I was so pleased to recently coordinate a “Get Creative with Social Media” workshop for Volunteer Victoria, facilitated by Mandy Leith. It pleased me even more that I was able to attend the workshop with  my mother, Elaine Cougler. Her adoption of and enthusiasm for social media tools to further her writing career is proof positive that social media is being used and enjoyed by people of all ages. Here is her guest post about attending the workshop:

Last week, Mandy Leith, “media-savvy storyteller, documentary filmmaker, social media strategist, media educator, founder of [Continue reading Telling Your Organization’s Story with Social Media]

Since 2000, Volunteer Victoria has been offering an Overview of Volunteer Management course once a year for those involved (or wanting to be) in the administration of volunteers.  In the course, participants learn all the basics they need to know about managing volunteers and we’ve graduated over 250 individuals from this course over the past eleven years. 

We’re currently planning for our 2011 offering, and this year we have something else exciting to announce other than just the new course dates for 2011.  Our course has been accepted for credit towards the first course – “Working with Volunteers” – in Red River College’s Volunteer Management ...

[Continue reading Training for Coordinators of Volunteers]

Recently, Volunteer Victoria’s Emerging Leaders Network offered a five-week public speaking course to a small group of individuals made up of mostly ELN members.  It was taught by Ginger Brunner of Dynamic HR Solutions Inc. and received rave reviews from all participants.  In this blog post, guest blogger Yasmin Rampuri (ELN member and on staff at the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria) shares her experience as a participant in this important skill-building course.

Along with 11 other brave souls, I’ve just completed a five-week “Speaking with Confidence” course which was offered through ...

[Continue reading Teaching Emerging Leaders to Speak with Confidence]

Each year Volunteer Victoria works with a wide variety of trainers to deliver workshops for our community participants.  As the Manager of Training and Outreach for Volunteer Victoria, I’m pleased that we are able to offer a good cross-section of learning opportunities for our member agencies and others in our community who need to develop knowledge and skills in nonprofit management.

Just since September last year our staff or contracted facilitators have taught workshops in: fund development, media relations, social media, volunteer management, networking skills, succession planning, communication skills, story-telling, governance, public ...

[Continue reading Our Training Initiatives]

The following is a guest blog post written by Kari Frazer, facilitator of our recent “Planning for Fundraising Success” workshop.  Kari holds the international Certified Fund Raising Executive designation and has been practicing fundraising, marketing and media relations for 24 years.

In my recent Planning for Fundraising Success workshop for Volunteer Victoria I think the pivotal subject was creating the The Case for Support. Many of the 30 people in the room had an ‘aha’ moment when we went to some of their websites and looked for evidence ...

[Continue reading Your Case for Support – a critical first step]

Summer turned into fall, fall turned into winter, and now I realize that I haven’t written an update about the Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) on this blog since late July last year. Wow, where did the time go? For me, time has really flown because I’ve been having fun coordinating numerous events for Victoria’s nonprofit emerging leaders this past half-year. In fact, we’ve had 28 separate ELN events since August!

Before I tell you more about what we’ve been up to, let me update you briefly on what the Network is and why it exists if you haven’t yet heard of it. The ELN was ...

[Continue reading How Emerging Leaders are Learning]

We are pleased to share with you the following guest blog post written by the Executive Director of one of our member agencies, The Glenshiel.  Laurie Mueller recently attended our “Story Skills and Telling Tales” workshop facilitated by experienced storyteller Norma Cameron. 

I want to tell you a story about a Volunteer Victoria workshop I attended that was one of the highlights of my year.  Do you have time to read 600 words to learn about something wonderful? If so, please read on.

My mother was a great teller of tales.  I remember as a child listening to her make ...

[Continue reading I want to tell you a story…]

We recently held a very successful  ”Story Skills and Telling Tales” day-long workshop, facilitated by Victoria-based storyteller Norma Cameron.  In this post, Norma herself gives readers some resources to turn to while learning how to tell your organization’s stories.

In 2005, after years of being a storyteller and a fundraising/communications consultant, I decided to marry these two pursuits and build more effective communication strategies and tools.  After all, a well-told story is the shortest distance between two people and telling your organization’s story is really no different than the stories we share with each other every day. 

However, it does require a wee bit of work.   ...

[Continue reading Telling Your Organization’s Story]

 A little birdie helped us out recently to learn more about nonprofit marketing.

The graphic birdie image pictured above sits in the “1, 2, 3 Marketing Tree”, developed by Mills Communications Group’s founder Erica Mills, who was in Victoria in mid-July to teach a workshop for Volunteer Victoria.  Erica delivered “Nonprofit Marketing: Make the Most of What You’ve Got!” to a collection of our member agencies – and the workshop was a fantastic success.

Nonprofit Marketing: As easy as 1, 2, 3]

It’s only been eight weeks since we launched our Emerging Leaders Network but the group’s membership has already risen to 85 people and we’ve held several fantastic events so far.  This is an update on what has been happening with the Network since it began in late May, and is also a glimpse of the exciting events we’ve got planned for the next few months.

It didn’t take long after we announced the creation of the Network’s online community for younger nonprofit professionals in the Victoria area to start signing up in droves.  In fact, within a week ...

[Continue reading Emerging Leaders Network: The first eight weeks]