A lot of Hire

Here at Triangle United Way HQ we have just taken on 20something new employees to work as "Campaign Associates." "Campaign" is the end of the year drive we make to all our donors to give more. And then more. Did I mention more? Due to the increased amount of outreach this requires we hire Campain Associates to do a lot of the leg work. They're kind of like mini-vistas in some ways. What this means for me is there are triple the amount of people to spread the word about our volunteer program. That also means I have triple the amount of explanations and opportunites to produce. One of the extremely positive returns has been the agencies and donors asking where they can get more information about how to successful run their own volunteer opps. This is exactly what I wanted to happen and I am happy to say the CAs know to tell them that starting the first of the year TUW will begin having mini-seminars that instruct them on exactly those questions. There has been a lot of positive feedback not only externally to this idea but internally as well. It remains to be seen what the exact format will look like, but finally everyone is committed to the idea that we have to start meeting people where they are instead of waiting for them to come to us. I wish I could take the credit for that bit of enlightenment, but really I've just said it the loudest. The idea has been circulating here for years apparently, but the solution was to try and fit a square peg in a round hole by force. I just said get a @*%$ing round peg, people! Volia!

On the tech front I also have really positive news. I arranged a donation by Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC insurance co. of 10 new laptops to be donated to the UNC Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Unit for their patients and families to be able to use when they're confined to long stays in the hospital. We had local volunteers from NORTEL come load the necessary software, they cleaned some keyboards while they were here too, and we have got a press date set up to deliver them to the hospital. So, big score for Teaming for Technology there. I have also gotten Nortel to donate 25 computers a month to our refurbishment pile, and come do the refurbisment themselves. That gives us more and saves us time all at once. A local tech company, Solectron, has agreed to set up an employee incentive initiative for paid time off to their employees that come to our warehouse and volunteer their time to refurbish. They are also setting up a regular program that allows their employees to come to us on a regular basis as a big group. So, all this means lot of extra hands doing the much needed and never ending work of cleaning keyboards and loading software (i.e. our definiton of refurbishment). To give you an idea of the volume we do here...last year we refurb'd nearly 2,000 computers with only 2 full-time employees. Our warehouse is never empty.
By the way, the big hint here to getting these companies to commit, is stress the digital divide. Guilt will work wonders. Of course I'll deny I was ever anything less than professional if asked and stick to the party line that it was these companies own idea to do this. But we, in the nonprofit world, know better ;)

Comment from Ben Sheldon on September 7, 2007 - 1:53pm

Wow! That's a lot of new people to wrangle and get on board and on message. I bet you're getting a lot of insight into how hard it can be to orient new people and volunteers to an organization. I hope you'll share with us what's in those volunteer orientation seminars you're developing. They sound like they'll be really helpful to other VISTAs (and us at Project HQ).

I'm really impressed by your tech donation. That's a lot of hardware and a lot of hard work to coordinate those third parties to get them set up. That's amazing!

Guilt's a good angle. As is, when necessary, letting other people think something was their idea. Great work, err, service!