Former U.S. President Carter reflects his volunteering in person through several charities, but he also inspires loyalty in others through his leading by example. Mother Teresa in the headline caption devoted her life to volunteering for her church and inspired huge amounts of people to look at life differently and volunteering in particular. Such inspiration breeds loyalty.

To continue our discussion of how to translate this idea of building loyalty into a charity consider the following. What if you are representing a charity that is not so large and wide spread? Start thinking outside the box. I will give you an example that I happen to have considered at one time. Look for celebrities that have local or at least state wide appeal. Sports, authors, artists, college coaches, perhaps local TV personalities. Get from 3 to 10 to attend some kind of fund raising event for your charity and then make sure your volunteers and special guests get access of some kind the night before!

Pretend you are in Iowa of all places. There are no major professional sports franchises in the entire state of Iowa, so how would you pull this off? By the way, there are several other states without any major professional sport franchises besides Iowa so this example can be applied all over the this country and even the world.

Well, start with the college players who went on to the professional ranks and then perhaps they even returned to the state after their playing days are over. I have lived in several states and the newspapers are always covering players who have any ties to that state and area, either living there or played college there. Start contacting them and as you suggest ideas such as chili cook offs or anything else you can to get a few of them together just roll with what ever idea seems to work. Don’t neglect the locals who will pay tickets for the event and the meet and greet the evening before, know your area and their interests.

In Iowa wrestling is huge so try to get one or two from that sport too in this example.

Get a wide variety, from young to old and from various sports. To continue this Iowa scenario there were a few Olympians from the state in the last Olympics, see if one or two will visit. Try for Dan Gable, who won his weight class in wrestling in the Olympics, coached for the Iowa Hawkeyes setting tons of records there and also wrestled for Iowa State. Perhaps some local college players in sports?

Be sure to get someone who is younger to appeal to those who are not in tune with past Olympic history or even past college history. Vary the group if possible to attract the widest audience possible. Shawn Johnson is another Iowan who could fit this criteria.

Is there a local author that could broaden the appeal of the visiting and hopefully money spending public for your event? Let him or her sell some of their books too!

Perhaps a local TV personality who can also ensure your event has some local news coverage? Take care, but a local politician for variety if that would not be too polarizing?

Remember, these personalities don’t have to belong to your group, they just have to believe your group is worthy.

What happens if the major hitters all opt out, the recent Olympians and even the older ones like Bruce Jenner or Dan Gable who have well known Iowa connections and still draw crowds?

Set your sights on another route. Having researched this scenario I would consider local boys or girls who made it big but are now retired. Narrow your focus to a few good men or women, and don’t forget business leaders! A local Iowa boy who made the big time is Bob Harlan was the president of the Green Bay Packers for 18 years and responsible for the teams financial stability! The personalities don’t have to have played the sport, just be recognizable.

In my research Arron Kampman turned up, local Iowa boy who made it to the University of Iowa and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers, before leaving to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He also has a life beyond sports. Kampman is a role model in other important ways and this is why I chose him when I researched his potential for this post. He is the 2012 Robert D. Ray Pillar of Character Award winner, an honor given by the nonprofit Character Counts In Iowa.

I have actually met Kampman briefly in a YMCA some years ago, he does do volunteer work I know from my research and he is a very positive guy. If your charity fits his views of the world, perhaps that would work? Combine this with a local coach or other noteworthy person and whatever they find worthy to do for your charity, organize if and run with it. Keep in mind, there are many good people out there who would help if they are just asked in every state, I just picked Iowa to make the challenge more broad since they don’t have any sports teams.

Remember to keep it family oriented and avoid any visits from questionable magazines or even professional cheerleaders, as this turns off the family aspect of the event for the moms of the visiting families.

The empowered volunteers of the world should not only strive to help build memberships for their charities but they should drive some other events that help build up a loyal base of support staff and also a willing public who sees that charity as worthy. Loyalty is built one step at a time but mainly by delivering to your supporting public what they want, fun and entertainment while supporting a worthy organization. Go build that loyalty today!

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Many people have found that for them volunteering was a worthy use of their time. Some of the reasoning for volunteering can be found in the quotes below.

Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another. –Erma Bombeck

No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it provides, it can never take the place of volunteers. –Ronald Reagan

After I became a volunteer, I discovered that networking and volunteering are almost synonymous. A lot of what I’ve learned about selling, public speaking, raising money, working as part of a team, management, and organization — in other words, a lot of what I learned about everything worth learning in running a business — I learned by being a volunteer worker. When I made mistakes, and I made plenty of them as a volunteer, they were part of a learning process that I could apply to my own business situation. And when I learned a new technique, I applied that too. –Harvy MacKay

Throughout my life, I’ve seen the difference that volunteering efforts can make in people’s lives. I know the personal value of service as a local volunteer. –Jimmy Carter

We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give. –Winston Churchill

Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. –Martin Luther King Jr.

A volunteer is a person who can see what others cannot see; who can feel what most do not feel. Often, such gifted persons do not think of themselves as volunteers, but as citizens – citizens in the fullest sense: partners in civilization –George Bush

Though government has an important role to play in meeting the many challenges that remain before us, we are coming to understand that no organization, including government, will fully succeed without the active participation of each of us. Volunteers are vital to enabling this country to live up to the true promise of its heritage –Bill Clinton

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. –Mahatma Gandhi

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for someone else. –Benjamin Franklin

Neither arduous vocation nor higher education has transmitted the positive self-reflection I required at crucial times in my life that volunteering has managed to provide. My faith in God provided me with the needed social cushion to merely survive. Coupling this with just the right amount of volunteering feedback repeatedly allowed me to continue with my Navy duties while still employed in the vigorous pursuit of personal happiness. –Paul R. Swanson

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. –Mother Teresa

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. –Margaret Mead

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being. –Goethe

We ourselves must be full of life if we are going to make life fuller for others. –David Sawyer

We can do no great things — only small things with great love. –Mother Teresa

I was taught that the world had a lot of problems; that I could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate; and that service is the rent each of us pays for living — the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals. –Marian Wright Edelman

I can’t be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others. –Hugh Prather

If you want to innovate, to change an enterprise or a society, it takes people willing to do what is not expected. –Jean Ribould

Giving kids clothes and food is one thing but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important, and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people. –Dolores Huerta

We need love and creative imagination to do constructive work. –Paula Ollendorf

Work is love made visible. –Kahlil Gibran

We ourselves must be full of life if we are going to make life fuller for others. –Davod Sawuer

No man or woman, even of the humblest sort, can really be strong, gentle, pure and good without the world being better for it; without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness. –Phillips Brooks

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on . . . The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully. –Walter Lippmann

Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like. –Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Service to youth is the rent we pay for the space we occupy on earth. –Jane Deeter Rippin

How can we expect our children to know and experience the joy of giving unless we teach them that the greater pleasure in life lies in the art of giving rather than receiving. –James Cash Penny

Volunteering creates a national character in which the community and the nation take on a spirit of compassion, comradeship and confidence. –Brian O’Connell

The soul is healed by being with children. –Feodor Dowtoevski

We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give. –Winston Churchill

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who ave sought and found how to serve. –Albert Schweitzer

I have been the recipient of love and service, therefore I can love and serve. There is great satisfaction in service to others, in … seeing people and their conditions change. –Clarence E. Hodges

We seldom stop to think how many people’s lives are entwined with our own. It is a form of selfishness to imagine that every individual can operate on his own or can pull out of the general stream and not be missed. –Ivy Baker Priest

We’re put on this earth not to see through each other but to see each other through. –Anonymous

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Caring must strengthen into commitment and commitment into action if we are to preserve and nurture one of the greatest forces for rebirth and renewal this nation has … voluntarism. –Marlene Wilson

Volunteering can be an exciting, growing, enjoyable experience. It is truly gratifying to serve a cause, practice one’s ideals, work with people, solve problems, see benefits, and know one had a hand in them. –Harriet Naylor

It is a rare and high privilege to be in a position to help people understand the differences that they can make not only in their own lives but in the lives of others by simply giving of themselves. –Helen Boosalis

Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. –Anonymous

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington

There is a tremendous strength that is growing in the world through . . . sharing together, praying together, suffering together and working together –Mother Teresa

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. –George Washington Carver

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. –Mahatma Gandhi

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. –Eleanor Roosevelt

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but the one thing I know; the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. –Albert Schweitzer

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. –Edmund Evertt Hale

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. –Aesop

Our nation will succeed or fail to the degree that all of us — citizens and businesses alike — are active participants in building strong, sustainable and enriching communities. –Arnold Hiatt

You will find as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others. Source Unknown

The miracle is this – the more we share, the more we have. –Leonard Nimoy

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