National News

• Inspire by example! How are you celebrating National Volunteer Week? Learn more. 
• Find out about the National & Global Youth Service Days. Learn more. 
• Comprehensive new EITC data by State Legislative District. Learn more. 
• Nearly three in four adults favor voluntary service over military or civilian service to country according to new Harris Poll. Learn more.

Important Dates

• New Topical Conference Call! 

In order to provide more comprehensive information for Strengthening Communities VISTAs, there will be planned All-VISTA conference calls.  The first All-VISTA conference call is coming in May and will showcase various experts and provide resources and information for VISTAs in the field.  Any questions or suggestions for this can be directed to Gabriela Stiteler at gstiteler@pointsoflight.org.”

• Content area monthly conference calls, go here

VISTA Opportunities

Publicize Grant Opportunity to your Center!

Through the generous support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Neighboring Initiative is focused on mobilizing the time, talent and resources of marginalized residents to strengthen families and transform communities into thriving and vital places to live. Share this opportunity with the site coordinator or Executive Director at your Volunteer Center. Go here.

Are you planning to attend the National Conference on Volunteering and Service?

The 2007 National Conference on Volunteering and Service, jointly sponsored by the Points of Light Foundation and Corporation for National and Community Service, is the preeminent learning, sharing and networking opportunity for the volunteering and service field. This year, the National Conference is being held from July 16-18 in Philadelphia, with the theme “The Power of We,” representing the power that collective action brings to solving our problems. If you are interested in attending, visit http://www.volunteeringandservice.org/ To Register, VISTA’s are designated as “national service members,” at a rate of $400 for all three days. We hope to see you in Philadelphia!

Call for VISTA Presenters!

The Strengthening Communities Initiative is now able to utilize webinar technology, an interactive shared platform device that allows conference call participants to share content from their desktop computers. Do you have a strong resource, toolkit or PowerPoint presentation that you want to share with your VISTA content area? Contact your VISTA content lead to discover how you can present a webinar on a monthly conference call.

Event Planning Tips

Outreach Tips: Targeting Marginalized Youth
By Gabriela Stiteler 

For Youth At-Risk VISTAs, engaging their target population can be especially challenging. Traditionally marginalized young people are not often recognized as assets. Below are some tips for engaging them in activities or volunteer events:

• Build strong partnerships. Think of youth who are often overlooked – contact alternative schools and youth detention programs. They can help with outreach. Using school space and being available during school hours will increase participation.
• Plan. Plan. Plan. Outline what you realistically hope to achieve prior to setting up meetings with the youth. Go in with an idea of what you want before you ask them to participate.
• Engage, don’t serve. After you outline what you want, engage your youth participants in the planning process. Don’t be afraid to delegate some of the responsibility. Let the youth take ownership over the project to increase volunteer retention rates.
• Be consistent. Attend the meetings you schedule. Follow through on what you say. Inconsistency will cost you partners and your participants.
• Make it fun. Get an in-kind donation like pizza and have a pre-project planning party. Don’t be afraid of team-building activities. Encourage youth to bring friends and be friends.
• Ask for their feedback. Change things that aren’t working. Take their advice seriously.
• Recognize participant achievement. Create awards that show your appreciation. Positive feedback can go a long way.

How to Maximize the Role of Faith Groups in your Service Project
By Daniel Tutt

Effective service projects bring together diverse groups, partners and community members to promote volunteering by planning, collaborating and then reflecting on the goals of their service. Faith groups are often cited as the largest sector that engages episodic volunteers. As VISTA event planners, leveraging the social capital and skill sets of the faith-based community is often a difficult component to your project. Below are some tips for engaging and maximizing the role of faith-based groups in your event:

• Familiarize yourself with minority religious traditions and customs. When interfaith groups are involved in the planning, make sure your service activities respect and honor the diversity, backgrounds and talents of everyone involved.
• Add value to the partnerships. Faith groups are performing service based on a moral understanding of the community. As is true with all partnerships, congregations need to feel valued and see the benefit to their own mission.
• Faith groups are often volunteer led and low on staff. Ordinary people, often non-clergy, manage congregations. They have their own passions, agendas, quirks and traditions. Religious leaders are crucial players in congregation decisions, and their “blessing” is often essential to the programs of the congregation. These leaders will be your best allies in any combined community effort.  
• Make your message broad. Connect service to the overall needs of the community and congregation. If you are interested in children’s literacy, then work with a church that emphasizes the development of the youth in their congregation. If you are interested in helping the elderly or disabled, show how partnering on a project will benefit the elderly members of the congregation.
• Make dialogue a component. Encourage participating congregations to use the day of service to stimulate dialogue about what their religion says about service.
• Be clear on your expectations. When asking faith groups for help with a one-time service event, make sure your requests are limited and clear. Congregations usually have their cups running over with larger, long term programmatic pieces of their organization — like choir practice, weekly religious education classes, and youth group activities — and are hesitant to make long term commitments to something new. Making requests that are clear and finite will enhance the long term relationship between your Volunteer Center and that congregation.

Resources
Maximizing the Role of Faith Groups via Seasons of Service

• Seasons of Service Web Site
• MLK Day Toolkit
• Interfaith Youth Core Resources

Outreach: Targeting a Population

• A Guide for Engaging Youth in Leadership and Decision Making in Service Projects
• 4-H Outreach to Underserved Youth
  Tips for Engaging Underserved Youth and Families

VISTAs and Event Coordination
VISTA’s organize a wide array of events, such as service projects, EITC VITA sites and tax coalitions, disaster preparedness seminars and presentations and many other types of activities that seek to build capacity and rally support for their work. In this section we highlight VISTA event coordinating experiences from each of the five content areas, including how VISTA’s have reached out to partners, mobilized underserved communities and organized effective events.

EITC VISTA Stephanie Taube at Volunteer San Diego began her year of service in August 2006. Stephanie seeks to engage marginalized communities in San Diego by targeting the large Hispanic population. Stephanie assists with free tax preparation sites in San Diego County. The sites run during tax season, from February through April 16, 2007. Her primary responsibilities include recruiting volunteers to work at the sites, and working closely with members of the San Diego County EITC Coalition.Stephanie has worked with her Director of Development on media and publicity. They have aired volunteer opportunities to assist in filing for the EITC on TV, radio and on the Internet. Stephanie offers her wisdom to other VISTA’s, “There are organizations out there that want to help, many will already have materials and experience in the event you are planning.” 

Faith-Based VISTA Jackie Loyd at Volunteer Leon is a third-year VISTA who became a member of the Strengthening Communities Initiative in April 2006. Jackie has coordinated numerous events targeting low to moderate income communities, families, seniors and people with disabilities.  Jackie mobilized marginalized communities to become active in disaster preparedness in an event called, Until Help Arrives: Help Prepare Your Local Church Community and Neighbors In The event Of an Disaster Emergency. This grassroots event involved a wide array of community stakeholders in a committee led by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Volunteer Leon and two other partnering organizations. The goal of the event was to connect local church leaders to an informative, cross-neighborhood disaster planning session. Jackie used a collaborative fundraising strategy that asked each committee member to seek donations from local businesses, schools, senior centers and rotary clubs. In order to avoid any overlap of requests, Jackie produced an itemized list of the supplies needed and gave each member details about whom to contact. Due to this wide grassroots support and member buy-in, the event received boxes of supplies from all points of the community. Jackie’s advice to other VISTA’s organizing grassroots is to “use the resources within the planning group.”

Disaster VISTA Hank Swagger at Greater DC Cares began his term of service at the end of August 2006 and serves metropolitan Washington, D.C. Hank has conducted volunteer leader trainings for Emergency Volunteers at Greater DC Cares. His first event mobilized 13 volunteers to gain specialized training in disaster preparedness. Hank’s strategy of outreach to communities includes churches, civic organizations and colleges in the area. The training course has grown to consist of a 30-minute presentation on how individuals can prepare their organizations and community for a disaster.  Greater DC Cares has always put extra effort into reaching marginalized populations in South East D.C. This area has a dramatically lower per capita income than the rest of the city and surrounding suburbs, and is affected more dramatically in a disaster. By volunteering and becoming trained as a volunteer active in disaster, residents build a greater understanding of community assets, and how to access personal resources, such as cars with full tanks of gas to evacuate the city quickly.  Greater DC Cares’ funding for events is generated through the support of NGO’s, governmental groups and other organizations active in disaster. Hank has learned that there are a lot of government monies out there to reach under served communities, and he advises, “be sure to keep quantitative results of your impact so you can maximize future funding potential."

Youth At-Risk VISTA Katie Lincicum at Volunteer Center Orange County began her VISTA service in August 2006. A majority of the low-income population in Santa Ana, Calf., is Hispanic, and Katie has focused predominantly on the youth from this community. Though initially Katie struggled to connect with her target population, she eventually developed a relationship with a prominent individual from the community who the youth trusted.  In order to create her youth council, Katie partnered with KidWorks – a group at the heart of Santa Ana that serves Hispanic. This organization not only led to the formation of the youth council, it also provides much of the funding needed to develop service projects and support programmatic structures. Since Katie was able to partner with an organization that shares her program’s goals, she has been able to develop a successful program in half the time it would have otherwise taken. Katie’s advice to other VISTAs is simply, “know your audience well and use resources from your community to help you plan your event. Allow people more familiar with your targeted community to be your ambassador and listen to the advice that they give you.”