Want to see an online documentary from 2000 that shows scenes from the first ever Day of Service held in Kansas City in March, 2000? Click here.
One of my clients is NTEN and for the past five years I've been hired to help coordinate the NTC Day of Service on April 4thi n Washington, DC. The Day of Service is a way for conference participants to give something back to the community that hosts the Nonprofit Technology Conference. The partners include NTEN, NPower Greater DC, and DC-Cares. Cisco is a sponsor of the event and their employees will also be joining the volunteer teams!
Here's how it works: NTC conference participants and local DC area volunteers team up, pick an organization to share their skills and expertise with and spend a few hours on-site. The projects are appropriate for a short-term volunteer engagement - software skills coaching and local area network documentation. If you're coming to NTC, you can pick out a project online here.
The video is a blast from the past that I found on my hard drive. It was created by Sean O'Brien from The W. Alton Jones Foundation at the Kansas City Roundup (the roots of what has become the NTC) where the first (annual) Day of Service was launched in 2000. As these events were taking place, Sean O'Brien, a Circuit Rider with the W. Alton Jones Foundation, "produced a 14 minute documentary that presents a compelling case for support of Circuit Riding by foundations and shows the commitment-to-cause and fun-loving nature of Circuit Riders."
Before I got paid to coordinate the event, I participated as a volunteer. In fact, it was one of the best professional development opportunities I ever had! Why? I got to work with a colleague, Dirk Slater, and watch him work with clients! Also, I got to work with an organization that was completely different from the type of organizations that I was typically working with at the time. Our project was software coaching for excel and outlook!!!
The video itself is interesting too because this might be the first example of nonprofit video blogging! I'm so glad that Sean was so forward thinking at the time to create this - and thus enable us to some sort of archival record.
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