Solid Gold - Your Volunteer Team

That’s what volunteers are to an organization – solid gold. Volunteers can play a variety of roles at your creative reuse center. Depending upon your needs and the volunteers’ skill sets and interests, you can have many of your essential functions covered. Volunteers make it possible to accomplish your mission with little or no initial funding. And, when you’re ready to hire – you’ll have a pool of super stars to choose from that already know the organization, are committed to the mission, and are known to you.

image courtesy of morguefile.com

To read the full chapter, please pick up a copy of our book:

Print:

lulu.com

amazon.com

Digital (PDF):

lulu.com

Risky Business

image courtesy of morguefile.com

Belinda (not her real name) was a super star volunteer. She showed up regularly for her shifts and worked diligently stocking and organizing store sections. During a typical shift, she was cleaning up the wood section which was badly in need of organization. As she was moving varying sizes of wood to make them more salable, a piece with a sharp point fell, penetrated her shoe, and went right through her big toe. Apparently this piece of wood was balanced precariously between two other larger pieces. As they were moved, the sharp piece dropped to the ground. Belinda was new to town, worked as a nanny part time, and did not have medical insurance.

This unfortunate incident was indeed a wake-up call for us that mitigating risk doesn’t just mean having contracts, liability insurance, and criminal background checks in place.  It also means physical safety and well-being for staff and volunteers.

To read the full chapter, please pick up a copy of our book:

Print:

lulu.com

amazon.com

Digital (PDF):

lulu.com

All About the Money

Fundraising, Friend Raising, Crowdfunding, Corporate Donors, Individual Donors, Loans…all are ways of fund development for your creative reuse center.

photo courtesy of sxc.hu

There are some distinct areas of difference between doing business as a for-profit and a nonprofit organization. This is one of those areas. You can’t offer a return on investment for an interested donor as a nonprofit but in most cases, you can offer a tax deduction to friends, fans, and funders

If you decide to become a for-profit venture, you can look at bank loans, investor capital, Kick Starter, or other ways of getting the money together. Here, the opposite is true; you can’t promise a tax deduction, but you can offer a return on investment or other stake in your company.

To read the full chapter, please pick up a copy of our book:

Print:

lulu.com

amazon.com

Digital (PDF):

lulu.com