Nonprofit Agency Toolkit

We are looking for projects!
What can volunteers do for your agency?  Join us for the 12th annual Day of Caring on Thursday, September 13, 2007!  We’ll start with a light breakfast at the Grand Traverse Mall at 7:00 a.m. We anticipate nearly 1,000 volunteers to register for this year’s Day of Caring. They want to paint walls, read to kids, stuff envelopes, plant trees and more, and not just for the day.  We would like volunteers to pledge volunteer hours all year….but let’s start with one hour!  Read further to learn how your organization can benefit from the skilled and enthusiastic volunteers available on the Day of Caring.

The goals of the Day of Caring are:
1)  Celebrate volunteerism with volunteers gathering together to do a day/year of service at non-profit agencies in our community.
2)  Promote a Year of Caring, emphasizing that volunteers are needed all year round.
3)  Raise awareness of the needs of the community all year round.

New projects this year include:

• Spruce up your local neighborhood school
• Collecting a semi load of non-perishable food items for the Northwest Michigan Food Coalition. 
     (38 area food pantries need food items)
• An on-sight “Sign-up” for Corporate teams to pledge volunteer hours for the coming year.

Participation in the Day of Caring is easy and convenient.  Service organizations, faith based organizations, schools, and families are invited to participate.  Activities will extend into the weekend, another month or throughout the year in order to allow those volunteers with work or school conflicts to participate.

Project Development Worksheet

Identify three unmet needs at your agency.
What can be done to meet those needs?

Identify unmet needs in the community that your agency could address.
What can be done to meet those needs?

Who does your agency serve? Who are your clients?
What would enrich their lives?
What activities can you do only with volunteer help?

What events or fundraising activities does your agency sponsor annually?
What could be improved about each of those activities?
How can that be accomplished by a group of volunteers?

What were you talking about when you said, “I wish we had the time,
resources, volunteers to…”
What would be involved to make those ideas a reality?

Looking around your agency, what physical improvements can be made?
Take a look around the inside, the outside, the offices, closets and files.

Developing a Day of Caring Project

Identify Unmet Needs at Your Agency
Are there projects at your agency that have never been finished or maybe projects that never even got started? Maybe past projects that can be expanded? Does your agency have a wish list? Are there new initiatives you would like to kickoff on the Day of Caring? Take a look at annual events, daily activities and the well-being of your clients—can any of these be improved through a Day of Caring project? Can a small or large group of volunteers accomplish these tasks on September 13?  Another month? 

Meet With Your Colleagues
Use time during a staff meeting or set aside another time to speak with your coworkers about the Day of Caring. Ask them to brainstorm how volunteers can help them. Use the enclosed worksheet to generate ideas or ask them to visit www.startherestaynear.com.

Develop a Project Budget
Determine how much your agency can contribute to the cost of the project. Project costs include supplies and materials necessary to complete the project. Bear in mind that you may solicit donations of lumber, paint and other materials from local businesses. You may also ask the volunteer team to bring some inexpensive supplies.

Determine Who Will Coordinate Each Project
If you have multiple projects at your agency, it is important that there be one person responsible for each project. That way, each volunteer team has access to someone before and during the project if they have questions.

Identify and Manage Risk Involved With Your Project
Once you determine a potential project, review each task involved. Identify potential risk factors, including volunteers’ use of tools, threat of injury, your clients’ safety, etc. Check with your insurance carrier and determine if volunteers are covered under your agency’s policy.

Day of Caring Project Ideas

Special Notes
Please consider your ongoing volunteer needs and how they may be adapted to involve Day of Caring volunteers. This is a great opportunity to expose potential volunteers to your program which will hopefully generate some committed volunteers. For example, Meals on Wheels gives their regular volunteers the day off, while Day of Caring volunteers deliver meals to their clients.

Adding on to that idea, another group of volunteers could wash the cars that belong to the regular Meals on Wheels volunteers in appreciation for their service. Other possibilities might include mentoring or tutoring youth.

You’d be surprised how many volunteers request projects that we would usually consider mundane work. Volunteers want to stuff envelopes, attach labels to annual reports, shred old papers, etc. It’s a day off from work that they can make a difference, while visiting with their coworkers. For others, they want to make a difference and be able to return to the office clean. If you don’t have room on site to do a 2,000 piece mailing, there are lots of volunteer teams that want to bring the project to their office and complete it there.

Please also consider projects that are available to be done off site at the volunteers’ offices. Many groups want to participate but are not able to allow an entire staff to volunteer. Last year, a letter-writing campaign to our troops was very popular as it accommodated more than 100 volunteers and could be done off-site. Other projects would include bulk mailing, knitting, sewing, etc.

If you decide to change the date of your project at the last minute, please let us know.  We send a news release with times and places to the media and send out United Way employees to take pictures and video of your projects.  Please keep us informed when and where your project is going to happen.

If you sign up a project by yourself, please let us know.  We send out faxes, letters, e-mails and actively recruit for your project on a daily basis.  If we do not know that you have already signed up a business to adopt your project, we continue to work for a match.  Again stay in contact. 

Questions?  Don’t hesitate to call Susan L. McQuaid at 922-7338, or better yet, e-mail susan@unitedway.tcnet.org