Incorporating volunteers
Are you interested in starting a student volunteer program at your organization? There's no need to re-invent the wheel...many resources exist to help you set up a successful program.
Nonprofits can engage young people in a couple different ways. One way is simply to give individual students the opportunity to volunteer at the organization. To post volunteer opportunties for students, visit the SFUSD VolunteerMatch site as well as VolunteerMatch's page of Tips & Tricks.
A second way is to engage with students who are participating in a school's "service learning" program. Service learning aims to tie volunteer work more closely to academics, meaning that the service may be part of a class and curriculum. In fact, teachers may often seek a project that an entire class may work on and then discuss later. This gives nonprofits the opportunity to provide real world context to the reflection and background studying that students are doing on a topic. Think future supporters!!
Check out some of the following resources:
- Community Agency and School Collaboration - Going in with your Eyes Wide Open. (Youth Service California).
- Service-Learning in Community-Based Organizations: A Practical Guide to Starting and Sustaining High-Quality Programs.
This guide is a first effort to apply the 2008 quality standards for service-learning in a practical guide for community-based organizations. It provides practitioners of community-based service-learning with tips, tools, and techniques they need to start making a positive difference in many people's lives by providing high-quality opportunities for youth to serve and learn.
- Community Based Organization Starter Kit. Starter kit from the "Learn & Serve Clearinghouse".
- Work with youth volunteers. Tips and workshops on working with and reaching out to youth from The Volunteer Center. Also, take a look at their "Steps to creating a service learning program" document that has sample documents.
- Community based organization (CBO) toolkit. This toolkit provides definitions, principals of good practice, elements of successful partnerships, a readiness checklist and more.