Featured Video: Rock Church, San Diego
Video clips of your service project such as the one above are a very powerful way to showcase the great work your people do for the community.
You Can Do Something to Make a Difference in Your Neighborhood!
Step 1
- First, decide if your efforts will focus on your entire city or region, or on the community you live in.
- Next, identify the area's most pressing needs. One way to do this is to read the newspaper and keep notes when it mentions needs.
- Then, schedule a meeting with your mayor or community representative. Ask for a list of the community’s most pressing needs from their perspective. Since you are there to serve, it is critical to ask them for what they think are the best ways you can serve the community.
Step 2
- Share the needs with your leadership. It is critical to get your leadership united and focused on which needs you will be addressing.
- Seek your leaders' great ideas of creative ways to address the needs. They will help identify the ministries/services you might already have that are addressing some of the community’s problems. Click here for ideas for community-wide events.
Step 3
- If you are a leader in a church, share the needs with your congregation. If you aren’t part of a church, consider partnering with one.
- Your church may have existing ministries focused on the expressed needs. This is a great opportunity to recruit more people to become involved in ministry in general, and in specific ministries as well. Everyone can get a Ph.DO, an “advanced degree in service!
- Your efforts mean that you will be recruiting people to become community partners as well. Forming strategic partnerships with the police, social services, public schools, the food bank, and so on, will create win-win situations for everyone.
Step 4
- Start serving!
- Conduct a church-wide or group-wide DO Something campaign (Getting Started Guide) This will lead to a church-wide community service project and the development of a series of ongoing ministries that will serve you community year-round. Click here for tips on how to start a ministry.
- Make sure you plan carefully and thoroughly. Then deploy your “troops” to meet the needs expressed by your mayor or community official.
Step 5
- Track your service hours.
- You can track them through DSW by manually recording them online.
Step 6
- Calculate the economic impact to your city.
- Multiple the numbers of hours you’ve donated by the reasonable hourly pay rate for your area to find the cost savings to your community. One way to do that is to go to O*Net Online (online.onetcenter.org).
Step 7
- Provide a quarterly mayor’s report.
- This report will give officials confidence that you are actually following through on what you promised. It is also an opportunity to nurture a working relationship with your mayor and/or city officials. (Name it according to the title of the official you’re working with.)
- Include the following components:
- Ministry description
- Practical need it addressed
- Community agencies you partnered with
- Number of volunteers involved
- Number of people in the community served
- Number of volunteer hours served
- Financial impact on the community/city.
For an example of a quarterly mayor’s report, click here.