Volunteer Spotlight: Barbara Bingnear, WFIT, Melbourne, FL
WFIT 89.5 FM is a non-commercial, public radio station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the Trustees of the Florida Institute of Technology.
WFIT’s mission is to provide quality programming designed to enrich and enhance the cultural and educational environment of East Central Florida. The station forms a unique liaison between the educational resources of Florida Institute of Technology and the informational needs of its listeners.
Today, our VolunteerSpotlight shines on Barbara Bingnear, Director of Gifts & Outreach for the station.
Barbara has served as Director of Gifts and Outreach for WFIT since June, 1998. She oversees funding for WFIT from individual listeners, develops and implements new giving programs, maintains a specialized donor database, creates and sends a monthly e-newsletter and handles reservations and payments for special events.
Barbara is also on the Board of Directors of VegFund, an organization that provides worldwide funding for outreach activities that inspire people to choose a vegan lifestyle.
Barbara uses VolunteerSpot's online signup sheets to schedule volunteers to answer phones during their annual fund-raising drive.
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Please tell us about your organization and your volunteer needs.
WFIT is a relatively small public radio station in Melbourne (east central) Florida. Like most public broadcasting media, we have on-air fundraisers. We hold these 11-day fundraisers twice a year and have 40-50 people on our email list as potential phone volunteers.
Explain how you use VolunteerSpot to coordinate these volunteers.
I was thrilled to see that I could set up my daily program schedule in VolunteerSpot. We utilize phone volunteers beginning at 7am, ending at midnight on most days. I was able to provide all the information potential volunteers needed to understand which programs they would be signing up for.
What’s one piece of advice you have for volunteers or their leaders out there?
Actually, I have two thoughts on that. First, give VolunteerSpot a try! I was really nervous about using it but I’m so glad I did. My second piece of advice is just to suggest having one of your volunteers try it out to satisfy yourself that it will work.
Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?
VolunteerSpot was casually mentioned on a public radio list-serve. I decided to try it hoping that VolunteerSpot would eliminate most of the back and forth emails that scheduling for 11 days and 40 volunteers normally would create. And it did!
Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your organization or volunteering?
I just want to say that VolunteerSpot made my volunteer scheduling job easier, but the best part for me was that using it is so much fun that I’m almost looking forward to our next fund drive.
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To learn more, visit www.wfit.org .
We salute Barbara and all the other volunteer leaders out there making a difference in our world. If you're using VolunteerSpot, write and tell us about what you're doing and give us a chance to shine our Volunteer Spotlight on you!! Just email us at [email protected].
