VRC Brooks

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/pain+donation+Extreme+fundraising+balance+between+benevolence+thrill/3591512/story.html#ixzz111hqWMlm

If you’ve got a great idea to create positive change within your community and are looking for funding, we’ve got a terrific opportunity for you.

Volunteer Canada is proud to support the Aviva Community Fund competition launching on September 27. Back for a second year with double the prize, Aviva is giving away $1,000,000.  Ruth MacKenzie, President and CEO of Volunteer Canada will be on the judging panel and will help select the final winners.

A new addition to the Aviva Community Fund competition is a donate button, which will be activated during the semi-final round in November for all ideas with a valid CRA charity registration number. It will allow your supporters and other members of the public to make donations to your community cause. 

Visit the Aviva Community Fund website to get basic information on how to create a winning entry.  After all, it could be worth a million dollars!

By Joanne Fritz, About.com Guide

In one chapter of her 2008 book, Visionary Leadership in Volunteer Programs, Marlene Wilson, says that motivation is not something you do to someone. Motivation comes from within, and we have to understand what people like to do and don’t like to do in order to match them to the right jobs.

The Motivational Types

Wilson uses a scheme developed by McClelland and Atkinson, two Harvard researchers, who found that people generally fall into three distinct motivational types: Achievers, Affiliators and Power (or Influence) People.

Here is a rough guide to the characteristics found in each of these types:

Achievers

Wilson says that Achievers are into accomplishments and results. They set goals and solve problems. They want to know where they are going and hate to have their time wasted. They are organized, willing to take modest risks, and tend to be articulate.

Affiliators

Affiliators are “people” people. They are sensitive, nurturing and caring. They crave interaction and love being part of a community. They are easily hurt and thus take up a lot of any leader’s time, but they also make organizations pleasant places to be. They are meeters and greeters and conversation starters.

Power People

Power People think about having an impact on people and outcomes. They think long-term and are good strategists. Power People are needed to make change, and you need them to be on your side.

However, Wilson says, there are negative power people and positive power people. The first type exerts “personal” power and the second exerts “social” power. Personal power people want power for their own aggrandizement…they use their power ON people and sometimes that can be toxic. They see power as finite and scarce. Either they have it or someone else does.

Social power people are enablers. They want to influence and impact others in a win-win way. They see power as infinite and don’t mind sharing it. Their goal is to help you succeed.

How to Identify and Place These Types

When being interviewed, the Achievers will usually describe a project or program they organized. Affiliators will often talk about the wonderful group they worked with, and will usually talk about helping. Power people will relate a long-term impact they had, such as a successful building project or a great fundraising drive.

Identifying the types will help you match the right people to the right jobs. For instance:

• Jobs that suit an Achiever will have a way for the achiever to know when it is done. The Achiever will know how to evaluate it for success or failure. There will be clear goals and objectives. It will allow the Achiever to solve problems, decide methods and strategies. “Figuring out stuff” will be a big part of the job. The job will provide feedback and offer independence and challenge. 
• Affiliators want a leader/friend. They will take up a lot of time, and they appreciate any sort of personal recognition such as notes, calls, coffee. They don’t want to work alone, but rather in groups with interaction. 
• Power people want projects where they can influence long-range outcomes and get high visibility and recognition. The Personal Power Person is an autocrat and very controlling; while the Social Power Person is collaborative and seeks input from members of the group. The Social Power Person is encouraging to all, and makes effective use of the talents of each member of a team.

When training the different types of volunteers, you’ll find that Achievers and Power People are looking for content. They don’t want their time wasted. Affiliators want name tags so everybody knows everybody else, and they like group building experiences, doing exercises and breaking off into small discussion groups. Wilson says to vary your training style so that you please all of the types at least some of the time.

Canada’s Champions of Change is celebrating the spirit of giving by honouring 10 Canadian volunteers. The top ten finalists will be selected by an independent panel of community and volunteer leaders. Two winners, one national and one international, will be chosen by the Canadian public. The two grand prize winners receive $25,000 each to their charity, while eight finalists receive $10,000 each to their charity. Winners will be revealed on CBC TV News in January 2011, the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Volunteer. Nominees must have done some or all of their volunteering on or after July 1, 2009. For more information, visit: www.cbc.ca.

ATM machines offer embedded charity with each withdrawal what a great idea! 

Helping consumers find a certain level of gratification in paying ATM fees, New York-based Choose Change ATM empowers ATM users to contribute a portion of their fees to support their favourite charitable causes.

Launched in February, Choose Change ATM has developed a brand of ATMs that lets users donate USD 1 of each USD 2 transaction fee to a non-profit organization of their choice. Users select from a display of eight non-profits, supporting causes such as disaster aid, poverty relief and human rights. The ATMs are installed at no cost to retailers and Choose Change handles all of the maintenance and refills.

Choose Change ATM provides a convenient way for consumers to support causes they are passionate about. It’s a shining example of the kind of embedded corporate generosity increasingly sought after by disillusioned consumers seeking brands that are more in tune with a spirit of giving. Choose Change ATM welcomes partnership enquiries from retailers and non-profit organizations. One worth emulating for socially conscious ATM users around the globe. (Related: Credit union gives people ten-dollar bills to give away — Grocer lets customers direct its community giving.)

Website: www.choosechangeatm.com
Contact: victor@choosechangeatm.com

New Date for National Volunteer Week 2011

 April 10-16 is the revised date for National Volunteer Week 2011. Our priority is to ensure that Canadian volunteers are the national focal point during NVW. As such, the date change was made to avoid overlap with other holidays that fall within the same time frame. This update has been adopted by both Volunteer Canada and its American affiliate, Points of Light Institute. NVW was originally slated for the third week in April.  We look forward to celebrating NVW 2011 with you.

CCVO’s Latest Survey Release Weathering the Storm: An Economic Climate Survey of Alberta’s Nonprofits and Charities Weathering the Storm The results of CCVO’s third economic climate survey of Alberta’s nonprofits and charities indicate that the voluntary sector is still facing significant challenges. Click here to read a copy of the report and here to review the media release.

Key Insights: The economy is still the leading factor affecting organizations and the communities they serve. Organizations have mixed experiences ranging from relative stability to financial deterioration. Nonprofits and charities are increasingly vulnerable. Demand continues to rise for programs and services, but revenues have stayed the same or declined. Respondents are more confident in the recovery of Alberta’s economy than in the financial outlook of their own organizations. Staff recruitment for nonprofits has improved. Organizations are turning more to collaboration and partnerships as a way to deal with economic challenges.

State of the Sector Survey In last week’s CCVO E-Bulletin we announced a new survey that will provide much-needed and long-anticipated information about Alberta’s voluntary sector. Please note that this survey is separate from the economic climate survey we did in May 2010 (see above story). This State of the Sector Survey is being conducted by CCVO in partnership with the CanadaWest Foundation. The results of this survey will be used to make important decisions and will provide a source of meaningful and credible sector information for organizations, funders and policy makers. The more respondents to the survey, the more accurate the picture of Alberta’s nonprofit sector will be.

Please spend a few moments to TAKE THE SURVEY and encourage others in the sector to participate as well. If you have a regular newsletter or electronic news bulletin that you send out, please consider including a brief story about the State of the Sector Survey. Thanks. The results will be released in March 2011.

Remember the launch of the second America’s Giving Challenge, late in 2009? Organized by the Case Foundation, Facebook Causes and PARADE Publications, the competition aimed to raise both awareness and funds for charitable causes by mobilizing your non-profit’s network of supporters.

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine of Zoetica, along with Geoff Livingston, carried out a detailed evaluation of the competition, and the results have been released in the “must-read” 2009 AGC Assessment and Reflection Report.

Here are a few key highlights:

• More than 82,000 individual donors made 105,000 donations to nearly 8,000 causes with an average gift of $17.73
• A demonstrated shift in the adoption of social media by nonprofit organizations themselves:  in the 2007-2008 Giving Challenge, a significant number of cause champions were volunteers; and in the 2009 Challenge, 40% of champions were staff of the competing nonprofit (only 25% identified as volunteers).
• Personal connections, compelling use of videos and storytelling, and repeatedly thanking donors for gaining support for causes proved to be important elements for success in the challenge.
• A review of the evolution of online contests, and recommendations to organizations for vetting them, given the significant rise in these types of competitions since the 2007-2008 Giving Challenge (and the risk of donor fatigue).

If America’s Giving Challenge is new on your radar, see also “Sharing lessons from America’s Giving Challenge: A different approach” by CEO Jean Case on the Case Foundation blog for a quick overview of the project and the results.

This “different approach” shared the findings through a series of “conversation case studies” and “encouraged the public to weigh in via comments to the blog posts, live CaseSoup video discussions, and Twitter” to continue the discussion and flow of ideas.

In one CaseSoup video, for example, Allison Fine, Beth Kanter, and Scott Beale discuss their research on America’s Giving Challenge, including what social media and fundraising strategies worked. Total running time for this recorded video is just over 55 minutes, but it’s loaded with information that any non-profit can put to good use right away.

As the researchers explain, their analysis of both the first America’s Giving Challenge, in 2007-2008, and the 2009 competition revealed some common characteristics of successful campaigns, including “immersion in the effort, viral communications, the success of smaller and volunteer organizations, a general lack of fundraising experience, and the ability to create campaigns on the fly.” A few new winning attributes for the best practices list came out of the 2009 contest, too, reflecting in large part the growing impact of social media:

• Personal appeals to pre-existing networks of friends, family and colleagues, and existing donors; and
• Use of distributed networks / social media to coordinate on- and offline “grassroots” activism.

Additional assets included:

• Thankfulness: Many of the winners cited the importance of thanking donors profusely throughout the contest.
• Transparency: Creating public spaces to share information about who is doing what is also a very effective strategy.
• Videos: Most of the 2009 winners, including Conversational Case Study subject Darius Goes West, made good use of videos to chronicle their efforts. 
• Storytelling: The ability to tell stories to compel people to act in short, funny and meaningful ways was an essential element of success.
• Calls to Action: From YouTube’s annotations program to requests to tell five additional friends, strong campaigns included great calls-to-action, blending social stories with hard marketing.

This is just a sample of the useful insights you’ll find in the full report (available here). The best part? Lessons learned from America’s Giving Challenge can be replicated by other non-profits, of any size, both for contest campaigns and for social media outreach in general.

What ideas gleaned from America’s Giving Challenge will your own non-profit put to good use?

Overwhelmed by the task of developing a social media strategy for your non-profit organization? Don’t know whether you ought to “friend” or “like” or tweet” to get the best mileage for your message in the social networks? Jumpstart the planning process with Jay Baer’s smart one-page Social Media Strategy Worksheet.