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Big Sunday, a Los Angeles charity, runs thousands of community service projects each year. Anyone who shows up to help has to abide by a simple rule: You have to meet at least one new person while you’re here.
This is just one way that Big Sunday makes good on its mission to connect people through the act of helping. Almost from its start 25 years ago, the group set out to make volunteering a means to bring together people from all walks of life. It’s now a 365-days-a-year, $2 million venture to bridge America’s divides, one person at a time, even as it supplies charities with a volunteer workforce.
The Chronicle asked David Levinson, Big Sunday’s founder and executive director, to share some tips for nonprofits that want to build community through their volunteer programs.
Invite everyone. It’s easy to assume that some people can’t volunteer or won’t want to, Levinson says. But most Americans want to feel needed and will respond to opportunities that fit their interests. “Absolutely everyone has something that can help somebody else,” he says.
Big Sunday stays away from the word “volunteer,” choosing instead to ask people simply to help others. “Since we have a big-tent approach and want to try and find room for anyone who wants to join in whatever way they want to join, ‘helping’ can provide more opportunities for those who want to be involved.”
Include those on the receiving end of charity. Not long after he began organizing service projects, Levinson asked the Los Angeles chapter of Covenant House, the Catholic home for homeless young adults, if it could use volunteer help. The answer came back: Our kids don’t want help; they want to help others.
“It’s very, very important that our youth can find ways of giving back,” says Sister Margaret Farrell, the organization’s spiritual director. “They love doing it. It really makes them feel good about themselves when they can help somebody else.”
Farrell’s philosophy changed how Levinson approached projects. Big Sunday now routinely finds ways those being served can help on projects. At a food drive for a low-income school, he set a goal for families collectively to contribute 100 bags of pasta, which sold for less than a dollar at a nearby store. The school had been reluctant to tap its families, but they brought in so much that Big Sunday had to use carts to move it all.
“They were so proud of what they had done,” Levinson says.
Seek out the diversity your volunteer program lacks. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Levinson decided it was important to help Muslim groups and recruit from the Muslim community. “I just went online and started googling mosques and Muslim schools,” he says. He has done similar outreach to the Orthodox Jewish community, Korean congregations, and conservative groups whose politics are far different than his own.
Cold-calling can be awkward, but Levinson says he makes clear that he’s seeking to make his volunteer corps more broadly representative of Los Angeles. “Most people are flattered,” he says.
Start small. Seek opportunities to do outreach through staff members or friends. “If you want to reach out to the Catholic community, you can start with a friend of yours who goes to a nearby Catholic church. You don’t have to get the entire archdiocese involved.”
Consider diversity in all its forms. Big Sunday thinks broadly about the makeup of its volunteer corps; it recruits people of different ages, faiths, races, abilities, socioeconomic backgrounds, political beliefs, and more.
It even considers what Levinson calls a “diversity of energy.” Extroverts often feel very at home at its events, but he will assign staff to seek out introverts and help them feel comfortable.
Treat everyone the same. Don’t give special treatment, like VIP parking, to donors or volunteers from sponsors. “You have to level the playing field,” Levinson says. “We’re all just folks.”
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