Media Focus on National Volunteer Week 2007

by Fred Whiting

National Volunteer Week 2007 generated more than 600 news stories in print, broadcast and Internet media during the week of April 15-21. Sponsored for the first time by the Target Corporation, the celebration resulted in media coverage that reached across the nation and around the world.

Volunteer Centers, nonprofit organizations and corporations generated coverage of National Volunteer Week through volunteer recognition programs. For example:

• The United Way of Charlotte County invited people to attend a kick-off celebration of National Volunteer Week — a Volunteer Speed Match. Drawing on the speed-dating craze, 12 local, nonprofit organizations had three-minute “first dates” to “win the hearts” of 12 potential volunteers who moved from table to table at the sound of a whistle (Charlotte Sun-Herald, April 11).



• Patti Cohen-Hecht, executive director of The Volunteer Center in Danbury, Conn., had an op-ed column on National Volunteer Week published in the Danbury News Times on April 15.



• Marty Squire celebrated 50 years of volunteering at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Ariz., by being profiled in the Arizona Republic (April 15). The Volunteer Center of Maricopa County provided its phone number for people who would like to volunteer.

The Points of Light Foundation was able to promote National Volunteer Week in a variety of ways:

• asking Volunteer Centers to forward details on their volunteer recognition events, which were then sent to their local media;
• distributing news releases to editors at national, state and local newspapers, broadcasters and Internet outlets;
• conducting a satellite and radio media tour; and
• distributing an “op-ed” (opinion editorial) to editorial page editors across the country.

Spokespersons Robert Goodwin, retired president & CEO, and Toyja Somerville, senior director of the Recognitions Department, conducted interviews with media outlets such as ABC Radio, the Voice of America, National Public Radio, Radio Disney and the RFD Radio Network. Their images and voices were on stations in major markets such as New York, Boston, Denver and Seattle.

“I really enjoyed being a spokesperson for the Foundation and Volunteer Centers around the country,” said Toyja Somerville. “It gave me a chance to connect with the communities they serve and hear how they value their volunteers.”

Part of the success of the satellite and radio media tours was the availability of video of volunteers in action and of the installation of four new medallions at the Extra Mile Volunteer Pathway in downtown Washington, D.C. The satellite media tour was conducted on Monday, April 16, the day that the Corporation for National and Community Service released its annual statistics on volunteering in all of the states, offering our spokespersons a timely “local angle” for news interviews.