February General Meeting Friday, Feb 26, :00 am to 12:00 pm. Hosted by: The Volunteer Center, San Francisco. Topic: Planning Meeting

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1 Bay Area Nonprofit Volunteer Leaders Council February General Meeting Friday, Feb 26, :00 am to 12:00 pm Hosted by: The Volunteer Center, San Francisco Topic: Planning Meeting Members Present: Lynnelle Bisley, Shelter Network Jill Blackburn, The Volunteer Center Damien Chacona, The Volunteer Center Szu-Ning Chen, Mid-Peninsula Housing Service Corporation Ariana Katz, Shanti Jennifer Maples, The Volunteer Center Audrey Muntz, Larkin Street Youth Services Steve Sagaser, National AIDS Memorial Grove Natalie Stack, Girls On The Run Of The Bay Area Kristin Thomas, Edgewood Center for Children and Families Rae Thomas, ArtsChange Barbara Wenger, CommunityGrows Welcomes and introductions: Two new members o Rae Thomas, ArtsChange o Kristin Thomas, Edgewood Center for Children and Families Members introduce themselves and answer, Why did your organization join the council? o To learn and share best practices o To learn about other organizations and volunteer programming o To assess and maintain the strength of volunteer programming

2 o To ensure we are supporting volunteers and delivering the best experience possible o To raise dialog among volunteer managers o For inspiration about how to engage with volunteers, maximize their experience and make sure they come back for more o To find new resources o To understand our accountability and liability for volunteers o To problem solve with a larger group of professional peers o To connect with our corporate counterparts and locate resources through volunteerism Update on TVC and NVLC Strategic planning is currently underway at TVC with NVLC as a focal point. The NVLC and Bay Area Corporate Volunteer Council (BACVC) are signature councils of TVC. The NVLC is the only nonprofit council hosting upper level discussion that is linked to a sister corporate council. The BACVC is made up of individuals who manage volunteer engagement programs for their corporations (usually housed in HR or Foundation). They lead and direct volunteers in their company and often are also grant makers. The BACVC has been established for 20 years, is highly engaged and nationally recognized. Priority Areas for NVLC: Growing membership, finding needs and how to engage o Looking through 2012, growing the council by 15% each year o Possibilities of sub groups, affinity groups by size or mission focus Providing continuity for organizations in a network that is typically spotty due to constant change Establish committees for bringing programming to the council Growing BAVLF (the Forum) o Gap sponsoring 2010 Forum o Secretary of Service Karen Baker s support of NVLC & BACVC offers an opportunity for gaining momentum and attention o This year, possibly hosting a frank conversations between leaderships of nonprofits and corporations to voice struggles and successes o October date TBD, likely at Gap headquarters Increasing interaction between BACVC and NVLC, more cross-pollination Questions/Discussion How do you connect with the BACVC? Jill (TVC): opportunities include The Forum, offerings of training opportunities from corporations, mixers between two councils, and Week of

3 Caring. NVLC members are also the first organizations we reference when approached by BACVC for special offers. Barbara (CommunityGrows): How do we keep people coming back from corporations? Lynnelle (Shelter Network): find the right person and the right connection, targeting certain departments, possibly building a relationship with one department. Realize that they may only volunteer once a year, but you can have them over the course of many years. Find out who s coming out and get that information up front, before they arrive. Jill (TVC): TVC is running a training on Engaging the Business Community on March 9 in San Jose (see announcements) that will address these questions in depth. Small/Large Group Discussions Members split into groups of 3 or 4 to discuss topics and areas of interest related to volunteerism on a micro and macro level. After 10 minutes, the group comes together to report out Topics from Group Discussion: Risk management and screenings state requirements and policies How to engage new volunteers quickly and consistently Hear best practices from the group Tracking and data management How to say no graciously, and still engage volunteers later In-kind donations discussion, how to make connection with BACVC, what we can and can t take, rather than being a dumping ground Response time between volunteers and part time staff what is the nonprofit reality? Skills based volunteering making it a win-win for both Discussion of deepening corporate relationships, attractive incentive programs for volunteer programs Integrating appreciation, how to put structure around it so that it s not missed; and if it s an event making sure that it s the right event Proposed structural changes to NVLC: keep quarterly meeting structure, but add quarterly mixers and special offering Discovering corporate needs in volunteer work days, how to harness their excitement and ideas while not loosing interest Briefing on other NVLC members volunteer program one or two on what works or what doesn t work, or annual meeting of evaluation, more interaction about our work amongst NVLC Using volunteers to leverage social networking and vice versa

4 Turning volunteers into donors, and how to make volunteers long term donors, even if starting at a small amount Strategies to approach school for service hours under high school, high school, college/university Recruitment and retention of volunteers Greening the volunteer program Educate, possibly through an NVLC project or presentation, BACVC about nonprofit needs and abilities Discuss with the BACVC how we access each other, what to expect, or not expect How to engage people long term, but not as long term necessarily other than Bring in a panel of volunteers from different prospectives and experiences for questioning about what works, what doesn t work Feedback from CVC members that are meaningful, to help with designing Group discussion findings will be used to develop direction of future programming. Group voices interest in participating in programming committees specific to their interests and specialties NVLC Programming Update Jennifer Maples (TVC) is your main contact of NVLC benefits. We would like to engage NVLC members further in their benefits. Please get in touch with her to get started with any of the following services: o Orientations to reviews of your membership benefits o A site visit from TVC to learn more about your programming o Using your 2 free consulting hours provided annually from NVLC Increasing dialogue on the listserve please chime in to participate by sending/replying to nvlcserv@lists.thevolunteercenter.net Re-inventing the Quarterly Newsletter o Profiles of organizations o Resources o Give some ideas of what other organizations have done depending on season Announcements Bay Area Volunteer Awards Nomination Deadline Tuesday, March 9, :00 pm Hats Off! A Celebration of Volunteer Heroes April 29, 2010 San Francisco, Gap Headquarters

5 Kick-off for Week of Caring April, 2010 National Volunteer Week 2010 April "Celebrating People in Action" May General Meeting Friday, May 14, :00 am - 12:00 pm Topic: TBD Location: San Mateo, CA