Volume XX Number 9

Communities

LCR Connection

Community-service Projects: Increasing Awareness of STC While Making a Difference

By Rachel Houghton and Jackie Damrau, LCR Committee

Community-service projects, if properly managed, substantially increase awareness of STC. Selecting relevant projects for your community to support involves careful consideration. Many organizations and agencies need assistance, yet significantly fewer groups have needs that can be successfully met by an STC community.

Select a community-service project that:

• Aligns with your community’s mission and goals

• Promotes interest in your community’s programs, service opportunities, and membership

• Lets community members contribute their special skills and talents (for example, writing, editing, artwork, technical know-how)

• Significantly benefits community volunteers, whose pride in the association will have a positive effect on the community as a whole

• Spotlights the skills of members and the benefits of STC membership

• Casts a positive light on the community and the Society

• Encourages corporate financial support, with an emphasis on long-term sponsorship

How to Identify Service Programs

Reading daily news articles is one way to identify service programs that could use your community’s help. Asking community members for program suggestions—whether at a meeting or in your community’s newsletter—is another. You can also contact various community agencies directly (for example, United Way, Salvation Army, local school administration offices, community-service hotlines, churches, and social groups).

You might consider the following types of community-service programs:

• Adult literacy

• Telethons

• Sponsor-a-school/sponsor-a-student

• Writing and editing services provided at no cost to professional nonprofit organizations

• Local, state, and national library commissions

• Preparing educational materials for local school programs

• Résumé assistance in communities facing significant job losses because of economic downturns or other causes

• After-school programs in writing or creative writing

• Tutoring in English or ESL

Making a Commitment to a Program

It is advisable to commit your community’s resources to a program for as long as they are needed—usually several years. If you make a commitment to a community-service program and withdraw prematurely, the result is often negative and can generate ill will among people in the program, including disappointment among community members. Involvement in an adult literacy program, for example, is a long-term commitment and must be thoroughly discussed with volunteers before the decision to support such a program is made.

Running a Community-service Committee

A dedicated, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic committee chair promotes service programs that will offer all community members an opportunity to participate. The ideal candidate for the position understands how the community initiates service programs, how programs are funded, and how corporate sponsorship is solicited.

The community-service committee chair should recruit a committee of at least four community members, if possible, and hold regular meetings.

To run an effective community-service committee, follow these steps:

1. Begin each year with a review of the program’s overall mission and goals.

2. Prepare a mission statement, goals, and plans for the current year. These should be aligned with the mission and goals of both the community and Society. (Download a copy of STC’s strategic plan from the STC Web site.)

3. Establish a timetable with major milestones marking when activities should begin and end, and when the committee needs to recruit volunteers.

Sharing Your Community’s Activities with the Leadership Community Resource

Communities that have been involved in community-service events can share their activities with others by e-mailing the Leadership Community Resource (LCR) with the following information: group, state or country, Web address (if available), and a short paragraph on your community’s experience. All submissions will be posted on the LCR Web page for others to use as a starting point for locating similar programs within their geographic areas.