In this issue: Winter 2007

Board Member Spotlight: Margaret Wildi

Margaret Wildi currently serves as Assistant Vice President of Associate and Community Relations for Grange Insurance Companies. She has been with Grange Insurance for 37 years.

Margaret Wildi

As an officer for Grange, Margaret's responsibilities include all volunteer efforts, the employee cafe', fitness center, wellness and sports programs, in-house store and internal communications. She also assists with charitable donations.

Margaret is active with the National Association of Insurance Women (International), a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Human Resource Association of Central Ohio (HRACO), the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter's Assn (CPCU), and is Secretary and Trustee for the Homeless Families Foundation. She graduated from Franklin University, Summa Cum Laude, with a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration.

“I truly enjoy working with the Ohio Community Service Council because I believe we must all give back to our community,” Margaret said. “Every time we help just one other person, we've made our community a little better. The Council is made up of so many valuable members who bring a different aspect of volunteer service to the table. It's no wonder that Ohio leads the nation in volunteer projects with Make A Difference Day Ohio. I have learned so much by interacting with the OCSC staff and my fellow Council members. Thanks for the opportunity to serve on the Council.”

Margaret has been a Council Board member since December 2004 and currently serves as chair of the development committee

OCSC and CNCS OHIO Office
Welcomes ...

Krista Sisterhen, Special Assistant to the Area Manager, Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Corporation for National and Community Service),

Krista Sisterhen

most recently served as the director of the Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The office was the first among such state-level departments to receive a federal grant to operate as an intermediary organization, providing assistance and small grants to faith-based and community organizations seeking government contracts to provide social services.

Previously, Krista served as the Social Policy Advisor to Mayor Stephen Goldsmith of Indianapolis. She was responsible for engaging faith, nonprofit, and neighborhood organizations in working together to address difficult and urgent social needs of the community.

AmeriCorps

Older Ohioans Still Making a Difference in Schools

Getting older doesn’t mean you can’t continue to give back to your community. In fact, with so much experience, older adults could be the nation’s greatest untapped resource. In Ohio, they’re working on behalf of struggling students through Experience Corps, an award-winning national program that engages adults 55 and older as literacy tutors for public school students. Experience Corps has over 2,000 members working with students in 19 cities around the country, and provides an AmeriCorps stipend to members who commit to 15 hours a week. In Cleveland, 225 members are working with 1,500 students in 14 schools, logging over 62,000 hours in Ohio classrooms last year alone.

Experience Corps members tutor elementary school students one-on-one and in small groups, helping them to develop fundamental literacy skills so they can succeed in school and in life. Pairing experienced adults with children in need of guidance is a triple win, benefiting the student through improved grades and confidence, the older adult through increased activity and sense of purpose, and the community through valuable intergenerational partnerships.

Experience Corps is hosted in Cleveland by the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Greater Cleveland. For more information, contact Kirsten Frei-Herrmann at 216-391-9500 ext. 119, or
kfrei-herrmann@rsvpcleveland.org.

You can also visit www.experiencecorps.org to learn more.

Liability Protection Rules Filed

The rule process for the registration of an Ohio Citizen Corps volunteer pertaining to Ohio Revised Code 121.404 was completed in January. The Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) accepted the Ohio Community Service Council's rule filing. Click here to view the filing. The filing completes more than a year-long process, which included a public hearing on December 14, 2006 at the Ohio Community Service Council in Columbus, Ohio.

Testimony at the public hearing

Ohio Revised Code 121.404 provides liability protection to registered Ohio Citizen Corps volunteers during local, state or federally declared disasters, emergencies, drills and trainings. The statute also exempts a registered volunteer's personal information on the Ohio Citizen Corps Database from public disclosure.

Highlights of the rule include: types of registration, criteria for becoming a registered volunteer and conditions to remove a volunteer from the Database. Click here to read the rule and law in its entirety.

Make Difference Day Ohio
Awards Ceremony
Hosted by:
Frances Strickland, Ohio's First Lady
and Hope Taft, former First Lady
Tuesday, March 13.
- Columbus Marriott Northwest -

For information contact Connie Kramer at: connie.kramer@ocsc.state.oh.us

Bridging the Gap between Volunteers
and Coordination

by: Christine Litch, VolunteerHub

“So Little Time …”
Has this become a mantra at your organization? If so, you are not alone; it’s a common theme at most not for profit organizations nationwide. One solution to this time shortage is, of course, to recruit additional volunteers. In fact, a 2004 study by the Urban Institute on volunteer management states that most nonprofit charities indicate a capacity and need for additional volunteers. With each volunteer’s time worth an estimated $20 per hour, there is no question that they can be valuable assets to your organization.

A Catch-22
At the same time, volunteers must be recruited and managed, which requires time, money, and people power. The fact of the matter is, however, that a majority of an organization’s resources may already be funneled into fundraising and delivery of service, so coordination of volunteers is sometimes forced to take a back seat. Indeed, the Urban Institute study indicates that half of staff members responsible for volunteer coordination spend less than 30 percent of their time on this duty.

To learn more, visit: www.volunteerhub.com