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Sometimes the real challenge is not recruiting volunteers – but, rather, keeping them engaged, happy, and eager to come back. Engagement efforts should not be localized to any certain part of the volunteer lifecycle, but instead need to be ongoing. Laying the groundwork for your volunteer engagement strategy starts the first time the volunteer comes through your door and continues with consistent communication and recognition.
Understand Volunteer Motivation
Although volunteers obviously want to help your organization, they are often drawn to volunteerism for other reasons. This is something you will want to explore with each volunteer from the very beginning of his or her relationship with your nonprofit. Some individuals want a total change from their day jobs, while others may want to share their specific expertise, such as marketing or accounting. Your volunteer may also be looking for a way to incorporate a hobby, gain experience to add to a resume, or simply connect socially with others.
Become a Volunteer | Featured Image | About Ayngaran Foundation
One of the fastest ways to lose a volunteer is to ignore his or her motivation. However, if you can match a volunteer’s interests to the tasks you assign, this will go a long way toward keeping him or her coming back on a regular basis.
Use Your Volunteer Engagement Strategy to Tell a Story
To deepen the connection to your cause, it’s critical to keep the focus on your mission and not on the organization. Inspire your volunteers by telling them about the people they will be assisting and the difference they are making. Don’t just rely on words. Show them pictures, or, better yet, some video footage of your nonprofit doing what it does best.
Provide Orientation, Training, and Feedback
Volunteers expect a nonprofit to be professional and organized. This includes investing the time for proper orientation and training. You’ll want to distribute a handbook of your policies as well as outline the individual’s duties and how these play a role in the larger picture. Ease new volunteers into their tasks by pairing them up with more experienced supporters.
At the beginning of training, let volunteers know that you’ll be giving feedback periodically. Highlight the fact that this meeting will also be an opportunity for them to offer their suggestions to your organization. Follow up on your promise and be sure to solicit volunteer feedback regularly. The net result will be a better program – and happier volunteers.
Be Flexible
Volunteers have busy lives. The more opportunities you can schedule in a variety of time slots and on various days, the better. Additionally, providing online scheduling through a cloud-based management system allows volunteers to register from any Internet-connected device at their leisure.
Encourage a Sense of Community
Another way to keep volunteers engaged is to develop a sense of connection – not just to your organization and mission but also to other volunteers. When possible, make your volunteer opportunities a chance for fun and an environment for friendships to develop. You can also leverage social media, but keep in mind that there’s nothing like face-to-face interaction.
Stay in Touch
Keep the lines of communication open with your volunteers. Take advantage of all the types of media available for engaging those who donate their time. For example, always remember to email or text the information about new volunteer opportunities. (Learn how VolunteerHub can help you keep volunteers in the loop.)
On the flip side, ensure that you are also sharing your organization’s successes with volunteers. This is where storytelling comes into play once again. Tweet, post, send out newsletters, and be specific. Let your volunteers see how their hard work has translated into an impact in your community. The more vivid, the better. Give stats on the number of individuals helped, talk about the amount of volunteer hours donated to the project, and make it come to life with pictures and/or video.
Show Appreciation
Don’t forget to say “thank you.” Let volunteers know how much you appreciate their work each time they volunteer. And, although verbal encouragement is always welcomed, be sure to make a formal effort to recognize volunteers as well. Plan a party to say thanks or give small gifts on volunteer anniversaries. Communicate how much volunteers mean to you, and it will increase the likelihood of them coming back.
Engage More Volunteers
It’s important to maximize the time and effort that staff expends on new volunteers. By taking the time to incorporate these tips into your volunteer engagement strategy, you’ll be pleased with your retention numbers and build deep, lasting relationships with your volunteers. These individuals often go on to become donors, and many times they recruit their friends to help out as well. Far from being haphazard or an afterthought, engagement should be viewed as a cornerstone in your volunteer program. It’s an investment that will continue to reap rewards.
we need partime staffs for yoga and meditation
Please note: Only organisations with FCRA registration are eligible to receive foreign contributions.
If the organisation has mentioned the URL of a website for online donations/ further details, please copy the link into a separate browser window.The purpose of this project is to establish meditation centre , where Samadhi and Vippasana meditation will be practised according to Pa Auk Sayadaw method, which is based in Buddhas teaching (Dhamma), Buddhist canon and commentaries. We wish to speak out to all Buddhists and people, who are ready to support this project, who accept Buddhism teaching of mind development through meditation. All these people are welcome to take part in this project.
We offer several possibilities, how to do that: donations (Dana) that will be targeted towards development of meditation centre and project; volunteer work during retreats and in construction; taking part in retreats; using skills (ie. development of web page, architecture, construction).
we have to start meditation center in palani tamilnadu so support our build our name of Meditation center Bodhivanam
Please note: Only organisations with FCRA registration are eligible to receive foreign contributions.
Please check with the organisation about delivery, logistics, payment of duty, etc. before dispatch.
If the organisation has mentioned the URL of a website for further details, please copy the link into a separate browser window.The purpose of this project is to establish meditation centre , where Samadhi and Vippasana meditation will be practised according to Pa Auk Sayadaw method, which is based in Buddhas teaching (Dhamma), Buddhist canon and commentaries. We wish to speak out to all Buddhists and people, who are ready to support this project, who accept Buddhism teaching of mind development through meditation. All these people are welcome to take part in this project.
We offer several possibilities, how to do that: donations (Dana) that will be targeted towards development of meditation centre and project; volunteer work during retreats and in construction; taking part in retreats; using skills (ie. development of web page, architecture, construction).
Ayngaran Bodhivanam | Featured Image | About Ayngaran Foundation
Also it will be possible to state exactly for which purpose the donations should be used, for example construction of meditation hall, teacher's kuti. Making such offerings, according to Buddhist tradition, is a wholesome deed that will be very beneficial to the donator and bring good carmic results in future.
From our side we will provide volunteers with help in organising visas, accommodation and food. We do all our actions with maximum transparency, so donators can see how these donations are being used. It is possible to donate anonymously or personally - names of donators will be recorded in special list and by end of project we will create a memorial plank with donator's names on it.
Project Context
The total project area is 100 ha and most of this territory is covered by trees. The project area is located between Coimbatore city and Udumalapet. It has a rich diversity of protected plant and animal species, a large number of bird species, which promotes regional activity of plant and bird watchers.
Project Plans
Recreation, Administration and Guest Centre
Administrative and guest zone Serves all necessary functions, the main car park, guest houses, information and administration centre, warehouses, etc.
Meditation Centre
Administration Office, Reception, Office, Reception hall.
Meditation hall with accommodations for meditation teachers and an interview room.
Kitchen and dining hall.
Accommodations. Two-storey buildings with individual rooms.
Library and school.
Medical building for the inhabitants of the centre, The doctor's office, Pharmacy, Sauna.
Medical complex for guests, Various types of medical rooms, Accommodations
Meditation Park
Wilderness Park. A nature area with meditation huts, hiking trails and individual pergolas.
Wilderness area. For cultivating various plants.
Men's monastery. The main meditation hall. The main spatial and functional area of the meditation centre is the meditation hall, which is designed to accommodate ~300 meditators as well as the surrounding infrastructure. The territory has meditation huts. A complex for meditation teachers.
Women's monastery. Women's meditation hall. Meditation huts located in a separate part of the territory.
Ecological regeneration is one of the current approaches in spatial planning, which could partially be used in the future development of this territory. But this does not include renewing former ecosystems because many catchment area qualities and surrounding landscapes have changed without the mechanical human involvement. The climate continues to change, that is why the desire to restore nature to its previous state is not adequate. To reduce the risk of error, ecological goals need to be set and new influences need to be adapted that would be more easily accepted in the society. In the future, in the light of climate change, there must be a transition from control and monitoring to greater integration and adaptation. The abovementioned aspect refers to the attitude towards the floodplains and regularly flooded areas, which have been taken away during industrialization, e.g. by creating drainage ditch systems. After analyzing the landscape development of this territory, it can be concluded that chaotic spaces can sometimes be as valuable as the neat and formal ones. The smart landscapes of tomorrow have to make us rejoice and create a diversified space where there is a need to interact with natural processes where we can interfere and change landscapes and see things grow. The element of time is always essential in landscape architecture. We can consider these places as a symbiotic relationship between the biologic complexity of the landscape and the man-made infrastructure.
When constructing the meditation centre, regional construction materials and methods are planned to be used together with modern and innovative technologies. Wood is the main element, which makes the complex’s architectural appearance correspond with its context.By using innovative engineering technologies, it is projected to reduce the use of resources for maintaining the centre, thus reducing the environmental impact of the complex.
The project design and conceptual solution aims to be sensitively inclusive with respect to its context, react to it and offer appropriate creative solutions, thus ensuring its moral sustainability.
The main mode of getting around in the park and the meditation centre is by foot; however, as a result of the park’s large-scale development, an internal transport system could be set up to connect several parts of the meditation park. The meditators will mainly use the former fish ponds that connect the meditation centre with the meditation park, as well as the surrounding buildings.
The greatest value that the location of Meditation Centre in Ayngaran Bodhivanam has is the natural base, which separates the field of meditation from its surrounding noise by becoming a part of the boundless nature. Once, men were responsible for the fastest transformations by drainage systems and then by abandoning a part of this territory. Now, it is being given back to nature by allowing it to overgrow. After allowing the present processes to continue, bushes, osiers and beech groves have returned. In spring, part of the territory is flooded and remains wet throughout the year. Due to the wet ground, buildings that are planned to be constructed in the fish pond territory of Rūja are designed to have rod-shaped foundations, thus minimizing interference with the ground and raising the building’s floor to the level of the protecting dike. The level is different in various places
The overgrowth characteristics are important for the park areas that are planned to have meditation huts. There the overgrowth provides a positive sense of isolation and asceticism by creating a natural landscape and trying to find a compromise between allowing it to overgrow and to partially maintaining it, which would be recommended to allow various species to regenerate.
Ecological regeneration is one of the current approaches in spatial planning, which could partially be used in the future development of this territory. But this does not include renewing former ecosystems because many catchment area qualities and surrounding landscapes have changed without the mechanical human involvement. The climate continues to change, that is why the desire to restore nature to its previous state is not adequate. To reduce the risk of error, ecological goals need to be set and new influences need to be adapted that would be more easily accepted in the society. In the future, in the light of climate change, there must be a transition from control and monitoring to greater integration and adaptation. The abovementioned aspect refers to the attitude towards the floodplains and regularly flooded areas, which have been taken away during industrialization, e.g. by creating drainage ditch systems. After analyzing the landscape development of this territory, it can be concluded that chaotic spaces can sometimes be as valuable as the neat and formal ones. The smart landscapes of tomorrow have to make us rejoice and create a diversified space where there is a need to interact with natural processes where we can interfere and change landscapes and see things grow. The element of time is always essential in landscape architecture. We can consider these places as a symbiotic relationship between the biologic complexity of the landscape and the man-made infrastructure.
When constructing the meditation centre, regional construction materials and methods are planned to be used together with modern and innovative technologies. Wood is the main element, which makes the complex’s architectural appearance correspond with its context.By using innovative engineering technologies, it is projected to reduce the use of resources for maintaining the centre, thus reducing the environmental impact of the complex.
The project design and conceptual solution aims to be sensitively inclusive with respect to its context, react to it and offer appropriate creative solutions, thus ensuring its moral sustainability
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