TCVSL Workshop Descriptions
Bailey Hufstetler - Volunteer Program 101
Room: Morgan
Led by an individual that has developed and managed several volunteer programs with several different organizations, Volunteer Program 101, is a workshop designed to teach the audience members how to not only develop a robust volunteer program, but how to retain volunteers for that program, and how to manage that program effectively.
Jared Peer - Data-Driven Benefits of Senior Volunteerism
Room: Saddlebred
Countless seniors with a lifetime of experience retire every year, trading in a full-time job for what? This workshop explores the substantial impact seniors can have on their communities by volunteering. We’ll discuss the benefits society gets, the benefits to organizations who intentionally seek to engage seniors, and the wide-ranging benefits seniors get out of volunteerism. Volunteerism is an integral part of remaining healthy and active while aging. How can we better communicate these benefits when recruiting? Come here what the data has to say about the benefits of senior volunteerism in America.
Taylor Wilder - Recruiting and Managing Skilled Volunteers
Room: Appaloosa
It’s no secret that the long-term, skilled volunteer is instrumental to your organizational impact. Engaging community members’ skills and tailoring them to your mission can provide both an excellent organizational resource and meaningful volunteer experience. In this session, we’ll discuss ways to develop and maintain a skilled volunteerism program for your organization.
Don Sowers – Emergency & Disaster Preparedness for Individuals & Organizations
Room: Highland
Life-threatening emergencies and disasters can happen suddenly. So, it helps to have a better understanding of the potential threats to your home, school, or workplace. Emergency preparedness training provides you with the skills to properly react to these emergency situations. And you may be able to save a life by taking simple actions. Please join us for a fast-paced overview of common emergency situations and the actions you can take to better protect yourself, your family, students, and co-workers until first responders arrive.
Melissa Ortiz – That’s (Not) Helpful
Room: Morgan
How to get volunteers to be flexible and embrace any role given to them while being firm when dealing with balkers. Play Doh provides the object lesson and participants will leave with a supply list and instruction sheet to replicate the activity with their volunteers.
Sidney Enns - Succession Planning: Preparing for Future Volunteer Engagement Coordinators
Room: Saddlebred
Your long-time volunteer engagement coordinator just accepted a new job. One of your most valued volunteers retires or moves way. How do you react? If you first instinct is stress or panic that this is the session for you to attend! We will be discussing strategies to continue continuity of programs and services, what YOU want in your next staff member or volunteer and where to find amazing candidates to fill empty roles. Get ready to share your thoughts and ideas as we have open discussion on ways to ensure your volunteer program thrives during times of transition.
Madison Wood - Volunteering for All: Incorporating Universal Design into Service Planning
Room: Highland
In this interactive session, we will explore the importance of universal design in service. Whether you are a service-learning educator, practitioner, or volunteer coordinator, understanding universal design is vital in enhancing the impact and strength of service initiatives. Universal design prioritizes the diverse needs of all community members, whether this be the community you are serving or the volunteers themselves. We will define universal design and its relevance to the communities we serve. We then will engage in hands- on activities to practice creating inclusive and equitable service programming.
Vincent Phipps- Amplify Your Attitude to Transition your Listening.
Room: Appaloosa
Laugh, listen, and learn from this interactive presentation. Vincent Phipps presents this dynamic message about our attitudes and communication styles impacting both relationships and revenue. This message is filled with impactful take-a-ways, lighthearted humor, and engaging segments that will leave you motivated about how to adapt when applying elements of conflict resolution, leadership, listening, and emotional intelligence. The best skill in today’s professional environment is the communication ability to demonstrate adaptability.
Laurie Gavilo-Lane - Civic Engagement and Social Change
Room: WIlliamson
Empower students to transform their world with intelligence, courage, compassion, and faith. Service learning is distinguished from volunteering because of its emphasis on promoting students’ civic and social engagement and connecting classroom content to real-world problems. Join faculty and student co-leaders as we share a template, tools, and lessons learned from our efforts to integrate Service Learning (SL) programs into college courses. Be prepared to learn through hands-on activities in this conference session.
Angela Hill- Parks in a Changing Climate
Room: Morgan
This interactive workshop will explore the powerful connections between advocacy, public policy, and volunteerism. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how public policy is shaped and how they can use their voices and actions to create positive change in their communities. Through engaging activities, participants will learn effective advocacy strategies, develop their understanding of the policy- making process, and discover how volunteerism can be a powerful tool for social change.
Penny Willis- Setting the Stage for Change
Room: Highland
Whether you are new to service-learning and volunteerism or a field veteran, this workshop has something for you. Join us as we explore the essential stages of a service-learning experience while learning strategies and activities for facilitating each stage with middle and high school-age youth. Explore best practices that inspire civic responsibility and foster leadership skills. Participants will both learn and share their strategies and approaches to facilitating the experience of each stage of the process in a highly interactive and fun workshop. Participation includes individual, partner, and small group activities.
Mary Graham- Engage Youth in Solving Community Problems While Mastering State Educational Standards and Exploring STEM Careers!
Room: Saddlebred
Learn how to engage youth in solving community problems while mastering state educational standards and exploring STEM careers! Youth-serving programs will leave this workshop with strategies and tools in-hand to empower students to tackle community problems, all while building their leadership abilities, academic skills, and sense of civic responsibility. This session will emphasize working with girls, kids of color, and other populations with limited STEM opportunities. We'll share tools and lessons learned from more than a dozen programs across the state that you can replicate for meaningful youth programming.
Natalie Patric- Strategies to Increase and Retain Corporate Volunteers for Community Development
Room: Appaloosa
Here at United Way of Greater Chattanooga, we are continuously adjusting how to best support our corporate partners and the community at large in their engagement efforts. We found that most corporate companies who participated in volunteer opportunities were in a position of leadership. We wanted to find a way to engage all their employees and the traditional method of volunteering at a local nonprofit was not feasible for hourly employees or those working in production. We asked ourselves how do we make volunteerism more equitable and accessible for them? From the executive leadership to those working on the assembly line, we wanted to ensure that everyone had an opportunity to be involved in supporting their community. The solution? Onsite volunteerism!
Andrea Hill- Empowering Change: Advocacy, Public Policy and Volunteerism
Room: Morgan
This interactive workshop will explore the powerful connections between advocacy, public policy, and volunteerism. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how public policy is shaped and how they can use their voices and actions to create positive change in their communities. Through engaging activities, participants will learn effective advocacy strategies, develop their understanding of the policy- making process, and discover how volunteerism can be a powerful tool for social change.
Dan Rieves- Honing Personal Resilience: Life is Tough, but You’re Tougher
Room: Highland
In this class, we explore how to develop and strengthen our resilience in the heat if a stressful moment, through extended times of trials and building a lifetime strength to draw from in the long run. Students will learn practical techniques proven by warriors, athletes, and leaders who have time and again risen to the challenge, to become champion on the battlefield or in the boardroom. Upon completion of this interactive presentation, the student/learner should be able to: Identify techniques for building resilience in the short term (heat of the moment), mid-term (building blocks for daily life mindsets), and long term (adjust outlooks for health and wellness).
Megan Bennett- National Service as a Career Launching Pad
Room: Saddlebred
This workshop is crafted to equip program leaders with volunteer management techniques and organizational systems, facilitating seamless transition for your volunteers from service to professional success. You will learn how to invest in your volunteers’ success today, ensuring a stronger and more impactful tomorrow, regardless of your budget. The workshop employs current best practices, interactive activities, and case studies. By the workshop’s conclusion, you will be adept at positioning your program as a dynamic force, shaping not only service experiences but also lifelong professional trajectories.
Kelly Knowles- Standing Out While Standing In: 5 Strategies to Differentiate Yourself with Authenticity and Integrity
Room: Appaloosa
This interactive session combines professional presence with the southern flavor and energy of Kelly K Consulting to provide a session that will be remembered and learning that can be used immediately! The webinar will provide practical tools to develop strategies to authentically (and with integrity) stand out from the crowd as you advance while positively developing those around you for continued professional and organizational success. During this fast-moving webinar, we will look at the “Fast Five” specific strategies to accomplish these goals, discover our own driving core motivate and then engage in an interactive discussion to apply what we have learned in this session. This session has a special emphasis on learning about and working with FGPs (First Generation Professionals) to enable you to better develop future leaders in an inclusive environment. You will leave with real action-steps you can take to authentically differentiate yourself as you develop and advance in your professional space with integrity.
Jason Scott- Developing a Voice for Tennessee-Based AmeriCorps
Room: Morgan
A highly interactive workshop that will engage Tennessee-Based AmeriCorps Program Leadership, Staff, and the partners that support them, in developing an actionable model for a statewide network of AmeriCorps programs that allows for resource sharing, collaboration, and collective voice. As a network Tennessee AmeriCorps programs do tremendous good, but often in glorious isolation. This can create confusion, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies that can have adverse consequences and limit our ability to innovate and influence positive change in the communities we serve. Join me in a conversation whose intent is to create actionable steps to creating a more sustainable national service ecosystem for new and old programs alike.
Geng Wang - Everything You Need to Know about Volunteer Recruitment & Engagement
Room: Highland
In this session, we’ll explore the latest trends and insights derived from recent research on volunteering. Learn how to craft a volunteer recruitment strategy, backed by actionable tips and 15+ innovative approaches to enhance your recruitment efforts. Discover emerging strategies for volunteer engagement like micro volunteering and how to activate volunteers as donors through microdonations. Navigate through best practices designed to appreciate and retain volunteers effectively, fostering a sense of commitment and enthusiasm. Additionally, you’ll leave equipped with an array of technologies available to amplify recruitment and engagement endeavors. Embrace the evolving nature of volunteering, where research-backed knowledge meets practical strategies for creating a vibrant and impactful volunteer community.
Jennifer Bennet- Volunteer Relationships for the Future: Moving Beyond the 3Rs and Focusing on the One Big R
Room: Appaloosa
Volunteer demographics are changing, those who are volunteering want different things from their volunteer experience - like more flexibility, and many organizations have long-term volunteers that haven’t returned to in-person work. Nonprofits need a new model! The old model of the 3 Rs - recruitment, retention, and recognition - just isn’t working anymore. In this highly interactive session, we’ll discuss some of the current challenges facing leaders of volunteers and create a framework for a new model - the one Big R. Attendees will have the opportunity to evaluate their current successes and challenges around building relationships with volunteers. The session will provide a framework for re-thinking how relationships are formed with volunteers, and who forms those relationships. Attendees will leave with models and work plans for creating and implementing their own strategies for forming relationships with volunteers, sample feedback survey questions for volunteers, and ideas for messaging to other organization stakeholders.
Melissa Ortiz – That’s Why
Room: Morgan
Volunteering isn't always easy and the people you are trying to help aren't always receptive. This exercise teaches empathy for the people being served by the volunteers. Paper plates, glue and flower petals provide the object lesson. Participants will leave with a supply list and instruction sheet to replicate the activity with their volunteers.
Kimberly King- Volunteers and Veterans
Room: Appaloosa
Hoping and wishing for great Volunteers doesn’t happen magically. Learn how your mission statement is your Unicorn for Amazing Volunteers.
Hope Alexander- Branding Your Volunteers
Room: Highland
Traditionally, we think of branding as logos and printed materials, but it encompasses the overall experience and perception volunteers have with an organization. This session will discuss how pervasive branding is to your organization and will explore strategies to effectively brand and engage your volunteer base.
Candace Taylor & Zipporah Robinson, MPC – Unleash you Grant and Investments Skills: Mastering Your Development
Room: Saddlebred
This session will be an interactive session on exploring your development ideas, grant submissions and staffing with volunteers. Key takeaways include tough conversations and mapping your development for 2024. We will explore volunteerism and service for your specific mission.