A Call to Champions of Service
By Michael Nealis, Points of Light Institute
I remember sitting at my desk during my first year in AmeriCorps and finding out about the National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS) that was to be held in San Francisco. I thought it was a cool opportunity to meet people who were doing the kind of work that I was doing—I was recruiting and managing volunteers—and learn something about how to do my job better. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go.
Last year, when the conference was in New York, I not only got to go to the conference and meet some amazing people, but I had the opportunity to speak in a session about how to use social media for social good. Every person that I met was driven and dedicated to their craft, whether it’s volunteer management, fundraising, or solving community problems that wouldn’t even be addressed without the work of nonprofits and their volunteers.
This year’s conference is in New Orleans; a city that really understands the power of volunteerism. Not only is Points of Light Institute bringing together thousands of people driven to solve problems and get things done in their communities, they’ll actually be able to get things done for New Orleans! In addition to the massive amount of brain power that is being brought together in the city, strong arms and backs are being brought to the city’s parks that need a hand to get them back to a place where the community can use them.
NCVS is an amazing opportunity to learn from your peers, expand your network of nonprofit rock stars, meet some new friends, and celebrate the work that we do to make our communities better for everyone that lives in them. It’s the world's largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the nonprofit, corporate and government sectors, and they’re all coming together in New Orleans. If you or your organization deals with volunteers in any capacity, this is an event you do not want to miss!
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Michael Nealis is Interactive Strategy Coordinator for Points of Light Institute. Before coming to Points of Light Institute, he served for two years with Volunteer Maryland, an AmeriCorp*State program in Maryland. Most weekends, he can be found on a roof somewhere in Atlanta volunteering with Atlanta Habitat for Humanity and on Twitter as @MikeNealis
