LEAD - A Get HandsOn Summit!

Tuesday's LEAD Summit was not your normal gathering of volunteer leaders and volunteer managers.  With a view of the Capitol out the window, and James Brown giving the welcome, it was an opportunity to take our ideas and our energy to the next level.  CVN was represented by myself (CVN County Liaison) as well as two committee leads, Reco Thomas and Tiffany Kudravetz.  Reco and Kellen MacBeth (pictured right), CVN's Monthly Volunteering Chair, also stayed for the National Volunteer Week Reception after the summit.

Allison Fine, who has co-authored a new book, the Networked Nonprofit with Beth Kanter, kicked off the event with a thought-provoking argument for a new way of doing business.  She said that with the power of social media, volunteer organizations should do what they do best, and network the rest.  This got me thinking about how CVN can continue to create opportunities for supporters to do good, build community in Arlington, with support from CVN. 

The summit was also a kick-off for the new Get HandsOn! Campaign from the HandsOn Network.  The goals of CVN and the goals of Get HandsOn! are in line with one another, empowering volunteer leaders and engaging a greater number of people to serve their communities.

As a part of the Get HandsOn! Campaign, they have created resources for volunteer leaders that may be helpful for CVN: Toolkits, HandsOn Blog

One additional resource that I learned about on Tuesday was EarthAid.net.
The spokesperson from EarthAid said that they are able to work with groups that want to track their energy use and allow all of the group members to compare their energy use to one another.  I saw this as a potential fun way for CVN to initiate a Green Challenge in which all of the members of CVN would compete to see who could reduce their energy consumption the most over the period of a couple of months.  What do you think?