Planning a Volunteer Project
What it is
Before starting, remember that a successful project incorporates the key interests, needs, and priorities of your community and your volunteers. The project should make a tangible impact and/or contribution and provide a positive experience for the volunteers.
During project selection, the project team, including the partners and the community, evaluates potential projects in order to determine the best project to implement in the community. How the organizations define success will affect how they evaluate the project. For this reason, an organization should include goals from its core mission and eco-friendly criteria when evaluating different project options.
Why it is important
Evaluating the environmental cost of materials and impact to the environment against the amount of benefit to a community are important factors in selecting a project to support. Benefit of the project to the community can be represented in many ways. For example, projects that improve relative safety and welfare or that fill a vital community need would have high benefits. If these benefits are high, the environmental impacts can be contained and the project can be appropriately funded and maintained, then this is probably the project to choose for your community. Considering that the needs of the community change over time, choosing the best project for that community requires understanding your community’s current and future needs.
Who is involved
There will always be a large number of well-deserving service projects that are looking for support; however, with limited resources, potential projects must be selected by choosing projects that provide the greatest benefit over the long-term, the least amount of environmental impact, and that the community can maintain. Think of the many diverse cultures that represent your community. Are there any that are under-served that you’d like to help? This section discusses an approach to evaluating potential projects and guide decisions relative to project choice.
Non-profit or service organization staffs typically hold the primary role in finding, evaluating and selecting a potential project to support. These community-based organizations approach potential groups or companies looking for funding or other means of support for their potential project(s) directly. However, there are other organizations that pair groups, companies or individuals with community service projects and that serve as a viable alternative for a community to consider (e.g., Hands On Network, Tap Root Foundation). Regardless of the approach to selecting potential projects to support and/or organizations to solicit support from, a range of approaches have been developed and are discussed in more detail below.
CHOOSING THE PROJECT TYPE
Potential projects can vary greatly in type and complexity. To look at different types of projects, the following general options can be used:
- Specific Project Type – A community may want a specific type of project to enhance the neighborhood or region. Depending on the size of the community, several organizations may have potential projects meeting the specific project type definition.
- Optimum General Community Benefit – A community’s most pressing needs are reviewed to select this type of project. Evaluating a community’s most pressing need can be accomplished by engaging the community to assess what the greatest need is.
- Specific Community Group Benefit – This option is similar to Optimum General Community Benefit, but is focused to provide benefit to a specific sub-group within the community (e.g., women, children, elderly, etc.). Identification of potential projects to evaluate can often be accomplished by reaching out to local social service organizations for guidance.
- Specific Market – Under this option, the search for potential projects is limited to a specific community or market area.
- Sponsor Alignment – An organization interested in supporting specific programs or services benefiting specific social issues (e.g., breast cancer, teen pregnancy, aids, student readiness, etc.) can choose this option to ensure target groups benefit. Projects under this option can come in a wide variety of types, but are tailored to benefit the specific social issue targeted in the community.
Understanding the target users of a project and their needs is vital to outlining a project’s scope and optimizing its value. Costs associated with the range of projects described above will vary significantly and often will be a factor in a project’s size or complexity. Depending on the amount of financial support needed, more than one organization may be needed to fund the project. This provides an opportunity for different organizations to work together to meet the community needs.
A key component of a project scope is to evaluate project alternatives and their respective life-cycle costs, including the costs of environmental impacts. Often, a project team may have preconceptions about the project to choose; but after identifying the key success/value measures for the future project users and the associated life-cycle costs, they will realize that a project with a less long-term environmental impact may be a better fit for the community.
To successfully identify and evaluate alternatives and to select a preferred alternative, a robust range of suitable alternatives should be developed very early in the project planning process and evaluated using identified key value measures.
A range of community volunteer projects is summarized below. The following list can be used by a funding organization or community as the "long-list" of project types, from which to select the optimum type of service project to pursue.
Indoor
Enhancing a new facility or maintenance
- Painting
- New wall and floor covering
- Windows/covering
Updating or replacing building systems
- HVAC/lighting/electrical upgrades/replacements
- Energy efficiency
- Insulation
- Window and door seals
- Renewable energy
- Life safety
- Bathroom/kitchen/cafeteria upgrades/plumbing
- Reconfiguration of rooms
- Relocation of non-structural room walls
- Room additions
- Specialty improvements (e.g., kitchen, restroom, computer room, lab space, etc.)
- Accessibility facilities (ramps, drinking fountains, restroom fixtures, etc.)
Outdoor
Enhancing a new facility or maintenance
- Roofing/Siding
- Exterior painting
- Window/door replacement
- Entrance improvements, including ADA compliance
- Lighting
- Parking areas
- Play courts (tennis, basketball, etc.)
- Playgrounds
- Skate/BMX parks
