Build you Skill in Volunteer Development
An exciting new professional development opportunity on volunteerism for ALL Extension staff — Everyone Ready®.
Volunteers are vital to all Extension programs. Volunteers allow Extension staff to expand the capacity of programming in a county and they help to develop the social capital of our communities. They have been vital to our success in the past and will become even more important in the months and years to come!
I hope that you will personally enroll in Everyone Ready® and will encourage and support staff in your state to actively participate in Everyone Ready®.
Everyone Ready® is an online volunteer management training program developed by Energize Inc. There is no cost to states or individuals (although the cost ordinarily for states is $12-18,000 per year and the cost to individuals is $495 per year).
Each month a new volunteerism topic is introduced – either as an Online Seminar or as a Self-Instruction Guide. In addition, Extension staff will have access to e-Volunteerism: The Electronic Journal of the Volunteer Community (a $40 value) and will be able to purchase volunteerism resources from the Energize online bookstore with a 20% discount. New topics are introduced on the third Monday of each month but will be archived for Extension use for the 3 years of the grant.
Register for Everyone Ready®
Please encourage every Extension paid staff member that works with volunteers to enroll and actively participate in the Everyone Ready® program over the next 3 years. To do so, they may enroll at anytime. The introductory online seminar will be offered for 30 days beginning on Sept. 21. Modules will be archived and be accessible after the initial posting.
To register go to www.4-h.org/volunteerism. Go to the Everyone Ready® section and click on Register. Once they have completed the registration information, they will receive an email confirmation and will then have a user name and password that they can use to enter the “Extension” Everyone Ready® page. This contains a number of useful tools and resources as well as the link to the “real” Everyone Ready® page. They will be able to use the user name and password to access the online seminar or self-instruction guide each month beginning on the third Monday of the month. Once they are registered they will also receive two email messages a month reminding them of the current and upcoming topic.
Once they are registered, encourage them to review the content on the www.4-h.org/volunteerism page as well as the “Extension” Everyone Ready page that they can access with their user name and password.
Time Commitment: The monthly online modules will take about one hour to complete. In addition, staff may want to review some related articles in the e-Volunteerism Journal or read some additional information available through the Energize Inc. web site. In addition, we hope that staff will think about ways to engage in conversations about the monthly volunteerism topic at county/unit staff meetings, regional/district youth development meetings, and/or other staff gatherings. State specialists may want to organize learning circles or cohorts around this initiative.
In Preparation for Launch: The National 4-H Learning Priority Team on Volunteerism has spent the last two years developing a Volunteerism Rubric/Syllabus, Self-Assessment Tool, and Personal Professional Development Plan. These resources can be found on the same web site – www.4-h.org/volunteerism. Encourage each staff member to download these three resources. Please read through the rubric which contains competencies staff need to be effective in working with volunteers. The rubric includes learning outcomes, suggested readings, and learning activities. The Everyone Ready® modules as well as the Volunteerism for the Next Generation Fact Sheets (VNG) are listed in the rubric. Once staff have reviewed the rubric, encourage them to complete the Self-Assessment to see which areas they might strengthen as a part of their own professional development. Then they can transfer that information over to the Personal Professional Development Plan and list the Everyone Ready® modules and corresponding VNG Fact Sheets that they would like to utilize in the next year. We do encourage participation in all Everyone Ready® modules.
Sheri Seibold, Extension Specialist, 4-H Youth Development at the University of Illinois is serving as the Everyone Ready Point Person. If you have questions please email Sheri at sseibold@illinois.edu or phone her at 217.333.9290. Please encourage enrollment today at www.4-h.org/volunteerism.
0 comments Lori Bushway | Professional Develop.