helps people WANT to volunteer at your organization?

Make the most of your volunteers. Give them this checklist, and help them use their strengths! From The Wil…

Here is one that I made. If you’d like to see the full version, it’s $5.00.

Or you can buy The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising when it comes out, which will be $45.00 for the book, and Resource CD, which has over 80 pages of templates for you to use, and every resource I’ve posted on Scribd. Like a fundraising office in a box!

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How NOT to volunteer originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on November 3, 2010.

I also had a full page article in Special Events Galore! October edition, a subscription based newsletter.

And finally, I had a post on Sharp Skirts about The Power of Free.

So, thank you NetSquared, Sharp Skirts and Special Events Galore so much for these opportunities!

Here is how you can find volunteers.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of your organization. Your board are volunteers, and they are responsible for the oversight of everyone at your nonprofit or charity.

Volunteers are also there for you when you need to do an appeal mailing, when you’re stuck with one hundred phonecalls you need to do for a phone-a-thon, when you need someone to do grant research for you, or pro-bono graphic design, when you’re tired and just want to go home.

Volunteers are so wonderful. And they save your organization $18 for every hour they’re there.

So where do you find these wonderful, mythical creatures?

1. Your donor database. Is there anyone in there, a loyal donor, who could be engaged as a volunteer?

2. Volunteermatch.org. You can post volunteer opportunities on here, and it’s a wonderful place to get volunteers.

3. Local faithbased organizations. Many faithbased organizations give a donation to a nonprofit each month. If you already have such an organization, why not ask if you can go speak to their group and ask for volunteers? There are tons of people in these organizations who love to help others. Give them a compelling story, and mention how you want to offer a fun gardening opportunity for them (for example).

4. The Extraordinaires. This is so fun. This website helps you connect with volunteers that may have 15 minutes or 1 hour to help you, but they can be anywhere in the world. So if you have a legal document that you need a lawyer to look over, you can start a volunteer opportunity on here. Maybe you have a grant you’d like to get edited, or some research that needs to be done. You can get volunteers to do that here too.

5. Craigslist. You never know, right?

6. Local corporations. Many people working in corporations would love to volunteer for you. You can frame it as a team-building activity, and possibly get an in for employee giving campaigns if you do this.

7. High schools. Many high schools have a requirement to do 20 or more hours of service before they graduate. I know I had to do a lot of community service in a library before I could graduate.

8. Local universities. Tons of students are looking for real world experience in everything from graphic design and marketing to case management to environmental stewardship. Why not do a little outreach and see if you can get people interested in the volunteer opportunities you have available?

Thanks for reading! If there are any other places you can think of to find volunteers, I’d love to see your ideas in the comments!

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8 places to find volunteers originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on September 29, 2010.