 Share Your Expertise |
| Community-Powered Support at VolunteerMatch |
| We've partnered with Get Satisfaction to launch a new Support Community at VolunteerMatch that gives nonprofits and volunteers more ways to get help and connect with others in our network. |
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| We're particularly excited that the new Support Community enables VolunteerMatch users like you to also contribute your knowledge for the benefit of all. Anyone with best practices and information to share can post to the Community -- and we know lots of you are experts in your areas of volunteer recruitment, engagement, management, and retention. |
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| So if you’re a VolunteerMatch user, please share your knowledge with others by participating in the Support Community. Do you have a question about how VolunteerMatch works? Have you been confused by something, or have an idea for how to make the volunteer recruitment experience better? Share it all here! |
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| Not only will you be helping VolunteerMatch, but you’ll be helping our millions of users and supporting the volunteering movement as a whole. To participate, all you need is a registered account at VolunteerMatch -- once you’re signed in at VolunteerMatch.org, you're automatically a part of the Support Community. |
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| So head on over right now to share your knowledge and help everyone use VolunteerMatch even better. |
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Click here to visit our new Community page.
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| Traffic Trends |
| Big Rise in Searches by City (Except One) |
| It’s no mystery that for the volunteer organizations who use VolunteerMatch to succeed, they need volunteers. It's a match, after all, and that means this is a marketplace of both supply and demand. |
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| On the supply side, nonprofits are creating and posting hundreds of new opportunities each day. Without those, no one would come to the market. On the demand side, thousands of prospective volunteers visit VolunteerMatch.org and our partner network, searching for available opportunities to make a difference. |
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| The good news, right now, is that we’re seeing the highest level of volunteer traffic to our network in more than 18 months. |
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| With the exception of Nashville, search traffic to VolunteerMatch in all the major US cities is way up over last year. Nashville had a devastating flood last year, which skews any comparison to 2010. |
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| It’s a great time to post a volunteer opportunity at VolunteerMatch! |
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| Read the full article with data charts at Engaging Volunteers. |
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| Corporate Chatter |
| Latest News in Corporate Volunteering |
| Welcome to a special section of our newsletter, bringing news from our corporate partners in employee engagement to nonprofits. |
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| Many of these employees are your dedicated volunteers, and a growing number of volunteer referrals in the VolunteerMatch network come from corporate volunteer sites. So check out what they've been up to: |
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Social Media and Employee Volunteering - At this year's Client Summit in Chicago, we had three packed sessions about social media and employee volunteer programs. When our robust conversations created more questions and sparked more discussion, we realized this is an area that's relevant for anyone coordinating employee volunteers, and that the conversation is only just beginning... |
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Best Practice Network Webinar: Building an In-House Pro Bono Program - Our Summer Best Practice Network Webinar Series continued on June 28th with an installment on pro bono programs with Taproot Foundation, who introduced us to a brand new tool designed for anyone interested in building (or scaling!) a pro bono program at their company... |
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Newest Service for Companies: VolunteerMatch Consulting - We're excited to announce that VolunteerMatch is now offering pure consulting as part of the VolunteerMatch Solutions portfolio of services and tools. For the first time, we're able to help companies of all sizes to successfully engage volunteers for the benefit nonprofits like you... |
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| Nonprofit Spotlight |
| Laura Hartstone, Peaks Foundation |
| In 2004, Laura Hartstone was living and working in Tanzania with an organization helping to battle the continent's most pressing issue: HIV/AIDS. |
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| Every day she would walk to a secondary school, teach in the morning, and then in the afternoon walk further into the village to teach a small community group. One day she was asked by one of the mamas to go and see her nephew, who was ill. |
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| It turned out that the young boy, about age five, had a fungal infection on his head. So ashamed and embarrassed by it, he wore a hooded sweatshirt covering his head despite the hot African heat. The mama had already taken him to the hospital and found out the type of medication he needed - but couldn't afford it. |
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| Laura decided that just this once, she would go get the meds. She asked all her friends to pitch in, and had about $65 when she went to the pharmacy. The pharmacist handed her the package and told her it would be 1,000 shillings. |
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| She stared at him in shock. 1,000 shillings at the time was about the equivalent of 75 cents. When she realized that's what the woman couldn't afford, she learned the impact a small effort can have. |
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| Read the rest of Laura's story... |
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