Susan J Ellis's blog

Energize has just opened an Everyone Ready® Contest around this theme:

What would change if everyone in your organization was trained to work with volunteers?

 Share your answer with us by October 31st  and enter to win some great training and consulting prizes!

 Just as it “takes a whole village to raise a child,” it takes a whole organization to welcome volunteers and support their contributions. It’s not enough for only the manager of volunteer involvement to have the skills needed to work with volunteers.  We’ve designed our Everyone Ready Contest to benefit you in several ways. The contest will:

•  Help you envision what your organization would be like if everyone was prepared to welcome and work alongside volunteers.
• Open up an opportunity (a.k.a. a good excuse) to discuss these possibilities with top decision-makers in your organization.
• Give you a chance to win individual memberships to the Everyone Ready Volunteer Management Skill-Building Program, plus consultation time with

Punchbowl (www.punchbowl.com) is a free site for start-to-finish party planning where hosts can design personalized online invitations, get party ideas, find party favors, and more. There is an option to upgrade to get access to premium designs, however all of features are included in the free version of the site. Not only are the services offered genuinely helpful in planning an event, the site also has resources volunteers might enjoy at any time.

One feature of the site is digital greeting cards with some really unique elements. They have look and feeling of traditional paper cards with the ease and immediacy of online correspondence. The recipient gets an animated envelope, which “opens” to reveal the card. There are hundreds of free cards to choose from and then you personalize your special greeting with accents like envelope liners, custom postage and rubber stamps – and of course with a written message from you and photos if you wish. Check out the page of digital thank you

As the school year begins, the Center for Music National Service (MNS, www.musicnationalservice.org) has announced its plans for 2011-2012. MNS is a nonprofit organization that supports music as a strategy for public good. Through direct programs and public education, MNS "uses music as an intervention to address a number of critical social challenges. Music can inspire a child to succeed in school and life, soothe the sick and assist in the recovery of hospitalized patients, and strengthen communities of all kinds by bringing people together." MNS runs three signature initiatives:

• MusicianCorps trains and places musicians to serve full-time as teachers and mentors in low-performing public schools, youth centers and other high-need community settings, using music to reengage youth in their academic and civic lives, and provide them critical skills for success in the 21st century.
• Music Service Days bring musicians, non-musicians, students and parents, as well as corporate and

501Videos (www.501videos.com) is a video production company owned by Christopher Davenport, a successful documentary producer. His interest is in presenting his video production services to nonprofits and he’s found a unique way to market his services that also provides useful resources. 501Videos offers a weekly series of free, short (3 to 5 minutes) videos called "Movie Mondays."

Although promoted as "for Fundraising Professionals" and focused on increasing financial donations, the videos cover many different topics, including board management, community outreach, and donor relations. For example, the topic last week was "The New Look of Board Meetings (for creating high performing boards)," dealing with how to prepare for and structure meeting agendas for more effective board interaction.

A new topic appears every Monday and that’s the point. When you sign up, you get notices by e-mail of the new topic and log in for one week of access to the newest video.

The Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration (MAVA) has once again produced a valuable resource for all of us in the volunteer field: a Toolkit for Recruiting and Supporting Job-Seeking Volunteers.

As described by Mary Quirk, MAVA’s Volunteer Resources Leadership Project Manager:

MAVA was fortunate to [obtain funding from the Initiative Foundation] to do a project on the interrelationship between volunteering and gaining workforce skills. With all the encouragement that job seekers are given to volunteer we realized that there were few resources for organizations on how to make the most of job seekers as volunteers and how to best support them. We put together an advisory taskforce composed of both representative from workforce preparation organizations (workforce centers, tech schools, etc.) and leaders of volunteers, did focus groups and surveys and developed a toolkit and training curriculum.

The Toolkit – offered free of charge in online form – is packed full of ideas