Volunteering & Volunteer Students

The Summer is upon us. The perfect time to volunteer.

The Summer is a time for people to get out, have fun, enjoy the sun and all the activities that go along with it. As people do, so do nonprofits. Local nonprofits hold a LOT of activities in the summer and always have a need for volunteers. Here are some fun and perhaps overlooked opportunities to volunteer:

1) Festivals/Fairs – Festivals and fairs are a lot of fun for everyone and often are attended by a LOT of people! Well, where there are a lot of people, there are a lot of nonprofits too! Festivals and fairs tend to allow nonprofits to have space inside the festival or fair for little or no cost to the nonprofit. They might even have a booth that provides food or beverages (mmmmmmm… beer on a hot summers day!) and always need volunteers to help promote their cause to the people that are at the festivals and fairs. Benefits to the Volunteer: It’s fun! It’s outdoors most of the time. You meet a lot of people. Sometimes there is free food or beverages for volunteers. It’s ususally just a short period of time and in the time you are volunteering, you can find out the best places to go and the best things to do at the festival or fair and go and enjoy those things after you are done with your “shift”.

2) Events/Fundraisers – If you like to meet people and don’t want to really attend a large or small event by yourself or just want to maybe help out for a short period of time, then find a charity event to be a part of. Even better, get your friends and or co-workers together and do it as a group! Fund raisers in the summer tend to be out door events. Activities such as “walks”, “runs”, “rides”, concerts, food festivals, etc usually have a charity component to them and can always use the help to pull the event off. Just a few hours of time you can volunteer make a HUGE difference for the charity that is putting on the event. Benefits to the Volunteer: Same as #1

3) Committees – If you really like to get involved and help organize and develop events, getting on a committee is the thing to do! Committees are often a great way to utilize your skills, contacts, knowledge and make a much more direct impact on a charity. The less outgoing type of people may really shine on a committee rather than out at events. Great skill sets for a committee member to have: Ability to think big pciture, ability to handle small details, ability to reach out to the community, ability to organize logistics of an event or program, ability to recruit others, ability to take good notes and organize them, ability to secure resources, ability to organize the resources supplied, ability to talk with people, ability to write letters and maintain other documents, databases, etc. Committees are a great way to get involved! Benefits to being on a committee: Networking, resume builder (in today’s economy this is a great way to show employers you are utilizing your skills even if not working), Possibly attend the event for free, learn new skills, meet new people, keep busy, know that your activity is making a difference and having a sense of accomplishment when your event or program is up and running, making new contacts personally and professionally because you have to do it for the committee.

4) Helping around the House – Sometimes charities need help around the house. Organizing documents, databases, with mailings, cleaning up, setting up, literally house cleaning and improving on space and other organizational assistance. Especially for small nonprofits, where there is maybe 1 or 2 staff members, if that, this is a HUGE… I know I have used that a bit, but honestly, it is a HUGE help for them. I know with us, having someone to work on our database takes a TON of time and for me (I’m the only “employee” eventhough I’m not paid), that is an enormous help. Having a volunteer to input things that take time, frees my time up to do the other things that allow us to survive as an organization. Benefits: Flexible time (Can fit to your schedule, sometimes you can even volunteer remotely for the orgnization by doing computer work at your own home), they tend to be projects, so there is a sense of accomplishment when the project is completed, getting to know a charity more intimately allows for you to be a greater supporter of the organization, and there are more, trust me! Especially if you are volunteering with an animal shelter!

5) Board Opportunities – Really want to up your participation and influence! Get on a charity Board! With over 28,000 nonprofits in Colorado, I’m sure you can find a Board position that you would like! This is where your knowledge and experience really come into play. You have the responsibility to look out for the mission and vision of the organization! You are part of the solution to a community challenge! The Benefits are too much to list, but take 1-4 benefits and apply here. Some things you should know about Board Membership… you are responsible for the organization. You are not only idealogically responsible, but fiscally responsible. Your name is directly tied to the charity literally and you need to know the inner workings of your charity so that you are truly looking out for it’s best interest and at the same time covering your own butt in case, God forbid, something happens. But truly, this is where you can have the greatest reward! Knowing that something your name is directly connected to is making a difference in your community is probably the greatest feeling in the world!

So there you have it. I know there are tons more out there, but we can’t possibly cover them all here, these are just a few that maybe you didn’t think about.

Have a great and fun Spring! Hopefully we will see you at our events or as a volunteer soon!

Everyone likes team players, people who are just looking to get the job done: complete the project, stay on budget or remain on schedule. Team players are the cogs making up the well-oiled machine that meets business or organization needs, the conventional wisdom goes.

But the fact remains that teams often need leaders: someone who sets direction, herds cats and makes sure that business or organization needs are being met. Teams need someone focusing on the strategic needs as well as the tactical needs.

Teams need someone like you.

You might protest, “I’m not a leader: I’m a team player!” And I’m sure you’re right: just as we’re socialized to be modest, we’re socialized to play well with others. A friend of mine is fond of saying that long-term, cooperation is the best success strategy and I think he is absolutely right.

But that does not in any way mean that being a team player and being a leader are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the two go together, hand in hand.

Sports metaphors sometimes can be hackneyed but to me the mark of a great coach is someone who puts his or her players in the best position to succeed. Is that any different from a leader in the workplace?

Several months ago at a networking meeting, I met an administrative assistant who is in transition. She was concerned that employers are seeking leaders but didn’t see how she demonstrated leadership in her job. I observed that by preparing the executive she supported and keeping him or her as free of distractions as possible, she was demonstrating leadership. Positioning others for success is the mark of a leader.

Leadership is peculiarly democratic: anybody can demonstrate leadership. From the perspective of positioning others to succeed, I think it’s clear that leadership is exhibited at any level of an organization, from C level executives to every other part of the organizational chart.

For most of my career, I did not think of myself as demonstrating leadership. Yet once I began to understand this truth, I realized that for years, I was selling myself short. In my first experience hiring, my then-manager offered me some invaluable advice: I wasn’t hiring someone to perform the position in the job posting but rather, someone who could do that and also be promotable thereafter.

He wanted me to hire a leader.

At the end of the day, demonstrating leadership helps you land your next job.

Young professionals, those of us that are 25 to 44 years of age, can really make a difference in our communities. Being from a very charity oriented community, I know the power that young professionals have and their ability to impact their community. Here in Denver, it’s just being realized.

The Power of young professionals is that they are liquid, they have money that they spend socially, in order to enjoy life and all it has to offer. Going out on a Wednesday night and spending $50 is typical. Heading to the mountains for a weekend and spending the same or more is also extremely typical. Young professionals tend to live the phrase “Work Hard, Play Harder”. Imagine the impact of that philosophy if the things they were doing anyway, were ALSO benefiting a charity! You Ski, you benefit charity. You party, you benefit charity. You shop, you benefit charity. You ride a bike, you benefit charity. You surf the web, you benefit charity. You play farmville, you bene…fit…. ok… maybe that went to far, but it’s possible isn’t it?!

It’s not just money that benefits charity. Young professionals also have time. They work hard but have time, nights and weekends to help out local charities as well. They can volunteer to help a charity do some mundane type work that will have to get done by someone. Young professionals can help nonprofits by freeing up some of their time from mundane tasks to allow the charity to focus on their mission and services and programs.

Young professionals also have knowledge! We have all heard the phrase, “Knowledge is Power”. Well, in the nonprofit world, not truer words are spoken! People that start nonprofits or a charity do so because they have a passion for a cause. This does not mean they have the KNOWLEDGE or SKILLS to develop and maintain it! The problem is, if you are a small nonprofit especially, only 1 or 2 staff members, it’s hard to find the resources to make your organization run smoothly, let alone hard enough to find the time to even LOOK for those type of resources! Young professionals have that knowledge and can provide that knowledge to charities to increase the resources of their favorite charity. And if they do not have the knowledge that is needed, they most likely have friends or fellow young professional co-workers that have the knowledge!

Here in Denver Colorado, the money, time and knowledge of young professionals is not just an opportunity to make a difference, it IS the difference. With 28,000 nonprofits in Colorado, and Colorado being 38th!!!! in giving to charitable causes, young professionals ability to take a look at what they can do simply by slightly changing where they hang out a few times a month, change how they look up things on the web, offering a few hours a month to phsycially help a charity, or offering their knowledge and experience a few hours a month to help a charity become a better run business IS the difference and will make the programs and services that charities offer the community more sustainable and resilent.

Its all about giving back. Here in Denver we really love our activities. Creating  activities for young professionals to give back is what we do at Denver Gives and are always looking for new opportunities that we can participate in to make the difference.