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~ July 2005 ~ Topics

• We’re Not Ready for the New Senior Volunteer
  
• Volunteering Rural
  
• National Conference on Volunteering and Service
  
• GuideStar Goes International

We're Not Ready for the New Senior Volunteer

According to a recent study by the National Council on Aging, few organizations are ready to take advantage of the surge of interest in volunteering by older volunteers. Over 800 executives at 20 major organizations and their affiliates were surveyed. Here is a snap shot of the results.

• Organizations working with youth tend to attract volunteers between ages 18-39. Organizations service older adults attract volunteers 65 or older.
• Confidence in the leadership abilities of older adults is not high. 48 per cent of the respondents to the survey said their older adult volunteers were capable of running a project of leading a group.
• The lack of staff to recruit and manage volunteers was cited as the reason for not actively seeking to attract older volunteers.
• One third of the organizations expressed no interest in doing anything new to attract and retain older volunteers, even if they were given extra money and staff to do so.

Thomas Endres, Director of Civic Engagement at the National Council on Aging, said the charities do not want to focus on attracting older volunteers because they lack the money and staff to recruit volunteers of any age.
Full text of this report is available at http://www.respectability.org/research/survey.pdf.

Volunteering Rural

"Connecting Rural Communities: Volunteering and Neighboring" is a new publication from the Points of Light Foundation and the Volunteer Center National Network. It is a compendium of examples of how rural volunteering occurs throughout the USA. It includes key findings and ideas to help organizations work effectively in rural areas. For more information phone 202-729-8000 or go to http://www.PointsofLight.org.

National Conference on Volunteering and Service

The National Conference on Volunteering and Service, cosponsored by the Points of Light Foundation and the Corporation for National & Community Service is being held in Washington, DC on August 4 – 6, 2005. There are pre-conferences for volunteer centers, on the future of volunteering, and government based managers of volunteer organizations. Many national and international trainers are on the schedule; Mary Merrill, Linda Graff, Steve McCurley, Susan Ellis, Betty Stallings, Nancy Macduff and many more. For registration information go to http://www.volunteeringandservice.org.

GuideStar Goes International

GuideStar is an excellent source for information on nonprofits in the United States (US). It has now launched GuideStar International. This will be a site to make NGO information and charitable databases available in countries outside the US. The new initiatives will begin in Germany and work with the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa. GuideStar hopes to form collaborative network sharing technology, data, and best practices, and international fund-raising activities on the new sites.

Major efforts are underway to launch Guidestar UK, as a British charity. This effort was made possible with the collaboration of leaders from the nonprofit sector, the Home Office, Her Majesty’s Treasury, and the Charity Commission of England and Wales.