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Responses to: National Volunteer Week: Does Anyone Care?

Full response from John Schneider, Vice President - Communications, Points of Light, Washington, DC

In response to your article, National Volunteer Week: Does Anyone Care?, I thought you might like to know that the Points of Light Foundation and the Volunteer Center National Network do indeed care and are fully committed to support National Volunteer Week.

While we would certainly do more given additional funding, here are some examples of our current support activities:

Our media relations strategy has always been to develop and provide outstanding promotional materials to all of our Volunteer Centers so that they can work with the local media to promote their own activities. As a result, we receive a large amount of local publicity. While we issue national press releases and pitch stories to the national media, most of our effort is to look for local media opportunities. That’s where the real stories are located!

We produce a comprehensive promotional tool kit that is available -- beginning in January -- at no cost to our member Volunteer Centers and is also available to other local and national organizations throughout the country. The kit includes a CD, fact sheet, logo slicks, radio spots, hints on gaining publicity, editorial suggestions, etc.

Because we believe that the focus of NVW is primarily to recognize the efforts of volunteers, we coordinate a number of national and local activities, such as the President’s Service Awards, the Make a Difference Awards, the Daily Points of Light Awards, Youth Service Day (Youth Service America), etc.

Our officers are always scheduled in advance to speak with both national and community groups for the entire week.

We provide radio and television interviews before and during the week. We’ve had an excellent track record for placement.

Our web site ­ while under construction for the next few months ­ does in fact have a NVW icon as part of the Seasons of Service schedule of events. The site itself has a number of information components about NVW.

During the past two years, we have made electronic “Cards of Appreciation” available on our web site and are working with a major card company to create additional opportunities. We have not made the cards available this year, however, because our web site is under construction.

We send thousands of “Seasons of Service” calendars to Volunteers Centers and other community organizations.

Every year, we obtain proclamations from the President of the United States as well as from the governors of every state.

We work with corporations throughout the country to develop opportunities for their employees to volunteer during the week.

We are working with major companies ­ one is a major national cable company ­ to provide assistance in producing public service announcements to be shown during the week.

We are providing our toll-free number (1-800-VOLUNTEER) to a number of companies and organizations to help promote National Volunteer Week through their own marketing efforts.

Every year, we develop the theme and logo for the week.

We provide the National Volunteer Week Hotline (202-729-8168) to answer questionsWe provide the National Volunteer Week Hotline (202-729-8168) to answer questions and respond to requests. The hotline has been extremely popular.

We have developed web banners that have been placed with major Internet sites.

And while we may not be able to do everything you've suggested in your article because of our modest budget, we do leverage our limited resources very effectively.

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