MAVA Virtual Conference

Wednesday June 3, 2020 Workshop Schedule

 

Workshop 1

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Liz Uram - Communicate Like A Boss Without Being Bossy

Do difficult people ruin your day? Are you tired of people walking all over you? Are you ready to stand up for yourself but are afraid of looking like a jerk? It’s time to learn how to communicate like a boss! Excellent communication isn’t about being bossy, it’s about getting your point across assertively. It’s about building relationships, being influential, and making a positive impact on other people. Let’s face it, communication is complex and it can be hard but it’s a skill worth developing. Building good communication skills will increase your value, make interactions with other people easier, and make you a more effective leader. In this presentation, you will discover: What message you’re sending when you aren’t saying a word. How to be seen by others as confident, not a doormat or bossy. How to shift your perspective on dealing with difficult people. And how to assertively set boundaries with other people.

 

Workshop 2

10:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Paul Langenfeld - 10 Secrets of Being Media Savvy

Certain people know the secrets of "Star Power." Their events get the attention of the media - their groups get written up in the newspapers and magazines, reporters are constantly putting microphones in front of them to capture their every word, and when they have an event, the cameras show up. We'll reveal the mystery of how to command media attention - How you can make your volunteer activities so irresistible that reporters will never want to feel left out. These media Savvy secrets will also allow you to garner respect and admiration from corporate executives and community partners - helping them to realize that partnering with you will shine the same "Star Power" their organization.

 

PLENARY

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Jermaine Davis - Leading with an Inclusive Lens. Achieving Organizational Synergy with Diversity & Inclusion

Leading with an Inclusion Lens begins with a willingness to communicate, behave, and think differently when interacting with people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. Organizations and teams have become increasingly multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual, and multifaceted. In this engaging and thought-provoking Keynote, Dr. Jermaine teaches leaders and frontline employees how to behave, communicate, and think with an inclusive lens to create an environment that’s respectful of everyone. Identifying leadership blind spots is a key component to moving forward in this area. It’s important to engage in courageous conversations about diversity-related issues. Dr. Jermaine teaches people how to address sensitive issues without feeling awkward, guilty, fearful, or uncomfortable.

 

Workshop 3

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Samantha Swain - Inspiring Your Event Volunteers- Going Virtual

This session will explore strategic and equitable ways you can leverage your fundraising event volunteers—planning committee, host committee, and day-of-event support—to provide your event with all of the necessary resources to be successful. We'll look at best practices as well as dos and don’ts for working with a committee to help them help you. We'll also discuss how to prepare day-of-event volunteers to provide a guest experience that stewards donors and keeps guests coming back. The goal is to provide you with volunteer solutions and best practices to implement now.

 

Workshop 4

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Katie Mahoney - Supporting Volunteers with Mental Illness (Including the Ones You Already Have But Don't Know About!)

1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experiences mental illness, which means many of our current and potential volunteers are living with mental health conditions. This session will cover simple tools, practical strategies, and next steps to ensure your volunteer program welcomes, supports and sustains volunteers with mental illness. By the end of this training, participants will be better able to recognize common symptoms and communication strategies, identify concrete steps that any organization can take, and create their own achievable action plan to better support volunteers with mental illness.

 

Workshop 5

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Polly Roach - Volunteer Engagement during a Pandemic-COVID Response

The Covid-19 pandemic is challenging for all, including organizations that rely on volunteers to meet their mission and provide essential services to our communities. During this time, normal operations are affected and we as volunteer engagement professionals are called upon to find new ways to lead volunteers. This workshop will help guide and inform your efforts. We will cover best volunteer management practices during a pandemic and continuing volunteer engagement for volunteer engagement professionals in organizations that have paused their use of volunteer resources during Covid-19.

MAVA Virtual Conference

Thursday June 4, 2020 Workshop Schedule

 

Workshop 1

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Anne Owens - Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Collaborative efforts between organizations can be effective ways to meet community needs and stretch resources. To be truly successful, there need to be clear expectations, responsibilities, and agreed upon evaluation metrics. Applying the basics of volunteer management principles on an organizational level, helps set the stage for group success.

 

Workshop 2

10:30 AM -11:30 AM

Karmit Bulman - Preserving Positive Workplace Communication and Negotiation

Did you know that solving the other person’s problem is the way to advance your own problem solving? Do you want to learn new approaches to making the case for advancing volunteer engagement? As a volunteer engagement leader, your communication, negotiation and problem-solving skills are of the utmost importance. You also have many opportunities to engage in work-related negotiations - to advance volunteerism, implement new initiatives or gain new resources, and to advance your status as a leader in your organization. To increase your chances for success, equip yourself with new tools that will enhance your ability to be an effective advocate and even better communicator. You will position yourself to achieve better outcomes by learning new interest-based communication and negotiation strategies.

 

PLENARY        

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Rob Jackson - How to develop as a Volunteer Manager

What do you want from a career in working with volunteers? Do you even see volunteer management as a career or just a step towards something else? How can you take control of your professional development? Drawing on his own personal career journey. Rob will help you focus on how you can develop as volunteer manager and what options are available to you to make your goals happen.

 

Workshop 3

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Ken Culp - Sharing your Impact with the Stories You Tell

Learn the most effective means of telling our story - of the value, worth, contribution and impact of volunteer programs. It’s simple, accurate, easy to do, and will make a lasting impression upon board members, administrators and prospective volunteers. We are in the people business. While EVERYONE seems to believe that reporting volunteer hours and multiplying that number by the Independent Sector's “value of volunteer time” denotes impact. It does not!  It is virtually impossible to measure or determine the impact of volunteer programs through numbers, hours or dollars. In the people business, contributions cannot simply be measured coldly and analytically … rather, they must be reported qualitatively; through the stories we gather, report, share and tell.

 

Workshop 4

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Lisa Joyslin - Lead the Change: Building Racial Equity in Volunteerism

Dismantling racism in volunteerism requires work at multiple levels: individual, organizational, and community-wide. In this session, MAVA will present resources for building a stronger understanding of racial equity work at each of these levels, and will explore how learning and leadership intersect between the levels. We will explore the history of racial inequity in volunteerism and how many of these inequities are perpetuated today. Participants will walk away with increased knowledge and tools, along with resources for continuing to build understanding personally, organizationally and throughout their communities.

 

Workshop 5

4:30 PM-5:30 PM            

Cairn Reisch - It’s a Win-Win! Utilizing Volunteers in Meaningful Work

Explore what motivates volunteers and how we can “fill their bucket” to keep them engaged in the work and mission of our organizations. Affiliation, Achievement and Power - How do we take that knowledge and apply it in our daily work? Using best practice techniques and encouraging delegation of responsibilities we'll outline volunteer work plans. We'll review and discuss reflection and evaluation within volunteer programs - how we gather feedback from staff, volunteers, and the clients we serve and what do we do with that information. Finally, we will learn about some of the resources available to volunteer engagement professionals.

MAVA Virtual Conference

Friday June 5, 2020 Workshop Schedule

 

Workshop 1

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Beth Steinhorn - Citywide Volunteer Engagement: A Path to Stronger Communities

Across the nation, government leaders are striving to build resilient communities, serve their residents, and strengthen their communities economically, socially, physically, and beyond. Research shows that engaging residents as volunteers can help cities in all those efforts. This session is designed around free playbooks for citywide engagement published in partnership with Offero. Explore the research, hear case studies, and try your hand with some of the tools designed to accelerate your citywide engagement efforts.

 

Workshop 2

10:30 AM -11:30 AM

Barry Altland - Ladder or Lattice? Investing in Your Professional Growth in the 21st Century

Your professional development determines your future career path. Yet few of us are provided a roadmap for how we are to invest in ourselves to prepare for our next steps. What direction should I go? What options do I have? What actions must I take to achieve my goals? What if I am cool with where I am right now? Participants will take a fresh look at the many possibilities for future career direction in today’s professional world, and the steps we all can take to grow our knowledge, skills, acumen and preparedness for the next opportunity when it arrives!

 

PLENARY        

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Kirsten Hoaby - Creating and Implementing Virtual Volunteer Trainings that Work!

Learn to develop new virtual trainings or improve upon existing ones. For new and experienced trainers alike! We'll discuss different types of volunteer trainings that Make-A-Wish Minnesota implements, with an emphasis on live virtual trainings, recorded webinars, and filmed videos. Kirsten will share how her team creates and implement virtual trainings for volunteers living across Minnesota - including training examples, and tips and best practices that they’ve learned. Since July of 2018 our presenter has developed seven webinars/videos (soon to be nine); and due to recent events, she's also created a new live virtual volunteer training and adapted two in-person trainings to a virtual format; so she's got plenty of hands-on experience to share.

 

Workshop 3

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Paul Durand - Working Together We Can Get a Lot Accomplished for Our Community!
Programming Without Walls - How the Alliance Supports Corp uses volunteering with other local community partners as a means to provide services to their clients. One organization's story of expanding their impact by serving another's mission.

 

Workshop 4

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Jenna Egan - The Fine Line between Volunteers and Donors and How to Cross It

Volunteer Engagement and Development are inextricably linked, yet we often view these departments with a very different lens. Instead of staying in our own lane, let's learn creative and fun strategies for turning your volunteers into donors and your donors into volunteers. An integrated approach allows us to better serve our mission and engage our constituents. You'll gain insight and receive templates and tools to start crossing those lanes.

 

Workshop 5

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Terry Straub - Cutting Edge Strategies for the "New Normal"

In the "New Normal" of high demand for service and tight funding, nonprofits must turn to volunteers in fresh and creative ways to meet mission. MAVA has been developing strategies to do just that. Learn what we have found in researching trends, surveying our members across the state, and leading focus groups with nonprofits that deliver the majority of their services with volunteers. Learn nine cutting edge strategies to help you maximize the impact of volunteers. Explore how to design volunteer positions, streamline your volunteer program process, and get organizational buy-in for a culture that focuses on impact through volunteers. Finally, assess your organization’s readiness to fully engage volunteers and move to the next level of volunteer engagement.