Nonprofit News and Comment

VOLUNTEERING

“Glendale wants volunteers to replace laid-off city naturalists.” No by-line. Los Angeles Times. July 1, 2012. Glendale officials are preparing to recruit volunteers to replace the naturalists the city laid off last year. The city has more than 5,000 acres of parks, but no one is patrolling the land to report damage and unsafe conditions or educate the public. But that is set to change by September. City officials plan to select about two dozen volunteers to make up hiking and mountain biking units of the new Trail Safety Patrol in coming months, the Glendale News-Press reported. “This will not be your average volunteer program,” as it will require training and a strong skill set, Community Services and Parks Director Jess Duran said at a City Council meeting last week. The city eliminated its naturalist program — made up of two full-time staffers and one part-time staffer — last June, citing an $18-million budget shortfall. The new volunteer program will be modeled after similar ones in the Santa Monica Mountains and Oakland’s East Bay Regional Park. City staff plans to find volunteers through referrals and environmental and recreational groups such as the Sierra Club and the Los Angeles-based Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Assn. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and do not have to live in Glendale, Stirdivant said. Each will be expected to work only about four hours a month, he said. Volunteers must go through a background check and city-designed training program that will include courses in first aid, park rules, park history, plants and animals, dealing with difficult people and working with public safety officials, officials said.

VOLUNTEERING

“Senior volunteer honorees make communities better.” By Janice Lloyd. USA Today. April 20, 2012. Ira and Barbara Smith of Acton, Mass., have been gathering household goods since 1990 for people in need. When they heard about an El Salvadoran woman trying to furnish a home in Eastern Massachusetts, they put a notice in their church bulletin to see if anyone wanted to donate used furniture. That’s all it took. “We were drowned by the amount of items offered,” says Barbara Smith. She adds that they were able to furnish the woman’s two-bedroom apartment with everything she needed and more. The Smiths were hooked. Friday, they got a big thank you for founding Household Goods Recyling of Massachusetts, which has become one of the largest household assistance providers in New England. They volunteer there six days a week (They take off most Sundays). The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) and the MetLife Foundation celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the Older Volunteers Enrich America Awards by honoring the top volunteers from the last decade with lifetime achievement awards. The Smiths traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive their award.

VOLUNTEERING

“Agencies, citizens mark MLK Day with volunteer work.” No by-line. San Jose Mercury-News. January 16, 2012. On Monday, Peninsula residents and agencies celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by giving in various ways. Kaiser Permanente employees, along with their friends and family, volunteered to paint, garden and organize clothing at the Shelter Network home in Redwood City as part of their holiday day of service. Palo Alto held a day-of-service celebration at Lytton Plaza, at which families decorated jars to collect change, then donate them to a local charity listed by Youth Community Services.

VOLUNTEERING

“College grads make strides in nonprofit world; ‘Post-millennials’ take social service seriously.” By Miriam Kreinin. Crain’s New York Business. January 9, 2012. In 2008, after his sophomore year at New York University, Elie Lowenfeld went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as an AmeriCorps volunteer to help rebuild after major flooding. While volunteering with hundreds of people from around the country, he was surprised that all the relief groups were Christian. Soon after—with the guidance of NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life—Mr. Lowenfeld started a nonprofit called the Jewish Disaster Response Corp., which organizes Jewish volunteers to help out in disaster areas across the country. “After my first trip to Iowa, it became clear that I had to keep doing more,” said Mr. Lowenfeld, whose organization’s annual budget has grown to $187,000 from $10,000 in three years. “It changed my life.” He’s one of a growing number of idealistic students who are taking it upon themselves to fix problems they see in society and are starting their own nonprofits to do it. Their colleges are doing everything they can to help. “There’s been an incredible shift in this generation,” said Clifford Schorer, a professor at Columbia Business School. “Before, students wanted to work for McKinsey. Then everyone thought they had the 100 millionth idea for the Internet. Now kids have gone through down times and are thinking they want to be in control of their life and do something good for society.” A study by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement shows that between 80% and 85% of incoming college freshmen have community-service experience prior to starting their higher education. That’s up from 66% in 1989. Today’s teens also plan to be generous when they get older. More than 75% say they will give regularly to charity, versus 63% in 1989, according to the Girl Scout Research Institute. “This generation feels a responsibility to make a difference,” said Stan Rosenberg, a sophomore at NYU who started a charity called Trip of a Lifetime a few years ago to send low-income high-school students on teen trips. “We see people hurting with the recession and a period of war, and we are being educated at school about social impact.”

VOLUNTEERING

“Volunteers to help patrol new marine sanctuaries; Some worry about a clash between environmentalists and fishing enthusiasts if violators are confronted by observers who hold no law enforcement authority.” By Tony Barboza. Los Angeles Times. December 31, 2011. Wardens won’t be the only people on patrol when new fishing restrictions take effect Jan. 1, setting up a network of state marine reserves on about 15% of the Southern California coast. Environmentalists are deploying dozens of volunteers to keep an eye on the region’s new Marine Protected Areas through a coalition of programs called MPA Watch. By boat, plane and from the shore, they will monitor fishing vessels, kayakers, divers and any other human activity in the new sanctuaries. And, in what is rankling fishermen, some of those monitors say they will confront suspected violators and report them to the state Department of Fish and Game. The prospect of citizen patrols has drawn the anger of some anglers who are already irritated about losing access to lucrative fishing areas. Critics of the reserves, which are intended to allow depleted populations of fish to recover, have eyed MPA Watch with suspicion, saying that the environmental groups behind them are trying to take law enforcement into their own hands. One group of recreational fishermen crashed a training session in Malibu organized earlier this year by Heal the Bay, a nonprofit environmental group based in Santa Monica. Heal the Bay and other conservation groups from Santa Barbara to Orange County say they will be another pair of eyes on the water, gathering data on all human uses of the coastline, not just fishing, to assess how behavior changes once the protections are in place.

VOLUNTEERING

“The Good Life; Saving the World—One Vacation at a Time; Our picks for the best in volunteer travel in 2012.” By Anne Tergesen. Wall Street Journal. December 19, 2011. Countless varieties of “voluntourism” trips have sprung up in recent years, combining travel with volunteer work. Baby boomers appear to be fueling much of the interest, says Doug Cutchins, co-author of “Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others.” Boomers “have the time, the financial resources and the perspective to understand the moral reasons for using their skills to help others,” Mr. Cutchins says. Volunteering provides a way to gain deeper insight into a culture or habitat, says Michele Gran, co-founder of Global Volunteers, a St. Paul, Minn., nonprofit that arranges such trips. Volunteer vacations run the gamut from affordable jaunts to $30,000 luxury trips overseas. To get you started, we’ve identified 10 opportunities. Prices include food and accommodations but not airfare. Here’s your chance to do something unique in 2012—and make a difference in some small part of the world.

VOLUNTEERING

“Matching Volunteers to the Right Missions.” By Phyllis Korkki. New York Times. November 12, 2011. THE recession dealt a double blow to many nonprofits. Just as it ratcheted up demand for their services, it also forced them to cut their budgets. So in times like these, volunteers are more valuable than ever. But volunteer work can be plagued by inefficiency. Suppose a nonprofit manages to recruit a large group of people to help with a project. It’s not a given that they will have the right skills for the effort, or that the nonprofit will know how to mobilize them, said Michelle Nunn, chief executive of the Points of Light Institute, which helps organize volunteer efforts. Sometimes, the nonprofits with the most need are those that don’t have the money to hire people to supervise volunteers, said Gary Bagley, executive director of New York Cares, which mobilizes volunteer projects citywide. To avoid squandering a volunteer’s good will, more organizations, including Points of Light and New York Cares, are working to match supply and demand with more precision. For example, they are enlisting volunteers to serve as managers of other volunteers. And, in the process, these people are broadening their experience and adding ballast to their résumés. Technological advances are aiding this push to properly match volunteers. A Web site called Sparked, which started a year ago, allows people to use their computers to help others in a variety of ways. “It’s desktop volunteering,” said Ben Rigby, the company’s chief executive. People can spend as little as a few hours or even just a few minutes helping out

VOLUNTEEERING

“Twin Cities lead nation in giving back to communities.” By Brian Tumulty. USA Today. August 9, 2011. Minneapolis-St. Paul had the highest rate of volunteering in the country last year among large metro areas, according to a report released Tuesday. Just over 37% of people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area did volunteer work at schools, community groups, religious organizations and other non-profits, says the annual Volunteering in American report from the Corporation for National and Community Service. Utah topped states in the percentage of volunteers, at 44.5%. Nationwide, the number of volunteers dropped last year by 600,000 to 62.8 million, bringing the national volunteering rate down by a half a percentage point, to 26.3%, the report says. Robert Velasco, acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, says the drop isn’t significant. “It’s a very small dip, and one year’s data (are) not representative of a trend,” he says. The median number of annual hours served by each volunteer rose from 50 to 52, so the total time devoted to volunteering remained flat. Also, the survey doesn’t count informal volunteer work, such as when a neighbor cares for a shut-in by purchasing groceries and doing other errands, he says. Other top-volunteering metro areas: Portland, Ore. (36.2%), Salt Lake City (34.1%), Seattle (33.9%) and Rochester, N.Y. (33.8%). Minneapolis-St. Paul owes its No. 1 ranking at least partly to Midwestern culture, says Kristin Schurrer, executive director of the HandsOn volunteer network in the Twin Cities. “Children learn from their families the importance of volunteerism and giving back to the community,” Schurrer says. “A lot of people who live here in the Twin Cities have grown up in smaller communities.”

VOLUNTEERING

“Faith Reaffirmed in Storm’s Wake.” By Cameron McWhirther. Wall Street Journal. May 2, 2011. Pastor Allen Murphy, 61 years old, spoke to worshippers Sunday at the new Mamre Baptist Church, framed by a stained-glass window of Jesus kneeling and looking upward. Above, the church roof was torn away. Two Mamre Baptist Churches in northeast rural Alabama, the old and the new, were destroyed by last week’s tornadoes. One church member died and several others were injured in the old church, where they had sought shelter. The last words of Spencer Motes, 33 years old, according to witnesses, were, “Get on your knees!” as the door of the church basement blew open and the structure fell in. Throughout the service, in the new church down the hill from the old one, people called out amens and raised trembling hands. They sang “Victory in Jesus,” calling for salvation and rebirth. Several who were close to Mr. Motes went up and knelt before the church’s front platform, sobbing and calling to Jesus. At one point, half the congregation—including Mr. Motes’s parents—huddled tearfully at the front of the sanctuary. Ralph Motes, whose son was killed, preached extemporaneously to the congregation. He said he had been amazed by the strength God and the community had shown him and his wife. God “sent angels to my house,” Mr. Motes said. Joanne Brown-Darnell, 50 years old and the assistant church pianist, said church members have been talking for days about what the storm and its fatal power has meant to their little church. It seems to her and others, she said, that “God has come and stirred us up. This is going to be a new day…you can just feel the spirit flowing.” The gathering met for about an hour, then Rev. Murphy urged them to go out and help others to rebuild. Even as he spoke, the roar of chainsaws filled a hillside nearby as crews—many of them volunteers from neighboring communities—cleared debris from roads and people’s yards. The buildings of Mamre Baptist are gone, he said, but not what made it strong. “The church is not gone,” said Rev. Murphy, looking out at the congregation. “I’m looking at it.”
Related story:
“Shaken Faithful Seek Comfort Of Destroyed Alabama Church.” Weekend Edition Sunday/National Public Radio. May 1, 2011.
“After Floods, Nashville Proud Of Model Recovery.” Weekend Edition Sunday/National Public Radio. May 1, 2011.
“Talk Radio Rides to the Rescue in Tuscaloosa; How Clear Channel stations promoted a remarkable network of volunteers for tornado relief.” Wall Street Journal. May 7, 2011.

VOLUNTEERING

“Volunteers tend to victims in storm-ravaged South.” By Jeffrey Collins and Michael Kunzelman. Washington Post. May 1, 2011. Tornado victims in splintered Southern towns say volunteers are ensuring they’re well-fed and warm at night, whether by refilling blood pressure medicine or patrolling neighborhoods in a grocery-filled pickup truck. Across the twister-ravaged South, students and church groups aggressively tended to those who needed it most, clearing away wreckage and handing out food and water. Wednesday’s tornadoes marked the second-deadliest day of twisters in U.S. history, leaving 342 people dead across seven states — including 250 in Alabama. Thousands were hurt, and hundreds of homes and businesses have vanished into rubble. Federal Emergency Management Agency workers provided information to people in shelters about how to apply for help. National Guard soldiers stood watch, searched for survivors and helped sift through debris. Churches transformed into buzzing community hubs.
Related story:
“Alabama tornado strikes at heart of church community; Bethel Missionary Baptist Church was the center of a bustling operation. Members of the congregation will go on, but their sanctuary has been demolished.” Los Angeles Times. May 1, 2011.