Learn new ways to work with rural volunteers while being guided through the larger process of really bringing volunteers into an organization and keeping them there—with the least amount of time, people and money.
Based on our experience working in hundreds of rural communities with thousands of volunteers, it is clear that volunteers are necessary to the survival of organizations striving to improve their community and environment. It was also clear that very few tools were available to help organizations overcome the unique challenges of recruiting, managing, and retaining rural volunteers.
The Toolkit for Working with Rural Volunteers is the result of the OSM/VISTA Teams' pioneering three-year research project on rural volunteerism throughout Appalachia and the Rocky Mountain West with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds. After engaging in place-based research in 34 rural communities, we created the Toolkit to share approaches to volunteer recruitment, management and retention that are successful in rural settings. More importantly, it contains one-of-a-kind tools needed by rural organizations to build sustainable volunteer management infrastructure.
-- Mark W. Kidd Roadside Theater - Thousand Kites - Appalshop
