Richmond area lags U.S. in volunteering

When it comes to volunteering, Richmond has some catching up to do.

In 2010, 20.9 percent of Richmond-area residents volunteered, 5 percentage points less than the national average and 7 points behind the state as a whole, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service website VolunteeringInAmerica.gov.

Vanessa Diamond, director of HandsOn Greater Richmond, a clearinghouse for volunteer opportunities in the region, said she believes those who aren't volunteering — nearly 80 percent of the community — are missing out.

Volunteering not only helps others, she said, but also offers enriching experiences for the volunteer, such as fine-tuning a skill or getting an insider's view of a world they might not otherwise see. While volunteering at a teen center, she recently learned a better way to paint walls — in a "V" rather than a straight line. Her volunteers have helped with parties at the Richmond Ballet and at Dogwood Dell.

"It's almost like you have a backstage pass," Diamond said.

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, there has been an uptick in volunteering nationwide. In 2010, the country saw the highest growth rate in volunteerism since 2005, climbing to 63 million. W. Keith Curtis, president of The Curtis Group, a fundraising consultant organization, attributed the increase to the economic downturn. Out-of-work people want to do something productive, and those who are doing OK want to help others who need assistance.

One change in volunteering is that people don't want to commit to one agency for the long haul anymore, he said.

"We have seen people that are looking for meaningful involvement. They want to go in, tackle a project … and then they move on," he said.

Diamond, who founded HandsOn five years ago with two friends, said her volunteer center tries to make it easier for people to "step in and step out" of those opportunities in the area. They post a list of organizations seeking volunteers online, providing a quick, easy way for people who want to volunteer once.

"It takes away a long-term commitment fear," Diamond said. "It's easier to commit to three hours than a year."

But HandsOn, which has more than 7,000 volunteers in its database, aims to introduce volunteers to agencies they'll want to keep working for. "Our hope is they will find an organization that plucks their heart strings and that they want to continue to build a deeper relationship," she said.

The nonprofit is also working with agencies to come up with family-friendly volunteer activities so that parents don't have to decide between volunteering and spending time with their kids.

Neighborhood Resource Center recently hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day volunteer event where families were invited to paint a picnic table, clean the center's windows and sort the books into age categories. The center, based in a former post office on Fulton Hill, uses at least 150 volunteers a year, said program director Penny Ferris.

"Our programs are run by volunteers," Ferris said. "A lot of the things we do would be impossible without them."

Rick Carr, a retired technical trainer at the American Honda Mid Atlantic Training Center, volunteers at the center two days a week, helping with the after-school program on Tuesdays and working with adults who are pursuing jobs on Thursdays. The 59-year-old from Varina chose to volunteer for the center because he likes its focus on youth, community and nutrition.

"I feel good about it," he said. "I feel like I'm contributing."

HandsOn is also working with agencies to help them learn how to create volunteer opportunities. Curtis said nonprofits are not getting the message that they need to do more to bring in volunteers for the kind of projects they want to work on.

"They really need to start to talk with some of their volunteers about how they would like to become engaged and start to develop some volunteer projects" that meet their desires, Curtis said.

Curtis said this is key — not just for recruiting volunteers, but also because volunteers are most likely to become donors.

"Your best donors are the people who are engaged with your organization," he said.

Kathy Powers, program coordinator for the Institute on Philanthropy at the University of Richmond's School of Professional & Continuing Studies, is educating nonprofits about how to turn their volunteers into money.

"That's been a big hurdle here in Richmond," Powers said. "How do you turn volunteers into givers?"

Powers runs an institute twice a year that helps nonprofits think about the organization's strategy, including its approach to fundraising. A key element is figuring out how to be more sustainable by learning to solicit gifts in a variety of ways.

In October 2010, The Community Foundation, which was founded to provide stewardship for permanent endowments in central Virginia, launched GiveRichmond.org in partnership with other local foundations. The idea was to provide one central place to get information about local nonprofits, and now more than 350 are listed.

Last year, GiveRichmond.org hosted a 36-hour Amazing Raise, which raised $491,245 for 271 nonprofits working primarily through social media. Kim Russell, vice president of communications for The Community Foundation, said the event opened up the donor pool because it leveled the playing field, enabling donors to give as little as $25.

"The purpose was to expand giving, to make it more accessible," she said.

While it was successful on that level — 71 percent of the organizations received donations from new donors — Curtis said these kind of events don't enable the charity to convert donors into volunteers and ongoing funders.

Richmond companies also want to provide opportunities for their employees to volunteer, and HandsOn is working with companies such as Altria, which has done park cleanups and teacher lounge remodels, and Genworth Financial, whose employees built a butterfly garden and planted trees at Bryan Park.

The Greater Richmond Chamber also tries to direct its members to volunteer opportunities. This month, the chamber teamed up with Richmond schools and Virginia Commonwealth University to launch an initiative encouraging its members to volunteer as mentors in city schools.