2024 AGO International Gleaning Symposium�Track 2: Building Your Skills�

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Ready Set Go!  Volunteer Engagement

Kacey Carpenter, Author

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Agenda

Engage

Energize

Empower

Your Call to Action

Kacey Carpenter, Author, Organizer, Speaker

Volunteer People Power

A young girl feared for the future

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She took action to make a difference

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Her voice reached millions to inspire a movement

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★Success Story★

• Greta Thunberg: An autistic climate justice activist, her journey began in childhood when she learned about climate change at the age of eight. This sparked a personal transformation, leading her to become a vegetarian and refuse air travel due to their significant contributions to global warming.
• Message: She sat outside Sweden’s parliament for three weeks before the Swedish election in September 2018, holding a sign that read “Skolstrejk för Klimatet” (School Strike for Climate).
• Story: This solitary act evolved into the global Fridays for Future movement, inspiring students world-wide to join her in striking for climate action.
• Platform: Greta’s advocacy work has taken her to big stages around the world, including the World Economic Forum and the United Nations. Her powerful speeches have made the world take notice of the urgent need to tackle climate change.

Greta Thunberg, Fridays For Future

fridaysforfuture.org

Volunteer People Power

Retired chief executive largest organization

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Volunteered for more than 35 years

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Built more than 4,300 houses

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★Success Story★

• Jimmy Carter, Former U.S. President: An
• Message: “Habitat has successfully removed the stigma of charity by substituting it with a sense of partnership.”
• Story: For more than 35 years, Carter and his wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, have been devoted volunteers with Habitat for Humanity. Through the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project, they have been more than just advocates for affordable housing - they have also been active fundraisers and hands-on volunteers in construction. More than 4,300 homes could be considered a "Carter House" because the Carters have helped build that many homes with more than 100,000 volunteers in 14 countries over nearly 40 years, according to the organization.
• Platform:The Carter Center: Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.

Jimmy Carter Habitat for Humanity

habitat.org/carter-work-project

READY, SET, GO!

“When you see something that is not just, not fair, or not right, you have to do something. You have to say something. Make a little noise. It’s time for us to get into good trouble, necessary trouble.”

–John Lewis

Engage Your Community

• Build trust with your community: Community organizing is all about building trust and encouraging collective action for a common cause. Organizing is most powerful when you engage one person at a time with trusted relationships in person and online.
• Storytelling sharing personal stories creates emotional connections and inspires action. Encourage your gleaning organization volunteers and leaders to share their stories about why they are passionate about food justice and their experiences with gleaning.
• Scale with digital: Digital tools are essential for organizing your community and, building a movement. They can help you communicate with your supporters, mobilize them for events, raise funds, and automate your advocacy efforts with features for email automation, mobile messaging, petitions, events, fundraising, and advocacy automation.

Engagement Journey

Tip

1. Capture images at events: Take captivating photos at events like door-knocking, rallies, and debates. These images can create a personal connection and build trust with the audience.
2. Create images for print and digital assets: Use high- quality images of the candidate on yard signs, postcards, and other print materials. These visuals not only catch the eye but also help voters recognize and remember the candidate.
3. Share videos: Videos are a powerful tool for sharing the candidate’s story and message. Live streaming events and making them available on-demand can help reach a wider audience.
4. Capture supporter stories: Capture compelling stories from supporters, volunteers, and endorsers of the campaign. These testimonials can be powerful tools for building trust and showing the impact of the campaign on real people.
5. Maintain a content calendar: Plan your content calendar strategically to ensure you have a steady stream of fresh, engaging images to share. This includes planning for specific events, holidays, or key dates in the campaign.

Energize Your Community

Community Ladder

• Leaders: Become an active leader, focusing on training others, organizing others, recruiting donors, or serving on the board.
• Owners: Makes ongoing, collaborative actions and major investments, often blurring the lines between themselves and the campaign. This could involve publishing about the campaign, public speaking, or deep volunteer involvement.
• Endorsers: Take actions like signing petitions, making small donations, or sharing content.
• Contributors: Make significant contributions of time, money, or social capital, such as joining a group, attending events, or making large donations.
• Followers: Agrees to receive information and engages with communications.
• Observers: Shows interest and learn more through various channels, including social media and events.

Tip

A leadership culture is one where everyone feels valued, empowered, and welcomed to contribute to the organization’s objectives. It is also a place where everyone has the chance to hone their leadership abilities and potential. To create a culture of leadership, you can:

1. Communicate: Share your vision,
2. Create teams: Foster a sense of participation and teamwork and offer opportunities for leadership roles or tasks.,
3. Train: Equip your team with training and coaching to boost their leadership skills and confidence.,
4. Lead by example: Model values and behaviors such as integrity,
5. Recognize: Appreciate their efforts and achievements and celebrate their victories.

Empower Your Community

Leader

Organizers

Leader

Leader

Leader

• Distribute power through a network of people: Good organizers understand the importance of not going it alone. They require strong relationships and a team of respected people who can lead.
• Inspire and develop leaders: Identifying and organizing leaders is a crucial step in any grassroots movement. Leaders are the backbone of any movement, providing guidance, inspiration, and direction.
• Leadership is a continuous learning experience: Effective leaders possess knowledge about community needs, along with good listening skills, compassion, honesty, courage, and the ability to inspire collective action.

Organize a Movement Checklist

• You have empowered your community by putting people at the heart of your efforts and transforming communities into constituencies committed to a common purpose.
• You practiced organizing strategies such as public narrative, relationship building, team structuring, strategizing, and action. which were critical for building a movement.
• You discovered and engaged supporters by funneling them through engagement phases and training leadership to high levels of power.
• You mobilized action by focusing on power dynamics and using digital tools to mobilize your people both in person and online, building scale and power over time.
• You sustained your movement by understanding the importance of long-term effort, as real change can take years or even decades to achieve.

Your Call to Action

Engage, energize and empower your community

Request a copy READY, SET, GO! for your library

Join “Life is a Journey” lifeisajourney.substack.com

Connect with Kacey at kaceycarpenter@gmail.com

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READY, SET, GO! Playbook for Campaigns, Candidates, and Causes

THANK YOU

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Kacey Carpenter

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