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What Works
What the signs are telling us….
Erie County has many of the right elements to be able to capitalize in the coming golden age of volunteerism: a healthy level of current volunteer activity, high levels of social capital, and many opportunities offered by an abundance of civic organizations, nonprofits, and churches, and a healthy mix of civic spirit and pride.
The vehicles for facilitating community engagement that truly reach into all sectors of our increasingly diverse community and the tools for organizing and promoting involvement are ripe for development.
What Works: Traffic Patterns, Promising Practices, and Pilots
From a national scan of programs led by nonprofits that are making a difference in other communities, we see hope in:
Supporting Volunteerism
Across the country, communities benefit from the efforts made by volunteer centers that organize, coordinate, and evaluate, serving both as an engine that drives best practice activities and as a dynamic meeting place that links volunteer supply and demand - a place that puts those who want to volunteer in touch with organizations that need and will support them. Many United Ways run “2-1-1” centers that offer this service, and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, two leading volunteer centers help to light our way along this promising path:
Planting and nurturing the seeds of volunteerism and community service are activities at the heart of the growing service learning movement, linking classroom-based learning and service to the community through highly structured, rigorous, and authentic service activities that can be performed by students of all ages. Starting to cultivate this orientation in children, reinforcing it though adolescence, and establishing it as a strong community value, helps to make service and volunteerism essential elements in a community-engaged lifestyle. There are many great examples of volunteer and community engagement efforts across the country. One nearby model program in Pittsburgh uniquely combines faith-based mission projects, community revitalization efforts, and youth development: