Hands On Network and the Points of Light Foundation today announced mutual board approval to merge their two organizations.
The announcement transforms the landscape of the volunteer sector, creating a network of 370 affiliate organizations covering 83% of the US market.
Michelle Nunn, co-founder and CEO of Hands On Network, will lead the new organization. Nunn, daughter of former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, has been a visionary leader in the nonprofit sector for 17 years—leading a growing a network of 73 affiliate organizations in the U.S. and in eight countries.
Ray Chambers, philanthropist, will serve as the new organization’s chairman of the board during the integration period, with Neil Bush, CEO of Houston-based Ignite Learning, and son of former President George Bush, Sr., serving as vice-chair.
Nunn will assume leadership on July 31, 2007 and the new organization will officially launch on October 1, 2007.
In a letter to the network of volunteer centers and affiliate organizations, Terry Williams, Interim CEO of the Points of Light Foundation and Michelle Nunn shared the belief that this new organization will create an improved and more powerful network and support a scaled and more effective civic movement.
“The time is ripe for us to re-imagine how we can create exponential versus incremental change in volunteerism and civic participation,” says Nunn.
“Combining the unique strengths and assets of both our organizations gives us the opportunity to truly realize our vision of a world in which all individuals discover their power to make a difference and are equipped as active, engaged citizens.” Over the next 100 days, the new organization will be working as a combined staff and in partnership with affiliates to create an annual plan, network support plan, budget and new staffing structures in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Affiliates have been the backbone of innovation and leadership for Hands On Network and the Points of Light Foundation. According to Nunn and Williams, this essential approach will continue to be honored in the new organization. Affiliate leadership will be engaged across all areas of the new organization, from the national board to a variety of task forces and sub committees to get to solutions on critical integration elements. By combining the existing infrastructures of Hands On Network and the Points of Light Foundation will create a far more robust civic network than has been previously possible. This means:
- An increased ability to direct one of our nation’s most powerful and underutilized resources – volunteers – towards addressing some of our most intractable problems: literacy, homelessness, civic engagement.
- Providing everyday citizens with the resource they need to “get hands on” in their community. Most American’s say they would like to be more involved in their communities, but don’t know where or how to begin.
Moving forward, Hands On Network and the Points of Light Foundation hope to incorporate the ideas and suggestions of our affiliate and volunteer centers, other nonprofit and corporate voices, and the greater nonprofit sector. If you are interested in being part of ongoing discussions about the merger, please leave a comment below.
You can also view the merger FAQ’s here
Cassandra Thomas said
Volunteerresource.com has been a vital resource for me as I was creating our organization’s EVP. The site provided me with links to valuable articles and case studies. The site was easy to utilize and such a time saver. I definitely hope that you continue to provide this service.
Cassandra Thomas
AultCare Community Relations Director
James Donovan said
This is great news for everyone – very exciting.
Peggie Duggan said
Congratulations on the vision and the merge. I hope you will work with Volunteerresource.org as way to get your message out. I have found the
VolunteerResource.org website very useful and have recommended it to everyone from emergency managers to politicians on the campaign trail – in short, any group who has need of volunteers. It’s beautifully tailored for an individual looking for a way to serve.
After September 11, I had wanted to help in some way. In 2002, it was due to VolunteerResource.org that I was able to locate Emergency Services Coordinating Agency to become trained as a Community Emergency Response Team member (an 8 week course for a total of 24 hours). I became an instructor for ESCA. I have received the Presidential Awards for Volunteer Service – one Silver (300-500 hours/annual) and three
Bronze (100-299 hours/annual) since 2003 – - all because of a one stop website that helped me target my interests and find out what was close to me geographically. I have met some of the most wonderful people, who have become close friends. I highly recommend using the VolunteerResource.org.
Peggie Duggan
Volunteer
Levis Maina said
This is thrilling! Congratulations Hands On Network and Points of Light for the great merger.This shows you are thinking more on the citizens and entire world rather than your individual organization success.With this merger I hope you will have Africa in mind as we bring a culture of volunteerism in Africa.Here at Hands On Kenya we are so excited and are looking forward for a tremendous “epidemic” of enthusiastic citizens in volunteerism and civic engagement.
All the best!
Levis Maina
Student Team Leader
University of Nairobi
Robin Necci said
I have used this site on several occasions and have gotten some useful information to use in my community. You have good information that I can get since I share volunteer information with other non-profit agencies. As a Volunteer Center, this information is useful as a resource as well.
Margie Norum said
The more information out there for volunteers, the better. I work
with volunteers all the time, because I’m a Volunteer Coordinator for
Family First Hospice in Ennis, Texas. So, I’m always looking for ways to
connect my volunteers and patients involved in the community. It
is good for both parties, they bond and more people learn about doing
volunteering.
Sue Wolford said
I just got back to work from the Points of Light conference and found it all to be a tremendous resource. I probably wouldn’t have attended if not for all the great material I found on volunteerresource.org. I joined Points of Light based on the information I found here when I started to research volunteer-related topics. The extensive library of information serves as a great help to me as I rebuild our volunteer program.
Hillary said
I’m sorry…without a detailed, well distributed report on how this merger affects American nonprofits and volunteer resource managers, I am stifled. Will HON recognize the work of national VRM’s in the non profit sector?
One would think that the largest volunteer association in our country would provide a guidepost; clear, concise reporting; inviting discussion and offering excitement to the merger. The POL Conference should have been that debut moment!
Initial speculation, after the announcement of this important merger, has offered little evidence that this alliance even INCLUDES the professionals-VRM’s.
Betty Stallings said
My challenge for those crafting this significant new organization is to place major focus on building commitment, capacity and competency with organizations who partner with volunteers to accomplish their missions. Generating more hours and numbers of volunteers results in further stretching under-resourced organizations, thus often resulting in ineffective volunteer engagement as opposed to the exciting potential of volunteers, effectively engaged.
I would be happy to be involved in creative discussions to address this significant issue/gap. Attracting volunteers is the easy part.
Perhaps the new organization can also look at a partnership with the COVAA (www.covaa.org) movement to regenerate needed support to the profession of volunteer engagement. A representative of that profession should be at the table of merger discussions.
My best wishes to you in this most significant task. Volunteerism, worldwide, will be impacted by your decisions.
Robanna Brosten said
I received information on this merger today through the newsletter I receive from Energize. At our organization volunteers are extremely important to our operation as they handle most of the work on our 24 hour crisis line. In small town America, volunteers are becoming harder and harder to find. We are in desperate need of them to fill our shift hours. The majority of people in rural America do not earn a living wage, and with it being necessary for both partners to work just to survive, volunteers have become an endangered species. How will this merger have any effect on improving this situation? In towns of 30,000 there is no such thing as a volunteer service center, so how will you reach rural America?
An additional concern I have is will you provide your services to organizations for free, or will there be a fee? I read above that someone had just attended the Points of Light conference, when I looked into attending and saw the price I wasn’t sure what kind of audience they were expecting, certainly not volunteer coordinators who work for social service agencies which are woefully underfunded. In my wildest dreams, my organization could never pay to fund attendance at such an event.
One last concern I have; it seems that many people on the board are political. Is there going to be a push to exclude organization who believe strongly in a woman’s right to choose? Are you going to turn this into a political process in which you lose sight of your mission?
Robanna
Development Coordinator/Volunteer Coordinator
Lewiston, ID
Wendy Moluf said
I also attended the Points of Light Conference in Philadelphia last month, and as a volunteer coordinator at a small non-profit in southern New Jersey, was both inspired and confused by the workshops and presentations. Many of us who work for smaller organizations and depend on volunteers to provide vital services to our communities know virtually nothing about the work of the National Organizations represented at the Conference who seem to be the powers behind decisions being made which will surely affect all of us in the future. I have been working in the field for over 10 years with little or no contact with either Point of Light or Hands On Network (they do not have an affiliate in our county), therefore it is difficult to even formulate an intelligent question regarding the merger and its future impact on volunteerism. My hope would be that those of us volunteer professionals working in the field (probably hundreds of thousands across the country) will be part of the discussion moving forward as to how the new organization can be a resource that is truly relevant to the work we are doing.
Sarah H. Elliston said
This is interesting news. I know the strong volunteer centers are very helpful to the volunteer world and I have seen the Hands On Affiliates do excellent work in inciting people to volunteer for one-time events in many communities.
I applaud the leadership training that HON does for its members. What the world needs more is well trained volunteer leaders.
What I wonder about are the paid staff or the organizations who work with the volunteers. POLF used to be committed to training and supporting them and I don’t see anything in the goals of the new organization about developing opportunities for volunteers- what I see is growing the numbers of volunteers not the numbers of volunteer opportunities.
The people who are paid to support volunteers seem to be left out of the loop in this new organization.
I have worked in this field for over 25 years and what I notice about people who get excited about volunteering is that the sheer possibility of many people working together is what seduces them. The idea of bigger is better tends to overwhelm them and they are unwilling to stop and look at the building blocks of the steps to go through to make a good volunteer experience.
Delta Airlines s a good example of Bigger Isn’t Better – so are most of the American Car manufacturers. At some point, there is a law of diminishing returns.
My hope is that the leaders of this organization stop and look at the structures that support volunteers and develop some goals around education, training and support for the managers of the volunteer resources. Leaving them out of the plan is like buying up acres and acres of land, then buying up bushel bags of seeds and dropping the bags on the soil – expecting the seeds to plant themselves.
Somebody has to plant the seeds. Somebody has to train volunteer leaders, somebody has to develop the volunteer opportunities that will actually meet volunteer needs as well as meet community needs. That person is the Manager of Volunteer Resources and I don’t see that person mentioned in the material published about this new organization. POLF has done some work towards helping this person but much more needs to be done.
I look forward to hearing more.
Hillary Roberts said
Without a detailed, well distributed report on how this merger affects American nonprofits and volunteer resource managers, I am stifled. Have VRM’s been included so far? Is more information going to be distributed soon? What resource outlets will be brought in to expand the dialogue about this merger?
More information would be wonderful.
Nicolette Winner said
I attended the conference in Philadelphia and am very excited about the new merger. As a Volunteer Center director and a former nonprofit volunteer program administrator who worked often with a local Hands On Network affiliate, I think there is a tremendous amount of potential for this new network to really impact volunteerism.
As any volunteer program administrator will tell you, nonprofits don’t necessarily need MORE volunteers as much as they need to implement effective tools for retaining outstanding volunteers. I hope that the new organization will consider realigning its goals with those that provide more accessible training to the average small nonprofit volunteer program administrator. Let’s continue to distribute and develop effective training kits that may be administered by local Volunteer Center/HON affliate, provide more one-on-one assistance via these organizations and promote the idea of volunteering throughout the US via national advertising. VC’s and HON affiliates are here to serve nonprofits and volunteers alike, but if we only concentrate our future efforts on serving volunteers by engaging MORE volunteers…. Does that mean we’re REALLY serving volunteers? And what good will it do if we’re not giving the agencies we serve the tools necessary to retain all of these new volunteers?
The answers aren’t going to be immediately available. I hope the posters from Susan Ellis’s site do know that there is a great deal of planning and conversation happening behind the scenes. Perhaps it would be beneficial for the new organization to create some communication we can share with the agencies we serve that really speaks directly to them?
Hillary Roberts said
I hope the new “network” takes these insightful comments under consideration.
The P of L and HON have a lot of work to do in understanding how small non profits and state-registered grassroots organizations function in their local communities. If the only pipeline to this kind of information is through P of L membership or Volunteer Center data, this merger will miss out on the larger number of organizations serving hundreds of inner cities, rural and suburban areas not registered with a Vol Center or even aware of P of L/HON.
Further, before this merger can measure its impact on volunteerism, there needs to be more energy spent becoming familiar with one another.
Susan J. Ellis said
Having shared my general comments about the merger in the July Hot Topic on my Web site (http://www.energizeinc.com/hot/2007/07aug.html), I wanted to wait a while before posting here (to let others give input first). It disappoints me that only 15 comments have been submitted and I hope many more still come.
I want to reiterate that I believe there is enormous, positive potential for a great organization to come out of this merger. But there is still need for caution.
Several people here have commented that there has been good interaction with “the field.” I continue to believe that only one segment of volunteerism has been in the loop: volunteer centers and HON affiliates. These may indeed represent, in turn, many more colleagues, but their perspective is not that of the frontline volunteer program manager, large numbers of the varied organizations out there, or the frontline volunteer.
The press release and FAQ from last month are troubling in that they make promises about huge number of new volunteers and other “empty PR” that does not elicit confidence that the new organization values the need for strong infrastructure to support volunteers.
Since then there has been no public communication — nor response to the comments being posted here. Why does the planning have to take place in total silence?
The brief history of all the players I shared within the Hot Topic illuminates my concern at the possible mission conflict between POLF and HON, as well as the obvious yet undefined relationship with the Corporation for National and Community Service. Time will tell….
We’d all be more trusting of the process if it was explained more openly.
Please seize this chance to do something truly valuable for the ENTIRE field of volunteerism. Thank you.
Kathryn Bruce said
Hmm…when I worked with my community in Florida to develop a Volunteer Resource Center, we examined both the offerings of HON and the POLF in detail. Our goal was to create a comprehensive approach to increasing the effectiveness of the organizations which utilize volunteers–basically to increase the capacity of each agency so that they could better enage individuals in meaningful volunteer posts. Clearly connecting individuals with volunteer opportunities (like HON) was essential, but the “real meat” of the Center was the volunteer management training offered using the POLF training model. Experienced volunteer managers know it is not recruiting that is the biggest stumbling block, it is effective placement, training and supervision–these enable all organizations to sustain their efforts….please do not create a huge volunteer connection “machine” without first establishing a way to enhance the capacity of volunteer agencies (including groups that use volunteers–like schools, churches, etc.) to use those volunteers. I fear if the new organization is all about recruitment, then we will end up with a lot of disgruntled volunteers. Poorly structured volunteer experiences hurt everyone’s “big picture” in ways that have rippling effects. I trust everyone is proceeding cautiously and intentionally….