On my involvement in 2 Non-Profit Organizations...
Jan 12 '06 (Updated Feb 14 '06)
The Bottom Line My entry in Bounty628's non-partisan write off that seeks to discuss good charities, why they are important, and what people should learn from them.
My entry in Bounty628's non-partisan write off that seeks to discuss good charities, why they are important, and what people should learn from them.
Over the years I've always tried to maintain some kind of involvement in local community non-profit organizations, all of which have had charitable components, mainly in the form of fundraising boards that existed to help raise funds for the non-profit organization to use in maintaining and expanding the work that they did.
As such, I agree with Bounty628 when he says that the purpose of "a non-profit organization... is to better the lives of others." He also said that The holidays for me are a special time of reflection upon all it is that I am so blessed to have and how fortunate I am to live the life I do. Too often with the hustle and bustle of modernism, we forget to reflect on the benefits of our lives.
So that's what I'm going to do here - talk about my involvement in two local community non-profit organizations.
1. What is the name of your favorite charity?
During the late 1990s, I volunteered more than 2,500 hours with the South Surrey District 5 RCMP Community Police Station.
From 2001 until now I've volunteered, worked as a staff member and served on the board of directors for the Kwantlen University College Student Association.
During my time at the Student Association, from 2000 - 2004 I served as an elected student representative on the Kwantlen University College Education Council (like a University Senate), and as an elected student representative on the Kwantlen University College Board of Governors from 2001 - 2005.
2. Does your favorite charity have a website?
Surrey RCMP...
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/bc/lmd/surrey/
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/bc/lmd/surrey/content/districts/dis5_e.htm
Kwantlen Student Association...
http://www.yourksa.ca/
Kwantlen University College...
http://www.kwantlen.ca/
http://www.kwantlen.ca/foundation/
Kwantlen is on Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwantlen_University_College
3. What is the mission of your charity?
Surrey RCMP: District 5 is responsible for providing policing services to the South Surrey community. The mission statement of the Surrey RCMP is "To provide a sensitive, responsive, professional policing service, cooperatively with the community, to enhance the level of security and livability in the City of Surrey, within a healthy work environment."
Kwantlen Student Association: The mission statement of the Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) is "to support its members during their time of study by ensuring adequate provision for their welfare, activities, political, and social needs. Through its democratic procedures, the KSA represents and reflects the concerns and priorities of its membership to the University College and beyond, and strives to uphold the rights of each of its members."
Kwantlen University College: Kwantlen's official motto is, "Through Tireless Effort, Knowledge, and Understanding", although its marketing slogan is, "Definitively Undergraduate". Kwantlen's mission statement is, "We create an exceptional learning environment committed to preparing learners for leadership, service and success."
Kwantlen University College Foundation: "The Kwantlen Foundation raises funds to create quality, life-long learning opportunities for Kwantlen students to achieve personal, social and career success."
4. Why is this organization important to you? What drives you to help?
South Surrey Community Police…
My interest in Community Police was born from a need I had to serve my community and try to make it a better place. I first tried volunteering when the Station had opened in 1993, and because I was too young, they assigned me to help volunteer with mall displays and public events, as well as with bicycle identification fairs where we would team up with local bicycle shops to setup days where volunteers would engrave bicycles with a person's (or parent's) driver's licence number.
When I was of age (19), I started working in the office and eventually headed up the bicycle identification program, as well as the organization of community outreach events such as Police Week, where every May we would take over the local mall and fill it with almost two dozen various non-profit and for-profit crime prevention organizations from not only our office, but the Surrey Crime Prevention Association, The BC Crime Prevention Association, CN Police, Block Watch among many others. I also made sure we had a presence at other community fairs, such as Mayfair and various sports events. I redid all the station’s marketing materials – brochures, leaflets, pamphlets, forms and information sheets, doing my best to make them as professional as possible with the resources we had available. I also helped start-up the Bicycle Patrol program, and I loved volunteering on the Pumpkin Patrols, where we'd go out on Halloween to help keep an eye out for any suspicious activity - acting as an extra set of eyes and ears for the police. I also got to watch as the Station formed its own fundraising Foundation, and help with the organization of the first few silent auction dinners that raise thousands of dollars for the station.
Finally, what I held most dear to my heart was the work I did on an Anti-Bullying program with the School Liaison officer at the time. A lot of work and research went into trying to form this, and although our pilot project would eventually get shelved (the public school unions were uncomfortable allowing parent volunteers on school grounds during recess and lunch breaks), we were able to organize a number of very well received public education lectures on the topic of bullying. As a student in high school, I myself was a victim of bullying, and I enjoyed working on this program. I almost quit school at the time when they were looking to hire someone full time to take on the organization of the program but I decided against applying for the position. It would be a number of years though, and sadly, after the death of too many students who felt there was no way out other than to take their own life, or to take the lives of others, as we saw in Columbine, before more concerted efforts were put forward by everyone involved in the education system to proactively combat the problem of bullying.
Kwantlen University College…
After I left Community Police in 1999, I soon got involved in student politics, after my English teacher at the time encouraged us all to run for the University Board of Governors and Education Council. I got pummelled in my attempt to win a seat on the Board of Governors but I won my seat on Education Council. I then started volunteering in the University's student union, organizing a career fair on our Richmond Campus with a number of elected officials.
That volunteering soon turned into a job offer to help with the organization of on-campus events. A year later I teamed up with another student in the student union and together, after winning 2 elections in less than a month (the institution made a serious error on the first run and felt the safest thing to do would be to rerun the election), we got our seats on the Board of Governors. I continued in both seats for four consecutive terms and enjoyed every moment of it.
On the Board of Governors and Education Council, I got to play a hand in shepherding in the administration's new strategic plan for the institution. Seeing how a strategic plan for a $80 million dollar organization is created was fascinating, being able to give input into it, even if limited, was even more fascinating. I always tried to keep in touch with students, and always did my best to make sure their voices were heard.
At the Student Association, I got a chance to run elections for the student union, and organize some very cool events. I got to put into practice the marketing I was learning in my studies, organizing large events for thousands of students, doing in-depth marketing research into the perceptions and wants of students, and I learned a lot about Parliamentary law and Robert’s Rules of Order. I also learned a lot about how non-profit organizations operate in British Columbia and got to work first hand with elected officials who were interested in the politics of the day, organizing a number of political actions and media stunts at Kwantlen aimed at bringing light to issues affecting students, such as the increasing costs of education and ensuring an open and accessible post secondary institution.
The most important thing I think I did at my Student Association was moving our fundraising efforts from directly supporting the efforts of other external non-profit organizations to focussing on efforts that directly benefited our members - the students of Kwantlen. As such, we focussed on fundraising for awards and bursaries; as well as for assisting programs in raising money for projects, trips or equipment or, if students came to us regarding a cause they felt was important - we'd help them in whatever way we could. Then, we kept external non-profits involved by having them come on campus more often at our welcome week events and BBQs that we held at the beginning of each semester, and by organizing on-campus lectures related to their areas of concern. We also posted links on our website and developed a set of very inexpensive ad rates for non-profits that wanted to advertise in our agenda-daytimers that went out to students each fall, and setup community information bulletin boards and brochure walls on-campus. So although we stopped participating in events such as Shinerama, as organized by the Canadian Cystic Fibrorsis Foundation, I think we provided a much larger forum for non-profits at Kwantlen by doing the many other things that we did.
In the end, I feel that both Community Police and other non-profit Crime Prevention organizations, as well as Student Unions serve an important role in our communities, helping to shed light on important issues of concern, as well as finding proactive solutions to various problems that we face in Society. I’ll always have a respect for non-profit organizations and the good they try to do, because of my involvement in them over the last 7 years.
5. Do you think there is more that you can do for this charity? What are your ideas?
I tried hard to ensure that the Community Police Stations I worked with became marketing centered – in many ways, marketing should be a central focus of any Community Police Station, as when you work in Community Police you are taking time to find out about the problems and issues facing the community and you work with the community to find out how what you do can help them do what they do better – making the community a safer place for everyone. Since I left however, not all of the community outreach events that I started continued and the Station has gone through its own ups and downs. The website I started at the time quickly died, and I actually transferred what I had on their site over to my own site. My goal at the time was to create a website for Community Policing that would be a first-stop resource for Crime Prevention information on the web. Since then, the Surrey RCMP has developed its own fairly standard organizational website, with information on its various services and offices.
For Kwantlen, the last year at the Student Association has seen a lot of chaos. A new group of students came to power, fired most of the long time staff and have tried to bring in a new set of rules to govern the Association, essentially allowing corruption to reign supreme. Anyone who has spoken out against them has been fired or crushed, but the battle goes on, and could end up in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Many students are apathetic about their Student Union, believing it does nothing for them, and part of the time, they are right – it does seem that they do nothing. But after being involved and doing some great things over the last few years, I definitely believe in the power of Student Associations to make a difference in the lives of students.
6. What can your friends at Epinions.com do to help out your favorite charity?
Get out and volunteer with your local Community Police Station. Most cities across North America have embraced the Community Policing model as a proactive way for bringing communities together in an effort to make them safer. No matter what your background or interest you can probably find some way of applying it at your local Community Police Station - from volunteering on a speed watch patrol, to a bike patrol, to a foot patrol, to marketing and community event involvement, to fundraising and sponsorship work, to just gaining experience working in a formal office environment - you can come and do it all at most Community Police Stations.
Also, if you are attending a post-secondary institution anywhere, get involved in student politics. It's not just for young people. In Canada, Student Associations are actually completely autonomous from their respective institutions, so people of all ages can benefit and learn about the non-profit world by volunteering or becoming a member of your institution's Student Society (In the United States, by law, student societies or associations are a part of the institution and as such, don't yet enjoy the autonomy that Canadian associations have).
I also found out recently that Athabasca University ( http://www.athabascau.ca/ ) which offers almost all of its programs online, also has a student association and a University Board that allow students from wherever they are, to run for and hold positions. That intrigues me and as I'm considering finishing my Bachelor of Business Administration through them, I may just try running for a position in their Student Society, to see how it can be run when the majority of your students and the majority of your Board are working from various parts of Canada and even the world.
So those are my thoughts on the two organizations I’ve been involved with over the last 7 years.
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And, if you haven't already done so, please participate in my DO YOU KNOW CANADA QUIZ write off...
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Epinions.com ID:
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Member: Steven Lee
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Reviews written: 173
Trusted by: 123 members
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