As National Volunteer Week draws to a close, I hope you feel valued and appreciated by your community and those who benefit from your gifts of time and energy. If you are part of Kin, not only do you volunteer for your club’s specific events and causes, but you might also have involvement in helping grow membership and recruiting extra volunteers. Volunteer Centres are a pillar in any community and are there to serve volunteers, non-profits, and as a result, the community’s needs. Connecting with your local volunteer centre has many benefits - some obvious, and some less known.
With the emergence (and dominance) of social media and other online tools in our daily lives, getting through to your audience can be tricky at times. How do you get through to someone who is constantly seeing ads, jumping around different social media sites and scanning headlines but rarely reading full stories throughout the day? One way is through storytelling, and telling your story properly.
We give so much of ourselves as volunteers, and sometimes we lose balance in our lives. Work-life balance is one thing, but even more special and elusive is the work-life-volunteer balance.
Over the last several months, we’ve seen many Kin Canada clubs celebrate major anniversaries. There have been 40, 60 and even 90 year milestones reached, which as a result, make us reflect on the accomplishments of the past (almost) 94 years Kin Canada has been around – and look forward to the future with determination to make the next 94 years just as noteworthy.
While Kin Canada clubs perform countless service projects and fundraisers each year, there’s a lot of additional coverage about them around this time because of the holiday-centered projects and events.
A hot topic in the non-profit sector is how to properly recognize volunteers. Knowing how to do this and engaging your volunteers will go a long way in providing a good volunteer experience. (Not to mention the benefits of when those positive experiences are shared with others; word of mouth is arguably the most effective marketing tool out there!).
As per usual at this time of year, red poppies are worn by Canadians and people in several other countries to honour, recognize and remember the sacrifices made - and that continue to be made - by members of our armed forces. This has been a tradition since the end of World War I, and I don’t doubt it will continue for years to come.
