AFS-USA Launches Everyone Ready® Volunteer Management Training Program

From AFSWiki

Volunteers have been called the “soul” of AFS and are critical to the programs we provide to our participants. Over the last two years, AFS-USA has put a renewed focus on strengthening, supporting, and developing our volunteer base and I am thrilled to be able to announce today the next step in that process.

In March 2010, AFS-USA is launching Everyone Ready®, a year-round volunteer management training program delivered directly to you online.

Everyone Ready® is a set of online tools designed by volunteer management expert Susan Ellis and her staff at Energize, Inc., with content delivered by a roster of international trainers. The tools can be used by AFS-USA volunteers and staff to enhance recruitment, support and retention of AFS-USA volunteers.

It is our sincere hope that the information and support provided through Everyone Ready® will help volunteer and staff leaders within AFS-USA to work more effectively together in accomplishing our mission of working towards a more just and peaceful world through our global volunteer partnership.

Why Everyone Ready®?

Everyone Ready® includes the following components that we believe are crucial to high quality volunteer support, leading to increased volunteer retention:

• Conveying our program’s vision about volunteer involvement and importance.
• Consistent messages about volunteer policies, procedures and expectations.
• State of the art knowledge about volunteers - including such themes as:
  • Becoming informed about current trends in volunteerism
  • Widening horizons about who volunteers, why, and for what
• Creative thinking about possible volunteer roles.
• Strategies for setting and enforcing standards of performance for volunteers.
• Teaching that volunteer management is everyone's job, not just the designated volunteer services coordinator.

The AFS-USA Volunteer Development Department Staff and the National Training Team, working with Energize, Inc., will facilitate all components of Everyone Ready® and will also offer ideas and information specific to AFS-USA to supplement the general material.

How does Everyone Ready® Work?

Through Everyone Ready all AFS-USA volunteers and staff will have continuous, 24/7 access to a range of learning materials – online seminars, self-instruction guides, access to an international journal, and more – including a new feature topic starting on the third Monday of every month.

We highly recommend you read and save the Everyone Ready Welcome Guide. It details all the components of Everyone Ready and how to access and use them. There is also a shorter Everyone Ready Overview , which details the basic information about Everyone Ready, but does not fully explain all of the various pieces of the program.

Everything starts on the Everyone Ready Main Page, which all AFS-USA volunteers and staff can easily access by logging into Global Link, clicking on the "Resources" tab, and finding the "Everyone Ready" section in the list of resources. Grow accustomed to checking the Main Page at least monthly to see what’s new and remember that you will have a growing archive of materials to which you can refer as time goes on. So it's never too late to self-educate!

After you first log-in to Everyone Ready®, you will begin to receive two e-mails each month directly from Energize, Inc: a notice on the first day that a new feature is released and a reminder mid-way through highlighting what’s happening on the discussion board active at that moment. If at any time you do not want to continue receiving these emails, all you have to do is follow the “unsubscribe” instructions at the bottom of the email.

We are excited about the learning opportunities that Everyone Ready® presents to AFS-USA volunteers and staff. Again, please read through the Everyone Ready® Welcome Guide for more details. I think you'll find that it's a simple program to use, but rich with materials.

Please feel free to contact Scott Hume, if you have questions or require additional information. We also invite you to let us know how this is working for you.

Thank you very much for the important work you do to support the AFS mission. It is my hope that AFS volunteers and staff will walk away from each Everyone Ready® learning component with new volunteer management skills, a renewed commitment to developing AFS-USA’s volunteer force, and a heightened level of enthusiasm for the work we do each and every day. I hope that Everyone Ready® will enrich your work with AFS and ultimately result in a stronger and higher quality program for our participants.

Sincerely,

Scott Hume Director, Volunteer Development AFS-USA