Volunteer Trends January 2009

Presented to Volunteer Maryland Class 21

Joint Training Day

January 14, 2009

Volunteer Trends• Youth• Families (limited time, all ages)• Diverse demographics• Specialized skills or knowledge

– seeking additional training or experience OR– seeking to share a specific skill

• One-time or project-based opportunities• Virtual opportunities • Straight to leadership

Volunteer Trends continued

• Meaningful and challenging opportunities

• Issue-based opportunities

• Creative opportunities (with creative names)

• Decreased tolerance for authoritative management and bureaucracy

• Increased expectation for professionalism• Fast response time a must

Use of the internet

• 220 million online users in the US

• Agencies must respond quickly (less than 48 hours)

• Online recruitment is more comfortable for many users, including those that are not comfortable speaking English and those used to using the internet for communication

* Taken from Points of Light Institute Webinar, Fall 2008 http://www.pointsoflight.org/resources/training/traininglist.cfm?cat=ng

Maximizing Your Agency’s Website

• Include strategically placed (i.e.: obvious) link to volunteer opportunities on home page

• Use stories, pictures (both cause-related and of diverse volunteers), and videos when possible

* Taken from Points of Light Institute Webinar, Fall 2008 http://www.pointsoflight.org/resources/training/traininglist.cfm?cat=ng

Maximizing Your Agency’s Websitecontinued

• Discuss varied volunteer roles and options

• Include downloadable application or online application form

• Include FAQs and an e-mail link for questions

Taken from Points of Light Institute Webinar, Fall 2008 http://www.pointsoflight.org/resources/training/traininglist.cfm?cat=ng

Web 2.0

• Play around with social media on your own, but consider how different applications might benefit your agency

• Who are you trying to reach?• What is your goal? What would you like to

achieve?• What are the pros and cons?• Stay on mission and be professional, create

separate accounts for work and personal use

Practice

http://theoneswhostillbelieve.blogspot.com/

Play

• My very first html tag cloud

• Learning about favicons

Blogger

http://volunteerhoward.blogspot.com/

Wordpress

http://volunteerhoward.wordpress.com/

Positioning

Have a conversation. . .

Twitter

Here's a summary of the data from the State of the Twittersphere Q4 2008 report:

•Twitter has about 4-5 million users, about 30% are relatively new or unengaged users

•Twitter is dominated by newer users - 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day

•35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers9% of Twitter users follow no one at all

•There is a strong correlation between the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow

Be careful what you tweet for. . .

• It’s not a billboard and it’s not all about you.

• Listen before you talk.

• Please include personality (don’t talk from a press release).

• On Twitter, everyone should know you’re a human.

• Respond to followers.

Taken from Beth’s Blog post on Dec. 23, 2008

http://beth.typepad.com/

Learn from others. . .

Learn from others continued

Integrate

• Maximize your impact by integrating your use of social media

Profile, Page or Group?

Facebook

Additional Tools

• Wikis• Google Groups• Forums• Podcasts• Texting/Messaging (for people with no or

limited access to computers)• Cause-oriented social networking• Others?

Resources

– Beth’s Blog: http://beth.typepad.com/ – NTEN: http://www.nten.org/ – Chronicle of Philanthropy Blogroll:

http://philanthropy.com/giveandtake/

– Slide Share: http://www.slideshare.net/ – Common Craft: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Thank you!

Mickey Gomez, Executive Director

Volunteer Center Serving Howard County

mickey@volunteerhoward.org

410.715.3176

www.volunteerhoward.org