NobleHour Blog

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

Volunteering teaches its participants to become more aware of the impact of their actions on the community.  Often when we think of community, we refer to local communities, but volunteering can transcend borders across the global community.  During the summer, many volunteers choose to use their vacation time to help communities in the developing world.  A variety of programs exist to connect volunteers with opportunities abroad, and, though the volunteers have the best intentions, these efforts can sometimes be misguided.  To truly make an impact on a community, volunteers should pay close attention to how their actions will negatively or positively affect a community. 

The benefits of volunteering abroad are almost self-explanatory at face value.  Volunteers gain a global perspective, visit a new part of the world, immerse themselves in a different culture and language, all the while engaging in service and helping developing areas.  It’s easy to see how volunteers would be sold on the idea of going overseas, and it is possible to make a positive impact - just not as easily as it seems.  What some don’t foresee is that one simply can’t just fly off and try to change a community.  It takes careful planning, time, and a real understanding of the current situation in a community before one can attempt to help it.  Before quickly selecting a volunteer program this summer, it’s vital to have a full understanding of how going abroad could have inadvertent negative results and how to avoid these by engaging in meaningful and impactful service projects. 

It’s important to note that many would criticize volunteering abroad because of the lack of sustainability resulting from a long-distance project.  There is a careful balance between helping a community get through the day, or empowering it so that one day it can be self-sufficient.  It’s the difference between bringing food to last a few weeks and helping a community rebuild its irrigation system so it can grow and sell its own food for generations to come.  The latter makes for a service-learning project that is sustainable because both parties are benefiting.  When looking for service opportunities abroad, volunteers should do proper research to ensure that the impact of their service will empower a community by helping lift it from poverty or hardship permanently, rather than temporarily alleviating some of the stress on the community. 

“The harsh truth is that ‘voluntourism’ is more about the self-fulfilment of westerners than the needs of developing nations.” - Ian Birrel, columnist and foreign correspondent.

Critics would also challenge the amount of money being put into volunteerism abroad.  With the hundreds and thousands of dollars people spend for their travel and accommodations while volunteering, many warn against “the dark side of our desire to help the developing world” as put by Ian Birrel in his article “Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do”.  Birrel warns that “orphanages are a booming business trading on guilt [. . .] Those ‘orphans’ might have been bought from impoverished parents [. . . ]An official study found just a quarter of children in these so-called orphanages have actually lost both parents. And these private ventures are proliferating fast.”  The trouble with so many more tourists wanting to enrich their vacations with volunteering is that it becomes a disturbing industry where locals can profit on Westerners’ consciences.  Thousands of organizations encourage people to volunteer with their organization, but often these short excursions do more harm for local communities in the developing world. They take away jobs from skilled locals and give them to volunteers who will pay to work there.  Often the money spent by volunteers to travel abroad would be better used cultivating new industries and building infrastructure to help developing nations grow, rather than keeping them dependent on the developed world.

To avoid these misguided volunteering ventures, be sure to preform in-depth research on the program before hand.  Consider how impactful you want your volunteering to be.  Is the program allowing you to be proactive in the planning and orchestration of the project?  Will the local community truly benefit for years to come? Are you learning new skills, and are the native people learning new skills that will help them help themselves?  What does the developing community already have that can help them, and what do they need to improve their lives? These are challenging questions, and oftentimes it’s easier for one to continue helping in one's own community rather than one abroad. 

Both at home and abroad, volunteers are meant to fill in the missing pieces in a community, not supplement what it can do by itself.  The end result should be giving a foreign community the ability to help itself rather than keeping it dependent on aid from the developed world.  Volunteers should strive to bring the resources and skills that combat the issues hindering a community’s ability to prosper and live better quality lives.  Eventually volunteers have to return home, but the communities they visit and the lives they attempt to touch will remain.  Before they leave, their actions should echo in the lasting improvements helped to achieve.  This summer, continue to track your Noble Impact on NobleHour both at home and abroad. 

It’s college graduation season, and many recent grads are contemplating what they will do next.  For some that means continuing with graduate school, but for many it means taking everything learned in the past four years and using it to pursue a career.  Regardless, this is a time full of decisions seemingly greater in importance than those made four years ago when graduating from high school.  Graduates are faced with finding jobs, managing thousands of dollars in student loans, finding a house or apartment to move out from your parent’s house, and starting a life after college.  The first step in most of this is finding a job to support yourself, but for many graduates it helps to have a resume built on a valuable, well-rounded experience in addition to a college degree. 

Going to college should not just be listening to lectures and studying; it should be an experience where students gain the skills and experience they will need for life after graduation.  One way to gain experience is through volunteerism.  Even before college, many students begin volunteering to meet a graduation requirement, apply to an award or scholarship program, or to build their college applications.  However, volunteering does not end here, and most students who volunteer in high school continue to do so in college.  This is because volunteering is both rewarding and beneficial. 

Here are a few ways volunteering can help current students, graduates and job-seekers alike:

1. Improve as a person: Volunteering doesn’t have to be just about pursuing a career.  Volunteers also make friends, become more outgoing, and learn to appreciate the things they have and the people they care about.  Many volunteers just want to make a difference and feel good that they contributed to the community.  According to the United States Department of Labor, 42.2% of college graduates over the age of 25 volunteered, and that number is slowly rising. While many volunteers start out with a specific goal in mind, most will find volunteerism rewarding and valuable and, for this reason, continue to be engaged in their communities with it beyond graduation. 

2. Become a well-rounded individual: Volunteerism can help boost a resume for graduates seeking to build their experience in their chosen field.  For job-seeking graduates, a history of volunteerism shows employers that you are well rounded and involved in the community.  Being able to say you built houses with Habitat for Humanity or helped with disaster relief efforts says that you are concerned with something beyond yourself.  It demonstrates a sense of initiative that cannot be seen in simply listing a university name and degree. 

3. Earn experience and skills: Volunteering creates a host of experiences you can talk about in interviews.  Many graduates are just starting out and have little experience, but being able to talk about volunteer experiences can improve your chances and prove that you will make a valuable employee.  Countless applicants can talk about the courses they took and things they learned in university, but potential employers already have that knowledge and experiences.  Some important skills you’ll pick up by volunteering include teamwork, empathy, communication, commitment and leadership; all of which are qualities employers look for and experiences you can share during an interview.  Whatever your volunteer experience was, your story and background will stand out. 

4. Jumpstart your career: Sometimes it’s easier to find work experience pertaining to your career in the form of a volunteer opportunity than a part time position you can maintain while studying.  Do a little searching or contact the career center at your university to find out about volunteer or internship programs that will jumpstart you in developing your skillset for your career.  You’ll also develop contacts in your field that may be able to help you find a job later when you graduate or can serve as valuable references when you apply to other companies. 

5. Contribute to something you are passionate about: Perhaps you were strayed away from less “profitable” degrees in your college search by your parents or teachers and asked to pursue other interests and talents.  There’s still a chance to keep in touch with the things you enjoy doing.  Volunteering doesn’t have to be a chore like studying and attending class; it should be connected to a cause that interests you.  When looking for volunteer opportunities near you, find something you’ll enjoy and commit to. 

Congratulations to the class of 2013!  Make sure to become a NobleHour citizen to begin measuring the number of hours and the impact of your service work.  Use this to show employers the amount of time you are willing to dedicate to a cause that’s important to you, and then share how your story impacted the community and makes you stand out as a recent graduate. Track your Noble Impact here on NobleHour and see how it will enhance your life after graduation. 

On Wednesday, NobleHour will exhibit its software for community engagement at the 2013 Nonprofit Summit, put on by the Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida and the University of Florida Department of Family, Youth & Community Sciences. The summit will take place at Emerson Alumni Hall from 8am-5pm.

 The Nonprofit Summit is the North Central Florida’s largest conference for nonprofit professionals, board members, community leaders and students.  Speakers at the conference include Kari Saratovsky, author of “ Cause for Change: The Why and How of Nonprofit Millennial Engagement”; Angela Garcia, Director of Community Engagement and Service-Learning in the UF Center for Leadership and Service; and Theresa Beachy, Executive Director of Peaceful Paths Domestic Abuse Network, Inc.  Sessions will address a range of topics, such as: nonprofit engagement, communication, cultural diversity, volunteerism, risk management, financial preparation, and student leadership.

 The conference aims to empower nonprofit leaders to “strengthen their organizations through education, collaboration, and innovation.” These goals are assisted with NobleHour’s ability to connect educators, students, and nonprofits together to create a more educated, innovative, and impactful communities.

 Using NobleHour, non-profits can post opportunities, events, news, and resources with a growing network of volunteers. They can also manage their own volunteers, track volunteer hours, and generate comprehensive reports on their community impact.

About Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida
The Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida’s mission is to cultivate support, growth and community awareness for nonprofit organizations in the North Central Florida region. The Nonprofit Center focuses on providing nonprofit organizations with education, resources and advocacy to assist in fulfilling their missions. For more information please visit www.ncncf.org.

About NobleHour
NobleHour is based in Lakeland, FL and was started by a team of knowledgeable business investors, representing over 70 years of unparalleled entrepreneurial and business experience. They developed SweatMonkey.org in 2005 as an online service learning management platform for students and schools. SweatMonkey was used by countless organizations such as the YMCA, the SPCA, the United Way of North Central Florida, and the University of Florida. SweatMonkey was rebranded and launched in 2012 as NobleHour.com, an engaging online community platform that includes content sharing, a database of volunteer and job opportunities and events, hour tracking tools for tracking community service hours, and community impact measurement tools. NobleHour's mission is to provide an engaging platform to help connect people with their communities to empower civic engagement. For more information visit www.noblehour.com.

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor and engaged Millennial, Natasha Derezinski-Choo

A great debate has arisen over the character of the next generation. People born after 1980 are defined as the “Millennial” generation because these young people, now in their teens and twenties, will be the first to come to the age of maturity in the new millennium.  This generation is also sometimes called Generation Y in reference to its succession of Generation X (1965-1980).  Analysts of this new generation are divided. Skeptics have deemed it lazy, narcissistic, and in an article by Tom Jacobs, downright delusional.  However, research also points to the fact that the average twenty-first century “youngster” is also more educated and accepting than his or her predecessor Generation X or parents, the Baby Boomer Generation.  The sweeping generalizations looking down upon Millennials are often one-sided and fail to account for the progressive nature and potential of young people.

The article “Are millennials delusional?” by Tom Jacobs portrays Millennials in an unjustly negative manner.  Jacobs focuses on the consumptive and material expectations of young people to argue that they are unrealistic and, as the title suggests, delusional.  Work ethic and entitlement are two of the primary criticisms.  He quotes that teens are increasingly more expectant of material gain without having to put in the proper amount of effort.  Jacobs continues to analyze materialism as a “disturbing trend” among youth, supported by a study by psychologist and researchers Jean Twenge and Tim Kasser which found a rise in material concern through a survey that asked about the importance of owning possessions such as a new car or a house.  The article has some hypocritical implications.  It begins by gauging a generation’s personality based on its willingness to earn money, and then goes on to criticize it for its materialism.  In fact, the article does not address the other positive impacts that young people are making each day and only takes into account consumptive tendencies, while other negative portrayals also seek to criticize youngsters’ personalities.   

In the cover article for Time magazine, Joel Stein attacks the narcissistic nature of “The Me Me Me Generation”.  Stein opens with “the cold, hard data” stating that “the incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health.”  However,  further studies contradict this idea: In “It Is Developmental Me, Not Generation Me" Brent W. Roberts. Grant Edmonds, and Emily Grijalva say that “that age changes in narcissism are both replicable and comparatively large in comparison to generational changes in narcissism. This leads to the conclusion that every generation is Generation Me, as every generation of younger people are more narcissistic than their elders”.  In Elspeth Reeve’s rebuttal of Stein’s article, she explains, in layman’s terms, that this means, “Basically, it's not that people born after 1980 are narcissists, it's that young people are narcissists, and they get over themselves as they get older.”  Like people, every generation of youth has its flaws and naiveties, but it would be highly inaccurate to deem any generation faulty without considering its revolutionary and progressive nature during its reign as “the next generation”.  

Millennials should be praised for their innovative and forward-thinking demeanor.  Pew Research Center’s report entitled “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change” found that Millennials are more educated than their predecessors.  In 2009, males aged 18-28 reported 34% attained some college education and 15% had four-year degrees or higher.  This is a dramatic increase from the 25% the Baby Boomer males who received some college education and a significant increase from the 13% with four-year degrees or higher.  Female education saw an even greater increase.  In 1978, Boomers reported that 11% had four-year degrees.  In 1995, Generation X reported 15%, and in 2009 Millennials reported 20%, almost double the percentage of their parents.  Millennials are certainly not lazy or oblivious.  They are beginning to experience and change the world.  This generation is the most educated generation in American history, and will go on to becoming active and innovative problem-solvers in the new millennium.  

Despite economic hardships and difficulty finding employment in entering the workforce, young people are more likely to engage in volunteerism than previous generations.  The Pew Research Center found that 52% of Millennials reported volunteering in the past twelve months, more than the older generations surveyed.  Young people are innovative and impactful within the greater community.  Forbes’ article “How The Next Generation Of Wealth Is Revolutionizing Philanthropy As We Know It” asserts that “philanthropy extends far beyond just writing a check or lending your name to a charity. These individuals [millennials] have dedicated their lives to harnessing the venture capital mindset in order to ensure the success of their charitable giving.”  Millennials are revolutionizing  the nonprofit sector by not only donating funds, but also employing their time and energy to supporting charitable causes.  

Millennials’ progressive social and political outlooks will change the face of policy-making and adapt it to twenty-first century realities.  Millennials were reported to be more tolerant towards gay-rights, supportive of equal opportunities for minorities, and accepting of diversity of family structure, such as single-mother families or divorced parents.  Pew reported that youth were just as likely to take political action on these issues as their older counterparts.  Millennials are challenging the stereotype of laziness and apathy by making a Noble Impact through volunteerism and civic engagement.  

The next generation possesses some of the greatest tools to solve the great social, political, and economic crises being handed to them.  In this globalized world, the evolution of the Internet and improved communication will no doubt be an incredible tool in the Millennials' success.  Every generation is handed problems of the past.  In the last century, new generations faced, in brief terms, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and the Cold War.  Today it is terrorism, human rights, global warming, and the recessions of a post-industrial economy.  When faced with such conflicts, young people cannot help but be optimistic toward their potential.  Rather than putting them down, older generations should also begin to accept and cultivate the future because, regardless, it looks like you’re stuck with us. 

Reflections by NobleHour Special Contributor, Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A.

What gives life meaning and purpose? Family? Friendships? Grades? Family and friends, of course. However, when it comes to academics, many students find emphasis on grades and scores to be a necessary evil, something they must achieve. Yet the question of personal fulfillment may be fleeting.

While traveling globally and meeting students at all levels whether pre-collegiate or in higher education, I often ask the question, “How many of you look out the window and wonder Why am I learning this?” By posing a similar question to teachers and faculty, “How many of you wonder, Why am I teaching this?” hands fly up. What a response! Would all participants benefit more deeply from the education process if a purpose was driving the learning? A larger purpose? How about this one: Applying what we are learning to the common good. When the academic and service connection is deliberate and includes student initiative, authenticated needs, reciprocal collaborations with community partners, and meaningful reflection, we call this service learning.

The pairing of education with the purpose of meeting verified community needs has likely been going on as long as education itself. There have always been teachers who recognize this imperative. Personally, my first teaching position erupted into service as students observed the onslaught of Dutch elm disease threatening the trees in their backyards. Their insistence on taking action convinced all the teachers to frame what we had on our academic agendas around this situation. High level science research with university students as partners gave these high school youth an incentive to work harder with a sense of urgency, true intrinsic motivation. Their university counterparts willingly assumed the role of mentors that kept them more committed to their course work. Everyone cared about outcomes that went well beyond grades. They were saving trees.

 Plant trees. They give us the two most crucial elements for our survival: oxygen and books.

– A. Whitney Brown

Now we are experiencing a global groundswell of service. The issues we face as a planet have risen to a level that calls more of us to action. We can all be engaged in learning about and addressing critical issues—hunger, climate change, population migration, loss of habitat, illiteracy, and more—while contributing to the betterment of themselves and others. Students at all levels who are cognizant of the issues and have problem-solving abilities to address them, matter. When students lack the skills then all educators need to take notice and provide what is needed to transform youth into advocates for the social well-being of our environment, our communities, and indeed this planet we share. Providing the requisite skills and knowledge to do this vital work in local communities and larger world adds relevance to the process of education.

With academic-rich service learning experiences, students are doing astounding work as they prepare food for people in crises, repair coral reefs, protect animals, and spend time with otherwise lonely elders. When they care about the subject matter and have authenticated a need, students discover intrinsic motivation. This is key.

Words fill classrooms and books and computer screens. We can dialogue, write papers, and make suppositions about what is possible. Yet, when we take words and transform them into ideas, and these ideas then transform into action---what are we capable of?

Psychologist Robert Sternberg wrote an exceptional article called What is an Expert Student? In this article he commits to the idea that to reach intelligence, students need to engage in analytical, creative, and practical thinking. One or two of these alone will not be sufficient. He then adds, “When schools teach for wisdom, they teach students it is important not just what you know, but how you use what you know . . .” He then adds a statement that has been a personal mantra of mine since first hearing these words: “Wisdom, the opposite of foolishness, is the use of successful intelligence and experience toward the attainment of a common good.”

How many of you think we need more wisdom in the world right now? If you are nodding, then making the endpoint of our education manifest with tests and grades will likely be terribly insufficient. Bringing learning to life through using what we study in class to assist struggling students gain skills and confidence, or writing informative brochures about local history, or creating healthy food options in locales where scant vegetables are available only at corner stores—could this be what education is really about?  

Why does service matter? With service learning ideas becomes a reality, the excitement becomes palpable. The contributions made—significant. What I see most is students discover who they are as their interests, talents and skills connect with the academic content and skills and learning comes to life. Service creates purpose for learning. And students and the exceptional educators who engage them prove to be valued contributors for our collective well-being, now and in the future.

Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A., president of CBK Associates, International Education Consultants, provides program development, and highly engaging workshops and keynote addresses on service learning, literacy, engaged teaching, and school culture. Cathryn is the author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning: Proven, Practical Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility, Academic Curriculum, & Social Action (Free Spirit Publishing, 2010), and Going Blue: A Kid’s Guide to Protecting Our Oceans and Waterways, with Philippe Cousteau and EarthEcho International. Visit her Website at www.abcdbooks.org and contact her in Los Angeles at cbkaye@aol.com.