Why Volunteer?
Relationships are a fundamental part of our everyday lives and they play a key role in allowing nonprofit organizations to meet the needs for their services, this is achieved through volunteers like you.
There are many reasons to begin volunteering; school requirements, job requirements, family, friends, church, or your personal desire to do good. Whatever the reasons, we try to make it as easy as possible to volunteer with us or the many organizations listed on our Get Connected website.
Building Trust
When you start with any organization, there are forms, waivers, and handbooks to go over. This process helps you understand what you can expect from the organization and what the organization expects of you. Having this clear understanding at the beginning protects the volunteer and the organization, and helps build a trusting relationship. Some organizations require background checks before volunteers start, this normally occurs when organizations work with kids, or sensitive information or situations, please don't let this deter you from volunteering. Background checks are standard during hiring processes, I hope you all feel honored when a background check or Live Scan is requested because you really mean as much as a staff member, when you volunteer. Let an organization know of your financial situation, they may be able to help. With Get Connected you share only the needed information with us and all information is protected, only the site manager and organization managers can see the information you submit.
Volunteers want to know they can trust an organization when they sign on. But first, an organization must trust the volunteers. Whether an interview occurs or not volunteers are always trusted with the vision of the organization, here at King United Way our vision is to build a caring community where neighbors help neighbors improve the quality of their lives and are able live with dignity. For those who participated in our Serve Day- A Day Of Caring event you saw the work we did to help many in our community from our mini Homeless Connect, to paying for peoples groceries, loving on the seniors, giving out snacks, or letting the community members at the park eat with us and watch their kids enjoy the bounce houses. None of those things would have been possible without you. The long term volunteers at places like: the Soup Kitchen, Children's Storybook Garden and Museum, Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity's Restore, you are the pillars that let the community know we care and you are invested just as much as the organizations are, that's what volunteering does.
Recognition
As volunteers continue to work with the numerous organizations in Kings County we want to know how you're volunteering is going and how we can improve our website and organization's relationships with volunteers. Get Connected has surveys available for different volunteering events and about the website in general and all responses are confidential and anonymous. You can always send us an email with your feedback or concerns too. We also want you all to feel appreciated. Some organizations offer incentives based on the length of time you volunteer with them. As you see on your Get Connected Dashboards, you log your hours you see your impact value. In California, the current value of a volunteer hour is about $30. Other common incentive items are t-shirts, water bottles, hats, bags, volunteer spotlights, certificates, thank you cards, and other awards, as well as recognition at annual ceremonies. Recently, we introduced badges, a way for volunteers to earn and share their volunteering accomplishments based on how many hours are logged on the website in a calendar year. As organizations, no verbal thank you or gift can truly express how appreciative we are that you choose to volunteer once or a thousand times. Without you and your efforts we wouldn't be the organizations we are today, thank you so very much for volunteering! I hope this blog series has helped you understand more about King United Way, our community volunteer program, and the Get Connected website. Knowledge helps everyone feel more comfortable and helps build trusting relationships. Stay tuned for more blogs about volunteering!
