AIR DATE APRIL 20, 2023
Title: Volunteering & Nonprofit Training
Discover the importance of volunteering and how you can use your skills and experiences to best serve your community.
Guests
Edyth Bush Institute, Executive Director – Min Sun Kim
Hands On Orlando, Executive Director – Kyle Trager
Grassroots Volunteering Often Starts with Local Nonprofits
Hands-on learning is one of the best ways to learn a new skill. By getting to practice and develop at a pace that works at the individual level, it becomes easier to master different opportunities.
That concept is in place at Hands On Orlando, which started in 1999 when a need for more volunteering in the community was recognized. Organizations lacked the capacity and technology for onboarding, so this group facilitated relationships between nonprofits and the private sector.
“What we do best is engaging the private sector and leveraging all their talent and resources and bringing that to bear to help our nonprofit partners through a variety of things,” Kyle Trager, the Executive Director of Hands On Orlando, recently told me. “That is what drives our business model, so that we can provide places like Hands On Park, free to the public.”
Nonprofits Benefit From Immediate Volunteerism
At the Edyth Bush Institute, aspiring and passionate people receive the support they need to launch nonprofits and manage those initial weeks and months of operations.
“We actually have a partnership with SCORE, and we teach around how to start a 501(c)(3). Go through that class to make sure that people are going in with eyes wide open,” said Min Sun Kim, the institute’s Executive Director. “To align that passion is important, and we need to have that because that’s what draws in strong board members. That’s what draws in strong donors and volunteers, but you also must have the business side of the nonprofit organization.”
Hands On Orlando takes a multifaceted approach to encourage volunteerism and a strong foundation from which to work for nonprofits. From a Volunteer Calendar to offering resources for those with court-ordered community service hours, the goal is to centralize opportunities to make them easier to access.
“One of the things that we’re most excited about is this being an Environmental Learning Lab, as well as community building hub,” said Trager. “We are going to preserve this undeveloped land that’s lakefront property here in the City of Orlando for future generations.”
Challenges Won’t Disappear When Volunteers Are Available
Burnout is one of the biggest challenges that volunteers face in the post-pandemic climate. Min Sun Kim says she sees the mental health of a nonprofit’s leadership as one of the top three challenges that organizations face today.
“How do you care for the mental health of the people inside the organization? People who are providing that support to the community who might need more,” she said.
Building relationships is another challenge that new nonprofits face, especially if the Board of Directors is just getting established. “We’re always looking to have more corporate relationships,” said Trager, “so if companies want more team building activities or corporate service responsibility activities, they can contact us.”
Scholarship opportunities are available through the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation. Any organization as a participating member has access to these funds for each workshop, and a convenient online application is available.
More information about Hands On Orlando is available at HandsOnOrlando.com or the organization’s social media pages. You can reach the Edyth Bush Institute at ebi.rollins.edu.
