UPDATE Spring 2017:

We spent a couple of months during Fall 2016 exploring the feasibility of establishing a paid community volunteer coordinator position and community volunteer database that would be shared among local non-profits. A committee of Fulcrum’s Barbara McLaughlin & Lane deMoll, as well as Laura Swanson (Year of Wellness) and Victoria Stoppiello (White Clover Grange) sent out a query with job description to local organizations to see if they had interest and buy-in matching funds for grant applications. Downloadable PDF of the first cut of the Job Description: job-desc-community-volunteer-coord

However, the project wasn’t able to find traction for forward movement. There was cautious interest but no real buy-in from local groups. Maybe another time…..

WHAT WE DID DURING THOSE SIX MONTHS:

The first collaborative session of our new Local NPO project funded by the Oregon Community Foundation and local donors was Thursday December 3, 2015 from 8 -10 am in the North County Recreation District Kitchen.  Fulcrum provided a buffet breakfast.  The topic was Volunteers. 19 non-profit staff and volunteers attended in addition to the 2 facilitators. Meeting notes can be found here.

On January 7 a breakout group met at the Manzanita Visitors Center to discuss the creation of Volunteer Notebooks to be placed around the community. Laura Swanson is heading up that effort. As of September 2016, the notebooks are now complete and will be available at the Manzanita Visitors Center and the Manzanita and Rockaway Branches of the Tillamook County Library.

On Monday February 15, Melissa Carlson-Swanson from Oregon Food Bank gave an absolutely marvelous all-day presentation on working with volunteers to 6 of us. Let’s hope we can arrange to do it again for those who missed it. (Fulcrum got kudos on the lunch we provided.)

* Thursday, March 31^st 9-11 at NCRD Kitchen: Steph Routh, from The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN),  facilitated a meeting about technology.  This meeting focused on ways to effectively communicate electronically via Google Docs and other collaborative tools for taking and reviewing notes and Doodle as a group scheduling tool. Crowd funding platforms were also discussed.

* Monday, April 4^th 3-5pm at the Beehive in Nehalem – We explored the bigger picture of our local nonprofit collaboration efforts.  What does our networking look like?  Is it a web? Do we want to strengthen it?  If so, how?  Can we infuse our activities with “web” intention?

* Thursday, April 28^th 9-11 at NCRD Kitchen –  Topic was FUNDRAISING – all the different ways we’ve used over the years. No magic solutions were found but good ideas shared.  And a hope for a panel of experts to present in the future.

* Monday, May 9^th 3-5pm at the Beehive in Nehalem – A further web/networking/collaboration meeting.

* Thursday, June 9^th – The Nonprofit Council at the White Clover Grange –  While enjoying a Thai dinner that Fulcrum provided, we reviewed what had taken place since December and talked about how we might want to move forward. The big hope is for funding for a community volunteer coordinator funded in part by the key organizations making use of such a person and an outside grant…..