Janice Pothier Pac, the director of volunteer engagement for United Way of Rhode Island, joined the organization in early 2016 to strategically expand opportunities for volunteerism. She brings more than 25 years of experience working with volunteers and developing volunteer projects to UWRI after serving as executive director of the Volunteer Center of Rhode Island and then as associate director at Serve Rhode Island, where she worked with 160 nonprofit agencies annually and coordinated more than 11,000 volunteer service hours each year.
PBN: United Way of Rhode Island is gearing up for National Family Volunteer Day on Saturday, Nov. 18 – what’s the impetus behind this day?
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PAC: National Family Volunteer Day is held annually on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and celebrates the power of families volunteering to make a difference. At UWRI, we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of families seeking engaging, rewarding service opportunities where they can volunteer together. So much of that interest stems from a desire to instill the values of volunteering and giving in their children and when we looked, there weren’t a lot of local opportunities for families to volunteer together. Families continue to ask for more, so this year, we will have offered a total of six family volunteer projects.
Our goal is to match people with volunteer opportunities that are right for them – volunteers want to be put in a position where they can make the biggest impact and that’s why we’ve been so successful engaging families. I also feel there’s value in making more people aware of UWRI’s work.
PBN: What does UWRI have planned for this year’s activities and are there still opportunities for families to get involved?
PAC: By popular demand, we will once again be doing our Literacy Kit project, which encourages home reading by making a book more engaging. Participating families are asked to donate books and use their creativity, as well as arts and crafts supplies provided by UWRI, to create puppets, games and props based on a book and can be used as a tool to help deepen understanding of a child’s reading experience. Some families even include personal messages of encouragement in the kits they create.
Thanks to our partnership with Roger Williams Park Zoo, this year’s kits will focus on animal-themed books. Every family that donates an animal-themed book at the Nov. 18 event will receive free children’s passes to the zoo. The Saturday event can accommodate close to 100 people and UWRI expects registration to remain open through Nov. 15, or until all spots are filled. Families can sign up on our website or subscribe to our e-newsletter for updates on Family Volunteer Day and other opportunities.
PBN: Since you joined UWRI in 2016, the organization has been successful in engaging more volunteers – more than doubling the number and service hours contributed annually. To what do you attribute this growth and how have you been able to meet increased interest?
PAC: The growth we’ve experienced has occurred for two reasons. There is a lot more interest in corporate social responsibility, where businesses and employees deepen their participation in meaningful service projects. According to America’s Charities, 60 percent of small and midsize companies offer volunteer benefits, so this is a major shift; it is no longer some companies – it is most companies.
The other reason is that we work hard to customize projects to meet what volunteers are looking to do for their community. UWRI does a lot of behind-the-scenes work to coordinate and invest in these projects because our volunteers are investing in them too. I can’t think of anything worse than having volunteers ready to help make a difference and being unable to move forward due to a lack of coordination. Meeting, and then exceeding, the expectations of everyone involved makes for a very valuable experience that keeps people coming back for more.
PBN: Much of your career has focused on volunteerism – how has your work changed in recent years with regard to the types of opportunities corporate and community volunteers want?
PAC: There has been a definite upsurge in corporate volunteerism over the past few years as companies better recognize the benefits. When employees volunteer, it expands the impact of a company’s philanthropy beyond their financial giving. There is also evidence corporate volunteerism helps recruit strong employees and plays a large role in employee retention, morale and skills development. Millennials, in particular, want to work for organizations that have reputations of strong civic engagement.
Another shift is that volunteers want to make a more long-lasting difference in the lives of others, moving away from the painting and cleanup projects that were popular several years ago. Just this year, we’ve engaged corporate volunteers in packaging 47,000 meals to help feed the hungry, collecting and filling 2,000 backpacks with school supplies and organized a field day for inner-city children.
PBN: How do you see volunteerism, particularly in Rhode Island, evolving in the future?
PAC: The growth in corporate volunteerism has also come with an increased interest in skills-based volunteerism, with corporate workers looking to share their time and expertise with local nonprofits.
The skills-based volunteer connections we’ve made so far include bank personnel teaching financial literacy workshops and marketing professionals helping nonprofits improve their educational materials. In the future, we’re hoping to expand this to include IT [information technology] staff advising and corporate executives addressing leadership skills for strategic planning, development and government service. There are so many needs among nonprofits – coupled with limited resources – that skills-based volunteers can really make a big difference. We’ve begun to see this, and I think we’re going to see a lot more interest in this area moving forward.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
