Part Two

Getting Creative

Give a little (flexibility) and get a lot (more volunteers)

If you are like most programs, you have already done a great job recruiting from your primary volunteer pool- the dads of the kids in your program. About three quarters of the 3 million+ youth sports coaches in this country are dad’s of kids on the teams and only a small fraction of them have had any formal training or coaches education. Less than one in ten are women- moms included. Not surprisingly, most of these coaches leave as soon as their children cease to be interested or eligible for additional sports competition, making your job as a recruiter all that much harder. While you may have a new group of parents every year or two, you have to recruit and train them all over again season after season. Luckily, there are many volunteers in addition to committed fathers that have much to offer youth sports programs- as long as you know where to look and are flexible about how you define what you need.

So where can you find new recruits? In Boston alone there are at least 10,000 men and women who play in amateur sports leagues and programs. There are also more than a dozen colleges and universities in the area, each with scores of students- and student athletes- looking to give their time to interested nonprofits. There are at least three organizations that match thousands of volunteers with compatible nonprofits and many more individuals who want to do something for the community but don’t know how to get connected. Finally, how many moms, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and guardians all over the city are already connected to and invested in youth sports through their children and family members?

While seasonal coaching will always be in high demand, volunteers are needed for much more, from training clinics and marketing to event planning and transportation. For some programs the difficulty may not be with finding enough qualified volunteers, but rather with how they define who is “qualified” in the first place. In order to successfully broaden your pool of volunteers, you may have to think outside of the box and be creative in making the most of what they have to offer. Check out the great resources below for some of the many strategies and avenues you can tap into for committed adults to work with your program.

Volunteers who want to work with youth sports right now

I found these folks on Craig’s List and sent each of them an email telling them about the BYSI. They were all excited to be included in our newsletter and are looking forward to hearing from you.

Think about some of the creative ways that you could work with them to support your program or team!

• John is 25 years old, college educated, and has lived in the North End for two years. He is interested in youth sports and would like to give back to the community (preferably in the North End). Please email him at JohnFPC@aol.com.
• A group of 150 men aged 18-22 are looking for a volunteer opportunity for 3-5 hours on July 28 th or 29 th. They are from a National college fraternity attending a convention in Boston and they would love to work with youth sports. Please call Jim Beanan @ 716 867 9956 or email Andrew Crowe at ajcrowe@yahoo.com.
• Travis Farrenkopf is a student at the New England Institute of Art and one of his projects is to produce a Public Service Announcement (PSA) for a nonprofit group. Filming will begin within the next two months and the project will be completed by April. You'll receive the completed project on DVD with royalty-free rights and it may be chosen to air on Comcast cable. Call and leave him a voicemail, 508-737-2280.

Service Learning, Internships, and Work-Study

Americorps is the largest service learning program in the United States, supporting a volunteer nonprofit work force of tens of thousands of young adults. Service learning programs are also offered at almost every college in Boston. Each operates differently from the next, but all of them work to connect students with meaningful opportunities to volunteer while learning about service. Internships are also a great way that students gain valuable work experience in exchange for volunteer labor or a small stipend while also receiving college credit and supervision. Work study programs provide students with a financial aid stipend for working in the community. Work study is usually set up between the organization and the college and allows the student to apply for their placement as they would a regular paid position.

It is important to note that each of these programs has its own guidelines and requirements that vary from program to program, and may operate on a specific time frame which may not coincide with a typical sports season. They also can demand a significant amount of paperwork and require that the organization provide support to the student in return. This could be in the form of a financial contribution, supervision, learning opportunities, training, and/or regular contact with the school program supervisor. Youth sports programs that are working with college service learning, internship and work study programs are successful because they have been able to adapt to meet the needs of the student and have the support system in place to ensure that the experience is positive for everyone.

• College and University Students - Boston University, Boston College, Harvard, MIT, Simmons, Northeastern, Wellesley, UMass Boston, Bentley, Tufts, and others each have a variety of volunteer, service learning, and work study programs. Many also have free volunteer fairs, corporate volunteer support services, and other great ways to get connected to the college community. You can also develop relationships with individual teams of student-athletes for clinics, mentoring and more.
• Americorps Volunteers and the Massachusetts Service Alliance - Americorps is a national program that provides financial and education support to young people in exchange for 1-2 years of full time community service. The Mass Service Alliance (MSA) is the state commission on volunteerism and they coordinate and provide technical assistance for most of the Americorps volunteers and programs.

Volunteer Matching Organizations

These organizations offer to directly match your nonprofit’s needs with a large pool of corporate and/or individual volunteers. They are focused primarily on one-day events that require groups of volunteers who do not need specific training or skills. These are great if you are planning a fundraiser, banquet, sports tournament, field trip, season opener, or any other one day event. They are also good resources if you need to clean up or repair a sports facility or other work that can be accomplished in a day. Note: You must be a registered 501c3 organization to work with these groups.

• Boston Cares** - They have three different programs, with the dominant focus on corporate groups and team projects. They also have a newsletter with a readership of 2,500 where they post opportunities that do not fit with their short-term model.
• Single Volunteers Boston- Matches singles with one day volunteer opportunities.
• People Making a Difference (PMD )- They focus on matching individual volunteers for service learning one day projects. They specialize in cleaning or other hands-on work.

**Featured Resource

Virtual Volunteers

There are many people who are very interested in offering their technical, artistic, or professional skills to youth programs. Virtual volunteering is often an easy convenient way for people to get more experience and share their talents with others. It also allows you to connect with volunteers who may not be an ideal match based on what they can offer in person- due to location, physical ability, cultural practices, time conflicts, age, or health- but who are still invested in supporting youth sports programs.

In my last job working for an education organization, I needed help creating a complex database- with no budget or staff to lend a hand. Since all of the work could be done remotely, I used Volunteer Match to recruit 4 virtual volunteers who came from Michigan, India (yes India!), Newton, and California to design the database. I used the Virtual Volunteering Project’s worksheets, handbook, and templates to create a clear process for recruiting and working with my volunteers. I have also worked with virtual volunteers to design a website- which they completed in a week!

• Volunteer Match** - This is a national database with over 41,000 referrals from Boston alone. This is the best place on the internet to find virtual- as well as local- volunteers.
• Service Leader’s Virtual Volunteer Guide** - This guide is a step by step process for setting up a virtual volunteer program. They encourage you to use their work and adapt it for your needs.

**Featured Resource