In today’s time-starved environment, people who volunteer for a charitable organization want their time used effectively and efficiently. The UPS Foundation is taking another step to help make that experience more commonplace by tripling its investment in the Volunteer Impact Initiative.

“Volunteers just want to be useful and effective,” observed Jim Kelly, the chairman and CEO of UPS. “They don’t want to volunteer, show up and then stand around. For two years, we’ve been supporting a number of organizations in a special effort to improve their management of volunteers.”

“We know now it works, so The UPS Foundation is going to expand the effort,” Kelly concluded.

Addressing the 2000 National Community Service Conference here on Sunday, Kelly announced the commitment of an additional $5.9 million to the Volunteer Impact Initiative, the national program launched by The UPS Foundation in 1998 with five charter grantees.

“There is no question that the UPS grant has had one of the highest impacts of any of the grants received in our history,” said Joyce Corlett, Director of Program Development at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA).

BBBSA used its initial grant funds to develop a school-based mentoring model to increase the number of male and minority volunteers; reduce volunteers’ time commitment, and improve cost effectiveness. The new management approach “has enabled us to retain 48 percent of volunteers who inquire about mentoring and continue through the screening and placement process, versus 29 percent for our traditional community-based program,” Corlett added.

All told, the Volunteer Impact Initiative has helped the five phase one non-profits engage more than 21,000 additional volunteers to serve nearly 215,000 young people, Kelly announced.

“Despite the program’s great success, there is still work to be done,” said Kelly. “In the second phase of the Initiative, we are continuing to help non-profits make dramatic, long-lasting improvements and we are encouraging them to form partnerships and work together to achieve high-impact results.”

Organizations participating in the Initiative’s first phase were Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, 100 Black Men of America, Junior Achievement, Inc., Points of Light Foundation and United Way of America, each of which used the funds differently.

Big Brothers Big Sisters, for example, developed a school-based mentoring model to increase the number of male and minority volunteers, reduce volunteers’ time commitment and improve cost effectiveness. The new model has enabled BBBSA to retain 48 percent of volunteers who inquire about mentoring and continue through the screening and placement process - versus 29 percent for the traditional community-based program.

Junior Achievement redesigned its volunteer recruitment process to develop the Teacher Driven Strategy, which trains teachers to recruit volunteers for their own classrooms. The new model helped engage 8,347 teacher-recruited volunteers in 24 cities nationwide, and increase volunteer retention rates by 50 percent.

As part of phase two of the Initiative, limited continuation grants will be awarded to original grantees, allowing them to refine program models and/or extend activities. Grants will also be awarded to new national non-profits to assist the development of strategies to mobilize and retain volunteers. In early 2001, the program will provide grants to local nonprofit organizations in “target” communities to support their collaborative efforts to use volunteers more effectively and efficiently.

Dorothy S. Ridings, President and CEO of the Council on Foundations, said she has been concerned about what appears to be decreasing public attention to the importance of volunteerism.

“I was delighted to know what The UPS Foundation is doing,” Ridings said. “It is highly unusual for a foundation to focus on volunteerism, which, to my way of thinking, is one of the absolute underpinnings of American society. The Volunteer Impact Initiative not only directly helps non-profit organizations meet their volunteer management challenges, but also brings an important issue to the fore.”

Phase two (2000-2004) grantees include:

The National Park Foundation will use the grants to broaden the scope of its volunteer program to include more minorities, seniors and youth. Currently, National Park Service staff cannot properly manage volunteers because of time and training constraints. Through this project, they will be able to expand partnerships with external organizations that can help local park staff better manage volunteers’ time and talents.

City Cares of America (CCA) relies on volunteers for nearly everything they do. CCA will use the grants to develop the Citizens Academy to train and inspire concerned volunteers to take ownership and create ways to tackle social programs in the community.

The Salvation Army will use the grant to implement a comprehensive, user-friendly training program intended to increase community services. The program’s objective include enhancing officers’ ability to develop volunteers and “think volunteer” when addressing service provision issues; develop the Army’s ability to recruit volunteers from nontraditional sources; develop a training module for rural settings and small, understaffed centers; and improve its capacity to recruit advisory organization members and to maximize their expertise.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, in partnership with Alpha Phi Alpha, will use the grant to launch a nationwide mobilization of African-American men to serve as mentors to children in need, with a focus on African-American male youth. This partnership will build on recent efforts of seven local BBBSA affiliates to engage more African-American males as mentors. BBBSA’s partnership with Alpha Phi Alpha will include The UPS-funded school-based mentoring model as a major program component.

Junior Achievement (JA), in partnership with the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE), will use the grant to design a program that builds on the success of Teacher Driven Strategy for volunteer recruitment and management—a program supported by UPS in phase one of the Initiative. Through the development of a university-credit workshop and a workshop leader’s guide, teachers will learn the skills necessary to recruit volunteers for JA programs in their classrooms.

The UPS Foundation is committed to making a difference through focused funding programs in the areas of human welfare, education and volunteerism. Founded in 1951 and based in Atlanta, Ga., The UPS Foundation identifies specific areas where its support will clearly impact social and educational challenges. The Foundation’s major initiatives currently include programs that support hunger relief and family and workplace literacy, in addition to the Volunteer Impact Initiative. In 1999, The UPS Foundation donated a total of more than $35 million to charitable organizations throughout the U.S., Canada and Latin America. For more information, please click on The UPS Foundation at www.community.ups.com.

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For more information, please visit UPS.com or the company’s Sustainability website, ups.com/sustainability. View and subscribe to UPS Horizons, our sustainability newsletter, by visiting ups.com/sustainabilitynewsletter.

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