Volunteering and Family Philanthropy

About this collection: This Content Collection offers tips for investing in your grantees’ capacity to engage volunteers, while also exploring the role of volunteering as part of the philanthropic education for your own family.

Curated By: Jason Born

In this unprecedented time of increasing needs and decreasing financial resources how can family funders support their closest grantees to more efficiently and effectively accomplish their critical missions? Volunteers are a vastly underutilized yet virtually unlimited resource that can expand and enhance nearly every area of an organization. However, to effectively tap volunteer resources requires creating a culture that values them and building an infrastructure to connect those who want to donate their time with high impact opportunities that empower them to make a real difference. This Content Collection offers tips for investing in your grantees’ capacity to engage volunteers, while also exploring the role of volunteering as part of the philanthropic education for your own family.

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The Funder’s Guide to Investing in Volunteer Engagement

Report
As investors in the nonprofit sector, grant makers, businesses and government must ask the following questions: How can we better support and build capacity within the sector? How can we achieve a greater return on investment of the dollars and efforts we contribute to our grantees?

Growing to Give: Instilling Philanthropic Values in Teens and Preteens

Passages Issue Briefs
The teenage years can be the most tumultuous ones—particularly for parents! Parents may want their children to become charitable for any number of reasons: to prepare them to take formal leadership one day of the family’s foundation or other giving vehicle; to participate in philanthropy as a family activity; or…

Peer Stories, Webinars, and Other Resources

Igniting the Spark: The Lawrence Welk Family Foundation

Impact Story
The Lawrence Welk Family Foundation is located in Santa Monica, California,  with family geographically dispersed around the country.  The foundation awards grants to nonprofit organizations serving children and families living in poverty in three Southern California neighborhoods. In addition, a small portion of its funding goes to nonprofits promoting youth…

Igniting the Spark: Tracy Family Foundation

Impact Story
The Tracy Family Foundation is located in Mt. Sterling, Illinois, with family geographically dispersed around the country.  The foundation’s mission is to provide resources to organizations that foster the values of Robert and Dorothy Tracy—a Catholic/Christian belief, honesty, integrity, fairness, and a strong work ethic. The foundation seeks to proactively…

Igniting the Spark: The Tarsadia Foundation

Impact Story
The Tarsadia Foundation is located in Newport Beach, California.  The foundation supports non-profit organizations with programs and projects that provide educational opportunities for the underserved, support health and well-being of the community, and assist to employ the employable through economic empowerment. This next gen case study describes their history of…

Additional Tips and Tools