Evaluating the Success of your Day of Service
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service (MLK Day) is the most widely known and supported single day of service in the US. I’m sure many of your organizations are hosting a group of volunteers today.
“Planning and Executing Successful Large-Scale Days of Service,” training material developed by HandsOn Network, is featured in the new issue of e-Volunteerism. I wish we could have offered it to you before MLK Day, because it has lots of great information on carrying out a successful day of service – including the important and often-forgotten goal of raising awareness about your issue and providing entry points to ongoing ways to serve. But since there are many other events like this around the world, it’s not too late for this material to be useful – or plan ahead for next year!
As this issue’s Training Design feature, “Planning and Executing Successful Large-Scale Days of Service” is a complete toolkit including a 28-page guide, a Facilitator Agenda, and a full set of PowerPoint slides. If you’re an e-Volunteerism subscriber, you can access the complete toolkit here. A brief excerpt on evaluation and reflection is included below, which I hope will help you as you wrap up and assess your event.
Evaluation and reflection are key components to a Day of Service. As the projects end and volunteers celebrate and tools are put away, take time to ask volunteers about the day. What worked? What didn’t work? What did they learn? What will they – and the community – do now?
Evaluation
Following the Day of Service take time to celebrate and reflect. Take a look at what worked and what needed to be improved. Create a “best practices” document to keep on file for next year’s planning and list what could be improved. Compile surveys from the Day of Service and share results with staff, volunteer leaders and project volunteers. Create an additional evaluation to send out to volunteers and leaders to ask them about their experience.
Reflection
As discussed in the Planning Guide section, reflection is on way to educate volunteers about their communities. Reflection provides volunteers with a way to look back at their experiences, evaluate them, and apply what is learned to future experiences. Without reflection, volunteers just report on experiences instead of examining how what they have done impacts themselves and the community. Reflection activities that are designed well and implemented thoughtfully allow volunteers to acquire a deeper understanding of the needs in their community and how they can continue to make positive contributions in the community. Reflection is one of the most productive aspects of volunteering. Project leaders should plan reflection activities for all volunteers on the project; the committee should also participate in an additional reflection led by staff or committee chair once their work is completed. The staff can do an additional activity once all work is complete. This allows everyone to process their varying levels of participation and to capture and improve the process for the next time around.
