VOLUNTEER PROGRAM DEVELOPER

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Youth Venture and Get America Working! are currently searching for a motivated volunteer to create a volunteer management program within the three organizations. Founded by Bill Drayton, these three organizations share ideas, services, personnel, and facilities. For over fifteen years, Ashoka has relied on volunteer support in virtually every aspect of its activities. In an institutional effort to serve all three missions more effectively and efficiently, Ashoka has decided to share volunteer expertise with Bill Drayton's smaller organizations: Youth Venture and Get America Working.

The Volunteer Program Developer position provides an exceptional opportunity for an accomplished, creative, self-motivated individual who welcomes the challenge of managing and developing a larger network to deepen our volunteer program. The decentralized, yet integrated, management philosophy unique to all three organizations allows a great deal of flexibility and room for entrepreneurial initiative. While, exercising and strengthening one's skills in organizational management, personal leadership and innovation, the Volunteer Program Developer will work with a team of talented and committed individuals in the Arlington headquarters. He or she will provide the leadership necessary to take the existing volunteer program to a new level. Not only with this person be interacting with individuals on a local, regional and national scale, but s/he will also be introduced to the vast network of Ashoka's 900 social entrepreneurs working in 33 countries worldwide.

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public is a global, non-profit association that supports social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows) in Asia, Africa, Central Europe, and Latin America. Social entrepreneurs are individuals who possess innovative yet practical ideas to bring about far-reaching social change in such fields as the environment, education, health, human rights, and income generation. By providing these carefully selected individuals with a modest annual stipend and other support, Ashoka helps launch their careers and ideas. Ashoka's work is privately financed by individuals, volunteer chapters, foundations, and business entrepreneurs. It has no religious or political affiliations.

Youth Venture exists to initiate a change in the role of young people in our society by providing opportunities for them to create their own organizations and, through those organizations, to take greater responsibility for their own lives and their own communities. Youth Venture operates through a network of model collaborations with youth organizations and other community organizations. The youth-run ventures cover the gamut of businesses (e.g., a bicycle shop, tutorial services, lawn and garden maintenance) and non-profit agencies (e.g., support to diabetics in developing countries, art instruction to inner-city youth, a national youth video contest). These collaborations are privately financed by foundations, individuals and corporations. Youth Venture has no religious or political affiliation. Get America Working! is launching a national effort to increase public understanding of the economic and social costs of unemployment and underemployment and to develop and implement policies that will significantly increase employment opportunities. The main tool Get America Working! advocates is elimination of the $525 billion payroll tax and replacement with taxes on polluting activities and on natural resources. This tax shift would provide a powerful double incentive to increase employment, and would have the beneficial side effect of reducing the level of polluting activity coming from the U.S. economy. The strategy Get America Working! is following is to build a broad, bi-partisan coalition of the constituent groups who would benefit from this tax shift.

Responsibilities:

• Work with the existing volunteer programs in Fellowship Support Services and The Service Center of Ashoka to develop an integrated and effective volunteer management plan for the three organizations
• Create a methodology to institutionalize the volunteer program and systems with clients and volunteers to ensure its continuity
• Develop a process for screening and hiring volunteers, interns, and work-study students
• Outline training and oversight approaches to volunteers, interns, and work-study students
• Develop a system for monitoring the volunteer opportunities available and the internal need for volunteers within the organizations, and approach to publicizing opportunities (via the Internet, newspapers, colleges/universities, career transition centers, etc.)
• Develop plans for a "volunteer incentive" program
• Develop plans for a "virtual volunteer" program
• Commit to volunteer 20 hours per week or more for at least 3-4 months

• Enthusiasm for building a sustainable volunteer network supporting social entrepreneurship
• Excellent organizational skills
• High degree of initiative and creativity
• Good person-to-person skills, an ability to assess individuals needs and strengths
• Willingness to work in fast-paced, multicultural environment
• Familiarity with international development issues
• Proficiency with Microsoft Windows 95 (Word, Excel), Microsoft Access, Internet and Email
• Ability to teach and delegate tasks
• Fluent in English, knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Thai, Indonesian Bahasa, Polish, Slovak, Czech, or Hungarian, a plus