By Jean Kruse / Guest Editorial
“Volunteer Week” was celebrated the week of April 6-12. This is an annual celebration of the fantastic contributions that millions of volunteers make across the USA.
There have been several articles in the news recently about volunteerism. On March 27 on page 1 of The Gazette there was an article about the many volunteers for Junior Achievement, including how they teach students from kindergarten through 12th grade about how people and businesses manage their money.
It seems that the trend today for many companies is to encourage their employees to volunteer. Leah Rodenberg and Robb Loftsgard wrote an article in the Corridor Business Journal about the Workplace Volunteer Council, a new effort of United Way of East Central Iowa to bring together companies to “share ideas and best practices in developing employee volunteer programs.”
According to Rodenberg and Loftsgard, “there is a powerful link between frequent participation in workplace volunteer activities and several measures of employee engagement that, in turn, contribute to employees’ perceptions of a positive corporate culture.”
The Junior Achievement organization and most other not-for-profit organizations do rely on volunteers, but most of them also employ an executive director and other administrative staff. SCORE depends completely on volunteers to fulfill its mission. In fact, there are no SCORE chapters in Iowa that hire any employees—all services are provided by volunteers and they are 100 percent managed by volunteers. That means that SCORE needs volunteers with many different skills including leadership, marketing and administration in addition to volunteers who are qualified to mentor clients.
As the SCORE district president of Iowa, I oversee 11 chapters in the state. The number of volunteers ranges from about seven or eight in the smallest chapters to 55-plus in the largest chapter, which is the East Central Iowa Chapter that serves the counties of Benton, Linn, Jones, Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, Keokuk, Washington, Henry, Chickasaw, Bremer, Black Hawk and Buchanan.
SCORE’s mission is to provide resources and expertise to maximize the success of existing and emerging small businesses in our geographic area of responsibility. Our volunteers accomplish this by one-on-one mentoring and by team counseling plus free workshops on various business topics. Our services are free because they are provided by volunteers and they are available to anyone. We charge a fee for a three-evening seminar titled “How to Really Start Your Own Business” that we provide every other month; the next one starts May 6. Go to our website (www.scorecr.org) to find a schedule of all our workshops.
Does SCORE compete with professionals such as attorneys and accountants who also serve the business community? No. We advise and encourage our SCORE clients to engage an attorney and accountant as part of their advisory team. We do not do any work for the client.
Nationally in 2013, SCORE’s volunteers donated more than 1.1 million hours of their time to start up 38,630 businesses, create 7,319 jobs, help 40,175 clients increase their revenue and mentor and train 124,617 small business owners and entrepreneurs.
SCORE needs more volunteers. Many, if not most, of our volunteers have either previously owned their own business or managed a business, so they have first-rate mentoring skills. Their expertise is very valuable to our clients.
A few years ago we began recruiting volunteers who presently work full-time. Those volunteers have brought a lot of important skills that are now available to our clients. However, because they work full-time, they are usually not able to volunteer a full or half day to work at our office. Our office is open for clients to call or walk in from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. five days a week.
If you are reading this and would like to volunteer to provide this desk duty office service, go to our web site, www.scorecr.org, and click on “Volunteer;” then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the button that says “become a score volunteer today.”
If you want to volunteer and believe that you would be an excellent person to mentor clients who have business questions or problems or who want to start their own business, but you are working full-time, you might want to consider becoming a SCORE volunteer who only counsels via email, which you can do in the evening or on weekends from the comfort of your own home.
So you want to volunteer for SCORE and you sign up on our website. What happens next? You will be interviewed by a couple of SCORE volunteers. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions and for both you and SCORE to determine if you will be a person who is suitable for SCORE membership. You will have to sign and comply with the National SCORE Code of Ethics and Conduct—that document must be signed annually by all SCORE volunteers. You will have to complete the SCORE National Training and Orientation programs and commit to fulfilling the individual role and activities agreed upon by you and the chapter.
To learn more about volunteering for SCORE you are welcome to attend one of our monthly meetings at 9:30 a.m. on the first Wednesday of each month, except June at the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance office, 501 First Street SE, or drop in to visit with the desk duty person in our office at 2750 First Ave. NE, Ste. 350 (in the SBA office) or phone (319) 362-6405, ext. 2005.
I hope you will consider volunteering for SCORE.
Jean Kruse is a SCORE counselor and SCORE Iowa district president. She operated her own CPA firm for 13 years and in 1988, joined RSM McGladrey, a national firm, where she provided accounting and tax services to small businesses.
