January 2017, Presented by MSA (Susie Flug & Amy Mulvena)
To celebrate and reflect on your impact and growth this year To give you more tools with which to talk about your service experiences To share strategies you can use to sustain your service at your host site To help you begin to think about your plans for moving forward after the Commonwealth Corps and sustaining your experiences from this year (including next steps for careers/education) By the end of this session, you will be able to begin to develop a realistic plan for wrapping up your service, including: Leaving a record of your activities and accomplishments behind in your host organization. o To the extent possible, helping those taking over the project build on what has been done. o Identifying skills, experiences, contacts, and interests that you want to carry beyond the o service year and use for to help with your next steps.
Learn best practices for sustaining your project after the service year ends Identify specific things that you can do to leave a legacy Begin the conversation about sustaining the skills and commitments that you have developed in Commonwealth Corps and pursuing your career/educational/personal next steps, providing some specific resources and exercises you can pursue at your own pace moving forward Start to clarify what needs to be done in the short versus the long term
Ice Breaker Cheers & Fears about the chapter after your year of service o What are you most excited about the chapter after CC? What are you most concerned or o apprehensive about? Introductions
Sustaining Your Service Individual, Organizational, and Community Levels o Lunch ch Break eak Sustaining Your Development Personal/Professional Transitions, o Knowing Yourself, and o Capturing Your Skills o Career Planning Resumes o Cover Letters, o and Networking o Closing & Evaluations
Sustain: o Continue, maintain o Nourish, provided for needs o Support (physically or emotionally); prop up o Affirm as valid (e.g. a judge sustains an objection) o Prove, confirm (e.g. a hypothesis) Acknowledgement: The conceptual framework and strategies for building sustainability at the individual, organizational and community levels are based on Stone Soup Community Development: Sustainability and AmeriCorps*VISTA Projects (National Service Project Submitted by Amy Bonn, July 2000). Development of this material was supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service through a National Service Fellowship. This free resource is available for download at: http://dig ttp://digita italc lcomm ommons. ns.unom nomah aha.e a.edu du/slc /slcec ecurr rric iculu lum/3 m/32/ .
This presentation includes ideas for building sustainability at the indivi ividual dual, organiza anizati tion onal al, and comm mmuni nity ty levels. Indi divi vidual dual – Appropriate for all Commonwealth Corps projects o Organi niza zati tional onal and communit unity y – May be more feasible for some project than for others o Factors affecting organizational and community readiness to sustain your project may be beyond the control of members and supervisors.
Imagi gine ne that t it is ne next xt wint nter er. . You u have made a suc uccessfu essful l transition to “life after service.” o What t is o s one ne thing ng that t you u really lly hope e will st still be going ng st stron ong from the project(s) you’ve done and your service this year? o Share the above with a partner, and if time, start to discuss: • What can you do over the next several months to help make sure that what you started/focused on is carried on after your service?
Indiv ividu idual al member mber (you!) !) Guidin ding g those ose that at come after er you Organization anization Buy in, resour sources es (funds nds and people) le) to carry it on Community mmunity Ownership ip (pla lann nning, ing, commu municating nicating value) e)
Legacy projects or products: Exit memo or “Letter to Your Successor” o • Record of your project, key contacts, location of records (and access passwords), ideas for what helped you settled in and what could have helped you settle in faster/better, and comments about what has been done and what needs to be done. There may be a section for identifying key community members with whom it is important to • build relationships, These may not always be the people in formal leadership roles. ( Make sure to keep things on a positive note – appropriate for a written document that will remain behind when you leave.) Project or Service Binder o • Complete record of project, with sample materials (Electronic files and/or actual binder) Exit debrief meeting o • Some supervisors may already have plans to request this meeting. If not, you can suggest it. Source: VISTA Campus training materials; MSA historical records and systems
Lett etter er to your ur suc uccessor essor In addition to information similar to exit memo, may include: Tips for living in on the CC stipend, Suggestions for smooth org/community entry, Best ways to make time for CC obligations, Can’t miss trainings/opportunities, Things they wish they’d known/top tips. Source: Massachusetts Promise Fellowship (used with permission)
Other formats for Legacy Projects (in addition to letters/files): o Documenting accomplishments can take various forms, such as: • Blog • Wiki page • Photo montage • Video o Think about how we can capture ideas Corps-wide as well: • LinkedIn discussion thread • Other ideas?
o What will it take? • Time (balanced with direct service in last months of your term) Try to speak with your supervisor now about how this can fit into your service • schedule in the remaining months • Being clear about systems and locations for saving/sharing materials • Make sure your files are public and not left on your personal server/folder • Save things as you go: • Promotional materials • Meeting notes • Contact names, addresses, phone numbers, emails • Record of contacts (with descriptions) • Volunteer database • Volunteer management systems • Training manuals
Getting started: o What do you wish you had known from others/your host site when you started (but nobody told 1. you)? What did you find most helpful in getting started, from the things you were told/given? 2. What are your “top 3 tips” for someone taking over the project? 3. What is something you wish you had started doing yourself from the beginning of the year? 4. What would you do next, if you were staying? 5. What was a roadblock you encountered early on? What could your supervisor/organization do 6. to avoid this in the future? Adapted from: Stone Soup Community Development: Sustainability and AmeriCorps VISTA projects (Amy Bonn, 2000)
The Two-Person Rule: To create a sustainable network that will last after your project is over, make sure that at least two people know what you are doing, where your files are, and details of the project Source: The Stone Soup Training Module
Thinking nking big g pi picture ture Acti ting ng pr practicall ctically o What t is realistic stic for you in your organi nizat atio ion n and project ct at this s time? e?
Best practices for sustainability at the organizational level include: Plans are in place, or resources secured, to carry on the project after you leave the organization: Staffing and service members o Funding / budget o Volunteer base (current) o Systems for recruiting and managing volunteers (future) o Partnerships / collaborations o The project or program is seen as valuable within the organization. Senior staff and board members are aware of key activities. Capturing data to measure need for and impact of your service makes this tangible o Adapted from the Stone Soup Training Module: Sustaining the AmeriCorps*VISTA Experience
Record of proje ject ct thus far: r: List of volunteers with contact information List of key community members with contact information - Informal as well as formal community leaders List of partner organizations with contact information Notes from partner and community meetings Ways to build suppo port: t: “Elevator speech” – succinct statement of project Involvement of community members in planning and implementing the project Promotion – newspaper articles, events, etc.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = “no sustainability” and 10 = “full sustainability”: o How would you rate your organization’s current readiness to sustain your ur se service ice after er you u are gone? ne? Have you and your super ervisor visor begun un to discuss uss ways s to sust stain ain your r project? ect? What can you person sonally ally do to help the organi ganizat ation ion sust stain ain the projec ject? t? If there re is not a persona sonal l role e for you in some me areas, as, what t can y n you u learn rn from m what other ers s are doing ng?
Recommend
More recommend
