On September 24, over 9,000 volunteers will join together with colleagues, family and friends for our annual Day of Caring. It’s an amazing day of hope, unity, action and accomplishment, the largest single day of volunteering in Washington. You can be a part of it, too! 

Registration is now open, but projects are filling up fast. Right now, you have hundreds of projects from which to choose! Help paint a house for homeless families, clean and organize an area at the Union Gospel Mission for…

Well…it turns out the  “heated feelings” in volunteer management circles about Reimagining Service may be cooling down.  My post on July 30 Reimagining Service: What’s All the Fuss, shared some frustrations I’ve been hearing in the field.   But in a July 15 post on Jayne Craven’s Blog, she expressed “STUNNED surprise” at receiving an e-mail from the folks at Reimagining Service with a very different message than their initial report [Reimagining Service Report, 2009]. After more research, the focus on…

I have a friend who loves Halloween and carefully plans his costume months in advance. Some of his outfits have been very elaborate, but by far, one of his most well-received costumes was one of the simplest–UPS driver.

People love UPS drivers. When a UPS driver arrives, usually that means you’re getting something important or maybe a nice surprise–like an unexpected birthday gift from a far-off friend.

There’s another reason to love UPS drivers, their co-workers and the company itself–they are incredibly generous with…

There are some “bad feelings” spreading through volunteer resource professional circles over the Reimagining Service initiative (see Susan Ellis’, Reimagining Service: Is Corporate HR Management What We See? and Jayne Craven’s Don’t let them equate volunteer management with HR management).  The Reimagining Service initiative is described as a self-organized community of individuals from nonprofits, government and the private sector…inspired by the renewed call to service.  Reimagining Service calls for an investment of critical resources and dollars to build the volunteer management infrastructure.  Hallelujah! …

Here at United Way of King County, we’ve taken the “throw noodles at the wall and see what sticks” approach to social media thus far, experimenting with different tools and projects. While some strategies have seen more success than others, each is a learning experience. In the spirit of social media and social networking, I thought I’d share some of the social media resources I have found to be most valuable. There are so many great ideas and resources out there, it’s hard to narrow the…

  The United Way of King County’s Volunteer Reader Program has been sending volunteers out into our community to read aloud to preschoolers since March of 2007, and what would these three years of hard work be without getting to throw a three year anniversary party for one of our most dedicated volunteers? Volunteer Reader May Shimbo has been reading at Grammis’ House in White Center since May of 2007, and when her reading anniversary day came up last month the director of the…

At our annual Breakfast on June 2, United Way of King County President and CEO Jon Fine opened the event with a report on the progress United Way is making to relieve hunger, end homelessness and to support children and families.

Some highlights of his speech:

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As part of her monthly report on the number of hours our Volunteer Readers spent reading, we got this note from the lead teacher at a low-income preschool that’s one of our Volunteer Reader Program sites:

Today was graduation. Both Monica and Kathy were key volunteers on our last day of school. A few students did not have any family members at the celebration. Monica for the PM class and Kathy for the AM class provided smiles, hugs and TLC for these children. Because of United…

Last fall, United Way of King County launched a survey to better understand the challenges and opportunities nonprofits in King County face in engaging and managing volunteers.  The response to the survey was astounding- over 600 people, representing a broad spectrum of the nonprofit sector in King County, completed the survey. Respondents filled a wide variety of roles in their organizations, with 27 percent being volunteer managers and 19 percent being CEOs.

I am excited to announce that United Way of King County has just…

As volunteer managers, we spend a lot of  time investing in others and our volunteer  programs.  The Volunteer Administrator’s Network Conference provides us with an opportunity “invest in ourselves” as professionals- to gather with like minded peers for a day of professional renewal and development.  And we’ll spend time enhancing our volunteer management skills set too!  If you’re a volunteer manager, please join us for the day.  If you know a volunteer manager, tell them about the VAN Conference!

Here’s what’s on the agenda:

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