Charitable Organizations can be some of our greatest partners during a service project - beyond their relationships with the people in need of service. These organizations work on dozens of projects each year and these projects often come in different forms: fundraising, collecting donations, working with volunteers etc. This can mean they have some incredible advice and resources that can help our project grow and they show us a different perspective in service. While reaching out to an organization for the first time can be a bit intimidating, we’ve provided some guiding questions to help with this process:
- What kind of organization would you like to partner with? What group of people do they serve?
- Spend some time researching their organization (try their website, any social media etc) Get to know: What they are in need of? How do they usually collect items or organize volunteers? How long have they been established? Where are they located if they have a physical location?
- What is the best way to reach them? Email? Phone Call? In person?
- When reaching out, make sure to provide the basic information about your project:
- Who are you? Do you represent a certain school or organization?
- Do you have a specific time frame?
- What were some ideas for the project?
- When working with a team, how many people are you working with?
- Also try to come up with some questions you have for them ahead of time (whether it’s a detail you couldn’t find earlier or more about how to best serve them)
- When reaching out, always try to ask about their needs or ideas first, you can express your interest in partnering with them - just keep in mind they might have more updated needs or events of their own that would be most valued by the people they’re serving
- It can also be helpful to reach out to two or three organizations, sometimes it will take awhile for an organization to get back to you (it’s also important to reach out to an organization well ahead of time)