COM4560 Chapter 4 Exercise PDF

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Rebecca Miller, AnnaMaria Luciano, Katelyn Shattler, Joshua Dy-Liacco and Laila Kunaish Chapter 4 Activity 1. The social issue that we believe our campaign should address is the steady decline in volunteer participation since the year 2005. The Corporation for National and Community Service has data from as far back as 1974 depicting the percentages of the population that volunteer. The data indicates that Floridians volunteer at lower rates than the national rate, and that college student volunteer rates are declining along with the national rates. The purpose of our campaign is to increase volunteering rates in Florida State University students. According to the Center for Leadership and Social Change’s annual report, between the year 2016 and the year 2017 there was a 5.75% drop in students volunteering and an 8.61% drop in community service hours served. We would like to get these numbers up. The potential focuses we can take are increasing on campus advertisements for service opportunities, to create a volunteer hour requirement for all graduates, or target the groups with the lowest participation and increasing their awareness about opportunities. Corporation for National and Community Service. (n.d.). Florida Volunteering Statistics. Retrieved from h ttps://www.nationalservice.gov/vcla/state/Florida The Center for Leadership and Social Change. (n.d.). Annual Report. Retrieved from https://thecenter.fsu.edu/about/annual-report 2. Increase awareness about volunteering opportunities and ServScript tracking among freshman class students at FSU. i. Freshman are logging the least hours on servscript 1. The Center for Leadership and Social Change. (n.d.). Annual Report. Retrieved from https://thecenter.fsu.edu/about/annual-report ii. Freshman are searching for community involvement due to it being their first year alone 1. Hegedus, C. M., & Knight, J. (n.d.). Student Participation in Collegiate Organizations – Expanding the Boundaries. Retrieved from https://www.leadershipeducators.org/Resources/Documents/Confer ences/Lexington/Hegedus.pdf iii. Freshman have little understanding of school operations (i.e. servscript) and opportunities (i.e. peacejam, engage tlh, alternative break). 1. Higher Education Today. (2018, September 6). The Mental and Physical Well-Being of Incoming Freshmen: Three Decades of Research. Retrieved from

https://www.higheredtoday.org/2018/09/06/mental-physical-well-i ncoming-freshmen-three-decades-research/

3. Microenvironment: Strengths: ● The Center for Leadership and Social Change at Florida State University offers multiple opportunities for students to become involved in the the community. These opportunities range in length, demographic, and types of community service. (h ttps://thecenter.fsu.edu/). ● The organization has connections with public school systems all throughout Tallahassee. ● Sustainable Campus at Florida State University promotes local volunteerism and promotes multiple volunteering resources. Additionally, they cite the Center for Leadership and Social Change on their website. (https://sustainablecampus.fsu.edu/get-involved/local-volunteer-internship-oppo rtunities) ● The Center for Leadership and Social Change works with ServScript to log student volunteer hours within the FSU student database. ● “For the 2016 calendar year, 7,251 FSU students reported a total of 391,941 hours of volunteer work through the FSU ServScript program, an increase of 3.16 percent students and an increase of 6.15 percent hours from 2015.” (https://economic-impact.fsu.edu/). ● In 2017, the organization trained 35 Florida State student ambassadors and paired them with 12 local partner agencies in Tallahassee. Through this effort the organization gained 1,091 students and 188 student groups and got them to be engage in their community programs. This lead to 4,560 total hours reported of service in 2017 with their organization. (https://thecenter.fsu.edu/about/annual-report) Weaknesses: ● According to a Florida State Career Center survey distributed to students graduating that semester, only 1% of overall graduates noted that they plan on

volunteering after graduation. (https://career.fsu.edu/graduating-senior-survey-statistics) ● According to ServScript data, more than half of recorded volunteer hours come from students of the white demographic. Additionally, 63% of recorded volunteer hours came from females. (https://thecenter.fsu.edu/about/annual-report) ● Freshman are have least amount of hours recorded on ServScript.

4.Search the literature for evidence regarding opportunities and threats in the Macroenvironment (these tend to be related to TRENDS, such as geographic, cultural, demographic, political, social, etc.). You can include reference to popular press articles (e.g., newspaper articles, trade press articles) in the section. ● There is evidence of the number of volunteers increasing due to political activity. When looking at our Macroenvironment, elections are an opportunity in our case, with citizens feeling like it is their civic duty to participate and help others participate. Especially with the polarizing 2016 election, many felt that they needed to get the word out. People in retirement use their free time to volunteer because of the political events that are occuring. ○ http://www.kxxv.com/story/39043119/political-parties-report-higher-number-of-v olunteers-for-midterm-elections ● Another opportunity for the rise of volunteerism is unemployment. When young people are searching for a purpose and sense of direction after graduation, many of them are drawn to volunteering. Volunteering provides a sense of “doing good” in the world, and with a lack of jobs available, people seemed to be going to nonprofits and charities in 2012. It may be a threat to our society, but it was an opportunity to increased volunteerism. ○ https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2012/jun/07/unemployme nt-charities-volunteering

5. If you have not found good examples of past or similar campaign efforts, continue to locate them. Review past and similar campaigns/efforts for lessons learned by those groups and what can be applied to your campaign. A similar campaign regarding the promotion of volunteering in Florida are the various service initiatives made by Volunteer Florida, a non-profit that was established “to administer AmeriCorps funding and serve as an advisory board to the Governor and Cabinet, the

Legislature, and statewide partners on volunteerism, community service, and civic responsibility issues.” Examples of their campaign efforts in 2016 include #suitsforsession and #bringabook. Although these volunteer initiatives attempted to raise the current rate of volunteerism in Florida, only 52% of Floridians volunteer each year. There is a lot that can be learned from these efforts such as how to engage and volunteer within the community and how crucial it is to partner with existing service organizations. https://www.volunteerflorida.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2016-VF-Annual-Report.pdf...