Staples - Youth Venture Competition on Changemakers

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Youth Venture Tips and Tools
How to Create a Sustainable Venture

Sustain/s -st n /v. To keep in existence; maintain

How to Maintain Membership & Volunteers
How to Effectively Engage Community Members
How to Maintain A Budget
How to Promote Positive Leadership

How to Maintain Membership & Volunteers:

Set Goals and Values. Conveying your goals and values will help you in recruiting members, finding volunteers for projects, and keeping people interested in new projects and events.

Make Recruiting a Priority. Assign someone to recruit members and volunteers for your project. This important task shouldn't get neglected in the face of other activities.

Use What You've Got! Use your existing members to spread the word about your organization. Ask them to recruit friends who might be interested in getting involved. Make sure everybody understands your mission statement and the purpose of the project correctly, so they can tell others about it.

Network. Upon meeting other people at social gatherings, conferences, etc., tell them about your organization and try to rouse their interest. Tell them to contact you if they are interested in receiving regular updates or in coming to a meeting.

Advertise Regularly. Publicize your project at school fairs, conferences, public places, and community events. Have people sign up for your newsletter or periodic updates, and encourage them to come to group meetings whenever possible.

Create Media. By creating a newsletter or website, you can easily keep members updated on your events in order to sustain their interest.

Delegate. By delegating tasks to your members, you will get them involved in your work. By giving them responsibility, you will make them feel part of the group and they'll be likely to take interest in future plans for your project.

Tools for Leading Effectively:

Sample Agenda

How to Effectively Engage Community Members:

Engaging your community on an ongoing basis is the key to creating large-scale long-term change in any community. By creating sustainable relationships and educating your community about your work regularly, you will keep the momentum going between your service projects and inspire your community to create positive change.

Learn about your community and understand it. Learn about its history, economy, diversity of people, etc. Get to know the people and their stories. Knowing about changes in the community is helpful. By understanding your community you will be able to become an effective communicator of your community's needs and promoter of your project's solutions.

Get people involved in your work! Ask community members to volunteer for your event/project. Let them know that your event/project is fun and creative. Adapt the task you assign people to their individual skills. You will be giving community members responsibility and perhaps even teaching them new skills and technology. This will make them feel more confident about their ability to make social change.

Momentum. Develop an ongoing array of smaller projects and events to keep people involved and interested in what you're doing. If you're not doing projects, keep people informed of other projects in the community. This will sustain people's interest, keep momentum going from project to project, and help you collaborate with other organizations in your community.

Utilize the media and public officials. By engaging the media and public officials, you will keep people interested and aware of your project's work. Follow up with them on what you're doing and always ask if they are able to cover your bigger projects . . .

Focus on the Positive. When communicating your ideas and thoughts to the community, remember to focus positively on your community and its assets. You're trying to make community members feel like they are part of the effort and not turn them off by negative comments.

Advertise. Advertise your project and your events regularly to the entire community in order to keep people involved and excited about your work. Some good examples of places to post information are supermarkets, libraries, schools, community centers (especially youth centers), and publications (including websites!), which serve the local community.

It takes everyone!

Remember to engage all the people in your community (think youth, elders, minorities, people with disabilities, etc). You cannot be realistic about meeting your community's needs if you do not account for the voice of everybody who lives within it. The best way to do this is to create a space for discussion, be it through informal open meetings, get-togethers or web forums; everyone will have something to say.
Reach out to different groups—church groups, fraternities, sororities, Girl Scouts/Boy Scouts, block associations, youth organizations, and women's groups in your area, who can help you to expand your volunteer base.

Reflect. Reflect on how your work is sustainable within the community and among its members. Are you doing something that is empowering people to carry out the goals of your project on their own?

Tools for Successful Events:

Event Evaluation
Example of a Press Release

How to Maintain a Budget:

Maintaining a budget is a huge part of making your venture sustainable and successful. How will your venture team continue once the initial seed funding from Youth Venture has been spent?

Go For Grants. Apply for as many as you can! In addition to grants, try pursuing other fundraising opportunities:

Fundraise!

Approach your high school or university for a network of possible funders.
Work with local businesses to hold sponsorship events:
Example: Partner with a pizza establishment and suggest that 10% of all the profits made from people carrying your flyer will go to your organization.
Send out letters to prospective donors explaining your venture team and the need you are addressing and follow up with a visit or a call. Often businesses will offer a discount on materials for events and in return you can put their company logo on your materials and brochures. Remember the importance on In Kind Donations!

Be Realistic!

Overestimate the cost of everything and make sure to account for every detail when planning
Add 10% on the end for any unexpected costs that you aren't sure about and consider it a reserve fund.

Select a Treasurer

Do you have a team member who's thrifty with spending or great with numbers? Elect him/her the official treasurer responsible for tracking all expenses and revenue.

Tools For Maintaining Your Budget:

Sample Fundraising Letter
Sample In Kind Donation Letter

How to Promote Positive Leadership:

Encourage potential leaders. Have them assume some of your leadership responsibilities. Teach them about your role and the skills needed to run the project. You can do it in creative ways: keep a leadership notebook, let them fill in for you to practice the role, etc. In this way, you can advise them on their performance and answer any questions they might have.

Remember. Remember what you wish you would had known starting out, such as effective leadership skills or information, and share this with potential leaders and your most committed members. This way you will be forming the basis for future leadership.

Bridging the Gap. Maintain good communication between younger members and older members within the project. An effective and fun way to get younger and older members to share ideas and teach each other about leadership is to have a retreat at someone's house, at the park, etc. This can be a time for goal-setting, brainstorming and simply for getting to know each other.

Passing the Torch:

Get Organized. Make sure you have a good organizational system. For example, contacts of all people associated with your project. Meeting notes, account information, and passwords are all examples of the types of information that need to be passed on to the new leadership. By creating a good system of organizing this information (also called Knowledge Management); you will help the new leadership transition to go very smoothly.
Let Others Know. Tell internal and outside contacts that you are planning to pass on the leadership, so that those contacts and the new leadership can work together in the future.
It's Not the End! Lastly, don't abandon your project once you have passed it on. Keep in touch with the new generation of leaders and support them.

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