Business Toolkit

We are looking for Day of Caring volunteers!
 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 7:30 a.m. We anticipate nearly 1,000 volunteers to register for this year’s Day of Caring. We can’t do it without your participation.  Can you  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 easy it is to sign up.
 
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)
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.

You can use Day of Caring as a team building exercise.  The benefits are plentiful for all concerned with Day of Caring. The non-profit agencies get thousands of hours of donated labor, enabling them to complete projects they desperately need to accomplish. Meanwhile, the volunteer teams build camaraderie and a greater sense of community needs and the joy of service.  

Sign up to volunteer today!  Questions?  Call Susan L. McQuaid, Director of the Volunteer Center at 922-7338.  We look forward to working with you.

Forming a Day of Caring Volunteer Team
Determine a Team Leader who will be responsible for communicating with the United Way Volunteer Center, the sponsored agency and the volunteers.

It is encouraged that large volunteer teams break into smaller teams to staff projects.  You may choose to form teams based on department, interest or availability.

Determine your team’s interest.  Do they want to work with clients, provide landscaping or clerical assistance?  Does your team want to do physical activity?  Or not.  Do they want to work in the morning, afternoon or all day?  Select projects that will interest all members of your team.  Can’t make the commitment on the Day of Caring, September 13, 2007?  Remember you can volunteer during the Day of Caring or on the weekend, or another month or all year long.

Unfortunately your first choice of a volunteer project might already be taken by another group of volunteers.  Please give some thought to your second and third choice.  We will try our best to match you with your interests.

Designate a team coordinator for each small team – someone who can communicate with the agency and make sure the team is ready for the project.  However, correspondence from United Way will go only to one team leader per company.  This person is then responsible for forwarding information to the coordinators of the smaller teams.

Most companies provide “release time” for employees to participate in company-sponsored volunteer activities.

Use the company e-mail list, or internal newsletter to announce your company or organization’s participation in the Day of Caring, and to recruit volunteers.  Feel free to pass along the Day of Caring web site address. www.Startherestaynear.com Personalize the Day of Caring recruitment poster to recruit your employees.

After you have signed up your team, the United Way Volunteer Center staff will contact you with your matched interests.  Contact the non-profit agency and introduce yourself!

Ask these questions:

• The time your team should arrive at the project site.
• Supplies required of your team.
• Supplies that the agency will provide.
• Appropriate clothing
• Skills necessary (especially for construction projects)
• Directions to the project site (not necessarily at the agency)
• How long it will take to get there (especially for outlying counties)
• Parking details (should you carpool?)
• Food arrangements (Who provides snacks, lunch, drink?)
• Bathroom facilities (for outdoor projects)
• Rain plans  (Will your project take place if it’s raining?  Will you reschedule?  How should the agency coordinator contact you if it is raining in the morning?  How will you inform your volunteers?)
• Nametags?
• Sign the waiver-of-liability forms and fax to the United Way Volunteer Center at 231-947-3201.
• Consider a time that you can visit the project site prior to the Day of Caring.
• Who from your team will attend the kickoff breakfast?
• Who from the agency will attend the breakfast and how will you know them?
• Will you wear your company shirts?
• Celebrate the results of the day, the reward of the hard work your team put in.  Appoint a staff person to take pictures and highlight your volunteers on your agency website or in a newsletter.  Send photographs to be included on the United Way of Northwest Michigan Volunteer Center website.
• Please fill out the follow-up survey (on the web site) after your project has been complete.  We need your suggestions on how to continue to make the Day of Caring a successful community volunteer effort. 

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 volunteer efforts.  Please keep us informed.

Don’t forget to have fun!

See you at the kickoff breakfast at the Grand Traverse Mall Food Court at 7:30a.m. Team pictures will be taken; you’ll meet a representative of the non-profit agency and 1,000 other volunteers who will be there to celebrate volunteerism in Northwest Michigan.  Don’t forget to bring non-perishable food to fill the semi!  We need to help 38 food pantries that make up the Northwest Michigan Food Coalition.

Don’t hesitate to ask questions, call Susan L. McQuaid, Director of the Volunteer Center at 922-7338 or e-mail (preferred) susan@unitedway.tcnet.org