Volunteers of America is a human services organization founded in 1896 by Christian social reformers dedicated to establishing a ministry of service. The faith-based organization is one of the nation's largest and most comprehensive charitable nonprofit human services organizations. Their overall mission is to address society's most pressing needs and to uplift spirits. They do this with hundreds of programs and an army of 80,000 volunteers and 15,000 professional staff.

In 2001, Benevon conducted a special one-day session with the CEOs and development staff of Volunteers of America local offices across the country. Afterwards, the national board offered to underwrite half the cost of a two-day Benevon 101 Workshop in March 2002 in Washington. D.C. for twenty-four local offices. Since then, several more Volunteers of America local offices have gone through the workshop. Two local offices—Volunteers of America North Louisiana in Shreveport, LA, and Volunteers of America's Crystal Care Center in Crystal, MN—have agreed to share their stories here.

Click here to read Volunteers of America's Crystal Care Center's story.

Volunteers of America North Louisiana's story is below.

Chuck Meehan, the President and CEO of Volunteers of America North Louisiana, said one of the unique aspects of Volunteers of America is that they believe they are serving their volunteers as much as the people in their programs. "We measure our success not just by those enrolled in our program but by our volunteers and by those who help financially," he said.

What drew him to the Benevon Model? "It's an effective model not only in terms of raising money but also in terms of engaging more people in our mission and engaging people who want to stay with a good, quality organization," he said.

The cornerstone activity for Volunteers of America in North Louisiana is adoption (especially older children in foster care), but they have over fifty other programs, including mental disability services, housing services, and inner-city youth services. The organization draws its base from the middle of the state all the way north to the Arkansas border in a mostly rural area of one million people, most of whom live below the poverty line—not what many would call fertile fundraising soil.

Lisa Brandeburg, the Public Relations and Development Director of Volunteers of America North Louisiana, has been with the organization for nineteen years and has tried all kinds of fundraising events. The most an event had ever generated, she said, was $50,000—and that was gross revenues.

After the workshop, the Volunteers of America North Louisiana team started connecting people to their mission. They hold two Point of Entry Events a month that feature two different programs, and they always try to get a person there to provide a story of how he or she was helped, such as a person who graduated from an after-school program, a couple who built their family through adoption, or maybe a person with a disability. They also hold these Point of Entry® Events at local churches. Brandeburg said many people were very interested in their work, and Benevon's approach to cultivation helped to hook these potential donors. "I guess you'd call it super cultivation. Whatever it is, it's been wonderful for us," she said. At the group's first Ask Event™, they raised $630,000 in gifts and pledges. The second year's event brought the two-year total to well over $1 million.

"This really defies everything we've heard about our region, that everyone's tapped out," said Brandeburg.

Today, Volunteers of America North Louisiana raises close to $1 million a year from community support for its programs in North Louisiana, over double what they had budgeted only a few years before. Brandeburg, who has also attended both the Benevon 201 and 301 Workshops, is now dreaming of what she thought was impossible—sustainable funding—and they are on track to build a $1.5 million endowment in the next eight years.

Despite their huge success, Brandeburg said Volunteers of America North Louisiana has its challenges, such as getting more staff and board members on board and finding the time to get everything done. She said she has seen other Volunteers of America sites fail when it came to following the Benevon Model, because they didn't have at least three board members or key volunteers involved.

"I know we've got a lot of work to do in reaching even more board members, but I feel like our board and staff are really on board with this," she said.