On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, LENORE ADLER wrote:

:| How about getting "disadvantaged" youth to volunteer in cultural
:| institutions?  A teen docent/mentoring program?  A library is a
:| great place for youth to volunteer after school-(and a safe
:| place).  There is alot of potential for combining the two and
:| maybe getting more people into cultural institutions who have
:| stayed away in the past...just some thoughts...Lenore

Lenore, it is a great idea; the key to making it work is showing the
prospective volunteers what tangible benefits they get from making
the commitment of their time and effort.  The best
volunteer-recruitment efforts I've seen have grown out of one
person's efforts to show by personal example how much fun working as
a volunteer can be.  That sense of enthusiasm, fun and wonder is
what gets your volunteers in the door; having fun by learning and
doing is what keeps them going.

The worst volunteer programs IMO are those that start out as
"decrees from on high" and then become the living embodiment of
someone's MBA thesis.  Everyone gets annoyed, frustrated,
disspirited and winds up complaining about "the lack of quality
volunteers."

For more advice on this topic (and making business fun, in general),
I refer you to Robert Townsend's "Further Up The Organization."

Have fun!

Rich Johnson
Director of Marketing
Cotton Expressions, Ltd.
---
"Do it excellently or don't do it at all.  Because if it isn't
excellent, you won't have fun or make money.  And if you aren't in
business to have fun or make money -- what the hell are you doing
here, anyway?"  Robert Townsend, _Further Up The Organization_