BTW, I want to help you. If you’re having an event coming up, I am having a kickass webinar today. It’s all about how to get sponsorships. If you didn’t make it, I’m having another one in September. You might want to get on that.
Okay, enough of ME offering to help you! Here’s how other people can help you!
Have you ever wanted to get MORE done every day?
Have you ever been frustrated with how little it seems like you can accomplish in your office?
Have you ever just been totally stuck with everything you have to do, and wondering, “HOW can I become 5 people so I can get all of my work done?”
I have a host of resources for you!
Idealist.org
It’s for more than just jobs! It looks like they have a blog now as well, and possibly, if you post a volunteer request there, people will come and volunteer for you.
Volunteermatch.org
Volunteermatch is an excellent source of volunteers. Do you need an extra pair of hands at your big event? Perhaps volunteermatch can help you.
HandsOn
Another volunteering site!
The Extraordinaires have turned into: http://www.sparked.com/.
Go there! Microvolunteering opportunities! Maybe you need a lawyer to look over a legal document. Maybe you need someone to edit your appeal letter and make it better. Check them out. It’s virtual volunteering at its best.
One thing I’ve noticed though, is that sometimes volunteers can’t always do what you need them to do, to your standards.
I’m thinking of one cringe-worthy day when I had people from a company come to volunteer at my nonprofit and I got together phone-a-thon resources and thought that everyone knew that we needed them to come and do a phone-a-thon and they got there and 90% of the people said, “Oh hey, I don’t want to do fundraising, I just want to, you know, do some clean-up tasks or something.” So then I had to scramble to find things for them to do while simultaneously trying to direct the phone-a-thon. It was a MESS. They left in a huff after doing some random tasks. I stayed and finished the phone-a-thon with the 2 volunteers I had left. It was better than nothing. We got a few thousand dollars that day.
So, if you have a little bit of money, may I suggest “Fancy Hands”?
Fancy Hands is Ted Roden’s new company. It will take $35 per month and do 15 tasks for you. They must be virtual tasks, they can’t be stuff like “Go pick up my drycleaning” (which is just as well, because I don’t DO drycleaning.) But for example, I asked them to research some things for me, and they GOT ON IT, and DID IT! It was incredible.
If you want unlimited tasks, it’s $55/month. Pretty sweet.
And before you say, “Oh, they must outsource all of their tasks to India,” let me tell you, no, actually, everyone I’ve talked with has been in America, and they are all very nice, and all write English perfectly. So, it’s helping to employ people in America, while at the same time getting things done for your nonprofit, at a higher standard than a volunteer might be able to do!
So they’re not paying me to say this or anything, I am just so happy with their service that I thought I would share.
Also, I’ve used Ted Roden’s service http://enjoysthin.gs for awhile, and I really like it, and now I like his new project too! he’s always doing fun things to help people.
Oh yeah, PS! Another little fun thing that my friend Cait Stuff turned me on to is http://750words.com. It’s a place to help you write, and it has cute little graphics that track your mood and what you write about, but you have total privacy, it doesn’t share your writing with anyone. It’s like doing the artist’s way, with more details, and it reminds you to write every day too! So this is a place to help you do your journaling. Which is part of self-care, remember! Take care of yourself! Get help! Have fun! 🙂