Deeper Impact

The Northridge Serves partners love volunteers who can commit regular hours every week or month. But your schedule is crazy. And trying to get your group together just for a regular meeting is hard enough! You and your group want to have a deeper impact through serving, but it seems impossible to contribute enough time to make a life-changing impact.

Here's a method we've found some groups using very effectively:
Instead of serving as a huge group, break yourselves up and spread your service out over an entire quarter or year. Each week or month, send two of three of your group members to serve together. For the agency's perspective, they're getting 2 or 3 consistent volunteers, but each of your group members will only serve once or twice a quarter. Not only is this a great way to serve, but it provides an opportunity for a couple members of your group to spend additional time together building relationships through shared experiences.

Summer is a great time to start thinking about this, so you can hit the ground running with your group in the fall. Pick an organization and a specific weekly or monthly serving opportunity, perhaps something like stocking shelves at the Mission: Share food pantry. On the first or second week of group, pass out a calendar or list of dates, and have everyone sign up for one or two. Tada!