While cleaning up some files, I came across this awesome scenario I wrote for our AmeriCorps*VISTA orientation last summer. I wrote it to give our new service members an idea of what it’s like to enter a small community nonprofit organization in contemporary times: under-staffed, under-resourced, broadly missioned, lacking in a comprehensive strategic plan. Most [...]
Last April, the Corporation reported in its Volunteering in America study that while America’s overall volunteer rate remains at historically high levels, nearly 21 million of the over 61.2 million Americans who volunteered for nonprofit organizations in 2005 didn’t volunteer the following year. This represents an estimated annual loss to nonprofits of approximately $30 billion [...]
I just got back from some extended travel in California where I met with some fellow AmeriCorps*VISTAs and, among other things, discussed how we could get our AmeriCorps social networking website growing even faster. Right now the site has over 300 registered users, which is pretty good for a six month old baby. Most importantly, we’re [...]
My pet project, MeetAmeriCorps.com has finally passed that development milestone that marks a “social network”: Buddylists. To be a little more haute, we’ve decided to call them “contact lists”, but the concept is the same: you can demarcate people who you like/know/want-to-be-on-your-contact-list. Since I haven’t really been advertising it too heavily, Meet AmeriCorps was a [...]
I was lucky enough to be invited on Talking Out Loud this morning with wonderful hosts Felicia Sullivan and Charlotte Crockford. The live show was aired on UMass Lowell’s radio station, WUML. I mostly discussed AmeriCorps*VISTA and the CTC VISTA Project and had a blast. Click here to listen to interview! Fellow VISTA Leader Danielle was [...]
