Hands On Responds to Surge in Volunteering

By Andy Nelson, Executive Director

First Lady Michele Obama announced a new campaign for volunteers last month at the National Conference on Volunteering & Service in San Francisco. The “United We Serve” campaign will inspire tens of thousands of Americans to volunteer this summer to meet critical community needs.

At Hands On Greater Portland, we are preparing for this latest call for volunteers. After all, people in the Portland area have stepped up in extraordinary ways in recent months. Portland ranks third in the nation for volunteering, and Hands On made a record 20,000 volunteer connections in our 08-09 fiscal year, which wrapped up on June 30th.

To gear up for what we hope is a surge in volunteering, I am excited to announce that we are taking several steps over the next few weeks:

Foremost, as of July 1, we have restored our permanent staff to full-time and added one new staff position. We reduced staff time in January as a result of the economic downturn. But through careful planning and financial management, we have significantly restored our capacity. That means we can better serve volunteers and better help our nonprofit partners create new volunteer opportunities.

Second, we are changing how we work with some of our most-trusted nonprofit partners to add to our ever-popular project calendar. Without compromising quality, we plan to add several more projects a month.

Third, we are organizing a new weekend of service to commemorate the 8th anniversary of September 11 in partnership with Nike. As the official end of the “United We Serve” campaign, this weekend will provide high-quality, meaningful service opportunities at a variety of sites in the metro area. Stay tuned for more information on how to volunteer.

Finally, inspired by the national conference, we have initiated an effort to develop new ways to help volunteers connect with meaningful service opportunities. For example, might volunteers help us reach out to nonprofits and develop volunteer projects? Perhaps social networking sites like Facebook can help us accelerate volunteering. We’re looking for everyone’s good ideas as we move forward; stay tuned as we develop formal ways to gather this feedback and use it to inform us in our planning.

As a result of these steps, we feel prepared for a surge in volunteering without compromising the quality experiences that the community has grown to expect from us. It’s a big job, but we are ready and inspired, not only by the First Lady’s powerful call to service but because we know that so many of you will step up to help.