Giving Circles Network
Key to Services
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Giving Circles Network
Key to Services |
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About finding and leveraging pro-bono services for your Giving Circle and/or your GC's grantees:
j Your Circle's Membership Expertise - Many Giving Circles have at their fingertips expertise within their own membership, which they can leverage to provide in-house services (i.e., to support and help grow their own Giving Circle organization). Some Giving Circles survey their members to find out their members' professional skills and that inquire if those individuals would be willing to support or assist the Circle or even one of their funded grantees. The Circle can easily vet and qualify the expertise before utilizing the expertise for themselves to leveraging that expertise for their grantee(s). This way, the service provider and the organization (whether the Circle or a grantee) can be sure to have a positive experience and benefit from the engagement. k Volunteer Clearinghouses - If your Giving Circle is new and its membership is still small, without a large or diverse set of in-house skills to leverage yet, it can benefit from the services of a volunteer clearinghouse. Here are some examples and ideas at the national, regional and local levels: National Level
Local, County or Regional Level Often, those clearinghouses or "bureaus" exist in nearby in your community, county or region. For example, in Northern Virginia, there are two, as follow:
l Service Exchanges - Some communities have long-standing volunteer "service exchanges" which could benefit a Giving Circle, given that such exchanges are helpful for communities to leverage expertise locally, meet others and help each other. Since these are "exchanges", this implies that the Giving Circle would probably need to exchange the services of its leaders/members in some way. It is recommended that any Giving Circle using a service exchange check the quality of the service being received prior to accessing it, if that service site does not vet or check the service quality on your behalf. Some examples of local service exchanges are:
m TimeBanks - TimeBanks are based on the concept of Service Exchanges but refer to the engagement as "Timebanking" because for every hour you put in, you get an hour back (so it is an even exchange of time service). According to the TimeBanks website in the U.S.:
n Federal Service Resources: HUD and other agencies have resources available at the Federal level for your community -- and potentially for your Giving Circle, depending on the location of your community and scope of your Giving Circle efforts and services. For example, HUD has the following services and resources available, if your organization is located in a:
Want to volunteer your services? Checkout the resources available via the HUD Volunteering web page. Note: The Giving Circles Network makes no representation about any volunteer clearinghouse or bureau, service exchange, or Federal resource. We recommend you research and check the services available and determine how to best leverage such resources to effectively meet the needs of your Giving Circle or grantees. |
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