MSU Extension 4-H Volunteering & Mentoring

Good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone to the first of the 2025 Michigan Forage volunteer webinars looking at building a culture of appreciation and recognition for forage volunteers in youth. I am Christine Havery. I'm an extension educator based in Clinton County, and I play a role on our volunteer team looking at volunteer training and relationships. And my co presenter today is Jennifer, and I'll let her give a quick introduction also. Hi, I'm Jennifer Wichel I'm the volunteer specialist for MSU Extension and I'm housed on campus here in East Lansing and really happy to be here with you today. So we are excited for all of you to be with us today and we will get going. MSU extension believes fully in the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We know human differences enrich our lives work and community. We embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all and are committed to providing programs to all segments of our community. It's important to understand the longstanding history and legacy of colonialism that has brought us to reside on the land and to seek an understanding our place within that history, the land acknowledgment on the screen is one step in that process. Jennifer is going to put into the chat a quick demographic survey link. Please complete it if you are attending and are not attending as an MSU extension employee. If you're um, attending if you're also a volunteer and doing this in your volunteer capacity, you can complete it, but if you're doing this in your MSU stenchon capacity, please don't complete the survey. So this is part of a series of webinars that we have been doing in 2023 and 24. We have some exciting topics still coming up in 2025 that you can see the topics on the screen. Jennifer will put the link in the chat that will let you register for any that you might want to also see all the recordings from past webinars that are out there, and you're free to watch any of those to learn to get more information. Thank you. So as we get started today and really start to think about this culture of appreciation recognition, we're going to do a quick little icebreaker and we're going to do this as a waterfall chat. I'm going to ask a question. I want you to take a moment to think about it, and then I want you to type your answer into the chat, but don't press Enter until I say so. Take a moment to think about how you personally like to receive recognition. So we have a card or specific thank you, a handwritten note. I don't like to be recognized publicly. Thank you notes, quietly. Thank you notes, being told that I'm appreciated, a verbal thank you note or a card. What this shows us is that we all don't like recognition quite the same way. That's an important thing to understand and know as leaders within our forage clubs because other volunteers and the youth in our clubs are similar. They like to be recognized differently. Sometimes it's good to know how they like that recognition and appreciation so we can make it more personal to them. There's times where we have to do ones that fits everybody, but it's also good to have that awareness of what people like when we think through recognition. Thank you all for sharing. So as we think about our forage programs, high quality forage programs provide you the place to belong, matter, and explore their personal spark. These components really help ensure forage that you have a thriving experience. I forage, we want to push them on that thriving journey. Building recognition and appreciation into our program helps youth on that thriving journey. Showing appreciation for youth and other volunteers is a key part of helping youth thrive. It can be as simple as helping youth recognize their spark, highlighting when they're excelling at something, letting them know you notice when they're helping others, and building appreciation activities in your club that help you feel help you feel like they belong so they can have stronger relationships with others and allows volunteers you can set an example for other volunteers on how to do it. It doing it to volunteers, it helps them have a more meaningful experience also. So last year, you may have been one of the individuals that received a volunteer impact study questionnaire. Last year, the North Central Regional volunteer specialist conducted a study to talk about the impact that volunteers have on the Forage program. So today, I just want to take a moment to highlight some of those findings that we had from the surveys that were completed. We had over 2,500 surveys completed from volunteers in all 12 of our North Central region um in those states in those 12 states. So we noticed that the average years of service for our four H volunteers is 13.5 years. When you think about it, that's a pretty good number, and that is higher than the typical organization in the nonprofit sector. Four H is doing well at retaining their volunteers. We also notice that two thirds of our volunteers surveyed were actually four H members as youth. So you all should be really proud of that because when you're volunteering, you are obviously setting an example of service. And commitment to an organization. Those young people are growing up in a culture of volunteerism, seeing role models like yourselves, and then becoming volunteers themselves. That's pretty in factful as well. The other thing that we noticed is our generations are moving around now who's volunteering with us. So about 30% of our volunteers now were born between 1980 and the year 2000. Those are our millennials. So they're getting into the volunteering mode now in formal organizations, not just doing things randomly or one time things socially, but actually engaging in a program such as forage. 44% of our volunteers were those GenXRs that were born 1965-1979. I'm proud to say I'm part of that GenX movement and 44% of us are volunteering and we have 24% that fall in that boomer range. Those are the individuals born 1940-1964. Then we already have some Gen Z volunteers coming in. About 1%. You can see we do have some diversity in this age and spectrum of those that are volunteering with us. We do have a stronger number of females who reply to our survey. We also see a higher number of females volunteering overall in our program. About 78% of our respondents were females. That leaves about 20% were males and off those 140 volunteers identified themselves as Hispanic or non white because we really wanted to look at what was the cultural diversity of our volunteers as well? The other thing that might be exciting for you to know is that 9 hours a month comes out to be an average of what our volunteers g to the Forage program. When you think about that, that's over 108 hours a year and we know that some of you go far above that and that others may not volunteer as many hours, but our average is 9 hours a month. That is also higher than the national standard. That's impressive. As you look at it, it's very clear that volunteers are making a significant impact on our programs and for that, we thank you. So we specifically looked at what are the individual benefits that volunteers are getting from volunteering with us because we wanted to know that data. So one cool thing was that volunteers value those shared sparks, and you're going to hear more about sparks from Christine later in the presentation too. But those shared sparks, model of four H, which focuses on working with young people in areas of mutual interest to facilitate youth driving was really important to the volunteers that were working with our young people and responding to our survey. Volunteers identified four main ways in which they found personal value in volunteering. They felt they were actively contributing to youth thriving and experiencing the sense of fulfillment and giving back. Many of you know what that feels like. They also knew they were building social capital and developing new skills and transforming knowledge to other. Volunteers valued both the altrsic and functional dimensions of volunteering is what we found in the survey. They appreciated acquiring new skills for personal benefit, but also found fulfillment and contributing to the core mission of forage, developing young people and giving back to others and helping them develop their sparks. Additionally, volunteers place great value on actively supporting youth thriving, building those new relationships, and having connections throughout their communities. All of those most important findings and in some surprises, was it volunteers get the thriving model more than we had realized at the time that we did this study? Because a lot of states were just starting to talk about this thriving model. But it's really the essence of the work that we've been doing for over 100 years, connecting with young people where they are, focusing on areas of mutual interest. So we know that they value Sparks. They understand the critical importance of developing relationships, and they recognize that thriving is a process achieved by participating in a variety of Fach activities over time. It was evident in the responses that volunteers like you value the shared Sparks model of Forage, which focuses on working with young people in areas of mutual interest. So that everyone thrives. This challenged an assumption that FH is only about tapping in and building you sparks. Instead, FH actually gives opportunities to both youth and volunteer sparks. The role of volunteer sparks in their participation in Fage is an underrepresented personal value. We know that you are not only making a difference, but you may be finding your spark here as well, and we appreciate that with you as a volunteer. So as we really think about thinking about building successful recognition programs that recognize volunteers and youth, it's important that we really start with focusing on the success of someone, emphasize their success rather than their failure. This can be done through if you're seeing their sparks. How do you emphasize where they're working hard in that spark that they've had or really looking at it in a way to recognize them. Then we really have to look at that ensure that the recognition is to be done in a manner that the person appreciates. Just as you all said, different ways you like to be appreciated at the beginning, other volunteers and you have different ways they want to be appreciated. We want to honor that to the best of our ability. If they like public recognition, try and figure out how to do that. If they don't like public recognition, like a couple of you said, don't honor them that way because they're not going to appreciate it. Deliver the recognition and award in a way that's meaningful to them. Make sure recognition is personal and honest. Avoid providing recognition that seems overproduced or too much, really thinking about how to make it personal and individualized to them. That leads to Principle four is tailor the recognition award to the unique needs of the people involved. Think about what do they want? How do you have recognition options and reward options that fit them? It's going to be different could be different based on the club you have, the youth involved or the volunteers thinking about what does it work for them and make sure it's appropriate for the situation. Timing is always crucial. Recognition and contribution should be recognized throughout the entire program and project year. Reward those contributions as close to the time of achievement as possible. When you have a huge delay that impacts the recognition and weakens it for them, it doesn't make it feel as meaningful to people. Principle six is to strive for clear, ambiguous, well community connection between the accomplishments and the recognition received. Be sure that people understand why they're receiving these awards and the criteria used to determine the awards is met. Making them understand why they might have gotten this community service club award that you do or why they were recognized as their first year member in your club or why they got an outstanding lead young leader award, really thinking about why people get those awards. Play recognition is a proportion to the achievement, be consistent in recognizing all when they contribute in comparable ways. Things might be different. There are some awards that are bigger, and those need to have a bigger recognition, and then thinking about how does it all be part of the picture. Then recognize recognition. It's important that you recognize the people who are doing the recognition so that they see. So if in your club, if you have another club leader that really does a really good job of making sure they recognize youth or doing recognition in your club, take the time to recognize them for what they're doing because they're seen as the person who's doing all the recognition, and it's important that they see that that's appreciated too. This whole recognition piece is a part of that culture of appreciation when they can see that there's appreciation built into it. When we think about recognition, it's important to understand the difference between praise and encouragement and the impact it can have on individuals and groups of members. Encouragement is really specific, descriptive and focus on what the youth and volunteers control, their process and choices. We don't want to just give those overall great job, good job. That's really generic, it doesn't tell them what they've done or encourage them. It can lead us to really lead to what's called the praise junkie where they hear praise and it feels good. Instead, we really want to think on how do we make it specific and get that recognition to have some encouragement pieces. Especially when we're thinking on sparks as we're identifying and helping you identify and grow in their sparks. If we are really specific and descriptive on what they're doing in that spark and how we're helping recognize them and show appreciation for their growth in it and what they're focusing on, it helps that spark and that light bulb to go off even more. It helps to really grow those sparks for them. It's better to say like not just that they're a good member or nice person, but what they're doing. If you have a youth in your club who has before your meeting has started, did a really good job of welcoming other youth and welcoming the new families to the club meeting, you could instead of just saying good job and thank you for that, you can say, thank you for taking the time to really welcome these new families to our club. It shows that you want them to have a sense of belonging in our club. That helps see what they did and that was in their control instead of just saying thank you or good job to them. When we think about youth recognition, it really needs to be a key aspect of youth and volunteer development. It needs to be built into the club program. It's a way of saying thank you and giving a tangible item with words for a job well done. When an individual goes above and beyond, it only makes sense to recognize and reward him or her. We need to reinforce and additionally, when we think about this, we need to use it as a reinforcement for youth goals. When they set their goals, we need to think about how do we help them see how they're achieving towards them, encouraging things, and getting them working towards achieving them. It also serves to invite a person back for another opportunity. When used effectively and appropriately, recognition encourages and supports learning in all parts of our lives. It is broader than competition, but can include a competitive aspect. A comprehensive recognition program in a club includes opportunity for recognition based on the participation of certain things. The progress towards that goal, um a standard of excellence, which is that whole piece of when they exhibit things at a competition or fair, where do they rate? Then that whole peer competition and cooperation. We really need to think about recognition and youth as a way to help build them up and help them on the thriving path. It helps them gain that I can help them figure out their sparks better, how they grow, helps them gain a sense of belonging. Then it helps them get that connection of people, and then it starts to move them into some of the thriving outcomes of hopeful purpose, problem solving, transcendent awareness. It helps them grow. Recognition just needs to be a balanced approach to help youth on their thriving pathway. Then we have to also whenever we're thinking about recognition, we do always have to put that age appropriate piece into it because how we recognize a 8-year-old needs to be different than how we recognize a 16-year-old. They have different needs in that recognition and where that level of recognition should be. So when we think about recognition, there are five types that we need to consider when we're thinking about youth recognition. So first, we need to think about some participation recognition. We don't need to recognize every aspect of participation, but we do need to have it as a first step of improving self esteem and encouraging individuals to continue to set new and higher goals. Participate, some participation recognition is years of involvement or completion of a project or just those pieces. So thinking we need to have a level of participation recognition, but it can't be the end all be all. We also then need to start thinking about progress towards self set goals. This is a really important part of recognition that can often be overlooked. We need to recognize us for their self set goals and give them opportunity to to set realistic goal beginning of the program year and then review their work with them and give them face to face or written feedback and recognize them for the progress they make. Goal setting is an important skill for both young people and adults and teaching our program participants to plan effectively is an important life skill. So really think about how you can help you set some goals like towards the beginning of your four each year, what are their goals? Then how do you reflect back on them throughout the year? As they're making progress towards them, find ways to show recognition and appreciation to them. It could be some simple like, Hey, I've noticed that you've achieved this much so far or I've noticed you're working really hard to get better at your public speaking or you're working really hard at your showmanship skills in this area. It shows that you're noticing what they're doing and what they're working towards and it's helping them see their goal. Some ideas you can use is create some goal sheets and checklist to help individuals keep track of their progress towards them. The next type of recognition is the achieving standards of excellence. This is the most useful when evaluating success related to products produced or skills gained. This is most commonly linked to competitive event. Some of the most familiar is our blue, white and red ribbons at fairs and competition. It shows excellence against a standard that's adjusted according to the age and years of experience. When recognizing individuals for achieving a standard of excellence, it's important that these standards can be visible, achievable, and relevant to experience. So it's utilizing that's the piece that we see when we exhibit projects at a fair or different competition event. Competition. This peer competition is the most visible recognition forage. Competition is highly motivating for some individuals, while others have no interest in it. I think that's important to remember is that in my slide says combination says competition. I will correct that. Competition is something that drives some individuals but does not drive others. So it's a type of recognition. Some individuals have that competitive piece and that's what drives them, others don't. That's why it just seems to be part of our recognition plan. Um and help them see how they can work towards it. As a volunteer leader, it's important to be aware of the values your members have on competition. For those that really value it, you need to help them set the goals that are achievable towards their competition and their goals. And then the final part of recognition that's really important is we should recognize on that cooperation act we ask that youth and adults should be recognized for working together to learn and achieve goals. This allows individuals to examine their own skills and abilities and explore solutions towards their own idea. Community service and other leadership opportunities are a great way to encourage individuals to participate in cooperative learning experience. Other areas you can highlight some of their cooperation pieces if you ever have to write a letter or reference for a youth or if you're helping them with a state award portfolio or if you're helping them on scholarship applications, this is where you can help highlight some of that cooperation pieces that they've done. That is a highlight for you. When we think about ideas for youth recognition, there are some really simple ideas that you could consider. You can order PIs or certificates for the completion of first year members and volunteers. You can have a sometimes your County four age program might do that and you can work with them. You can have celebration marking the end of a program year that include all members and volunteers. You can think about those thank you notes. So many of you said you liked personal thank you notes or verbal thank you note. Those are a great way to show you thank you is take time to thank them. You can do public announcing at meetings or gatherings of names of angels who participated in some special event and you can give them that quick recognition that way, and those that want to share more, they can share more about what happened. I I think it's also important is that we need to think that similar to all of you, not all youth want to be recognized the same way. Everyone doesn't want to be on the stage and get a plaque. It helps to get to know what youth want and meaningful. You can do the plaque. You might still do a plaque and that might be what they achieve for that level award. But then think about how do you make it meaningful by having a note signed by all the leaders of the clubs and the members or sharing that with their parent or guardian. The other thing that's really good recognition is you can have high fives at your club meetings when kids do things well. And then when we continue to think on recognition, these don't need to be expensive ideas. Most of the ideas can be as simple as providing building that level of relationship with you, giving encouragement, writing letters of reference when they need it, or helping them with a scholarship application, or providing something meaningful that might help them with their club with their projects. It might be something that you have on hand that can help them improve their project. Taking the time to nominate youth for an award or sharing different leadership opportunities for them or other options too. As always, when we think about youth recognition and even volunteer recognition, it's really important to have that youth voice involved into it. Four H is about giving youth opportunities and that voice. A couple of ideas here is making sure we listen to the youth on what recognition they want. If you're planning if you want to do a recognition event within your club for completion of the year or a celebration, have youth be on the planning committee and have them plan and have them make the decisions about it. Maybe ask some of the youth to plan in it. Think about how do we take time to recognize the volunteers in our club and let them take ownership and plan that out? You could build it into your club budget from $1 amount that they spend so that they could have a way to recognize the volunteers in their club. It's just really making sure youth have that voice and stay within the recognition. So today, we're pleased to announce a new recognition program for volunteers. It is called Great Lakes Great Leaders, and you see our logo here. We want to be able to recognize and celebrate the incredible work that you and your fellow volunteers are doing across the state. And by launching this Great Lakes Great Leaders Recognition program, we can do just that. To nominate an outstanding individual, volunteer in your community, you would just complete our simple survey that talks about the contributions and achievements of the individual. Basically, why do you think why are you nominating them to be one of our winners for this program? You would share why your nominee deserves recognition. Telling us what impact are they making in their community? What exactly are they doing? How are they contributing to our four H program? What difference are they making in the lives of other volunteers or young people? We are accepting nominations now and we'll keep this nomination link up and open so that on a regular basis, anytime you think of someone that you should be nominating to receive this award, you can just log into our survey and make that nomination. The nomination process is pretty simple and we'll talk a little bit more about that as well. All nominees that are put into the system will receive an acknowledgment from MSU extension that is individualized, personal letter that talks about their contributions to the program that were listed on their nomination form. And selected individuals that meet the criteria will be considered for the prestigious Salute to Excellence Awards. We get to pick two winners every year, someone who's been a volunteer for under ten years as our volunteer of the year and for over ten years, our lifetime Salute to Excellence winner. And each year, we take these two winners and we forward them onto a regional and national competition. So this is how we'll begin collecting those nominations for the next year. But everyone that is nominated that is a registered gold level volunteer in good standing or silver level volunteer will receive acknowledgment from us, as well as one of these final clings. So as we said, it's pretty easy to nominate someone. So let me tell you what's part of that nomination process. What exactly is on that form? You'll be asked for your name and contact information and why you are nominating this individual. That's where we want you to describe the nominees contributions, impact and dedication. Then there's the specific achievements or contributions of the individual. Give us some specific examples of how the nominee has gone above and beyond in their volunteer role. What makes them stand out? Describe their impact. How has their work positively affected the program, the community, the organization, the young people that they interact with, or the other volunteers? And then you have a spot for additional comments where if there's anything else you'd like about the share about the nominee, you have the opportunity to do that in this last optional question. And you have the opportunity to upload any supporting documents or photos that showcase the nominees work. This can be pictures of them interacting with the young people. This can be picture of the person hard at work at whatever that volunteer role may be. But just know that all the information that we gather here and we do ask in the form, if it's okay for us to share with the nominee that you were the one that nominated them. So you can remain anonymous. We won't tell them who nominated them or we'll say, Hey, Emily, you were nominated for Christine for Great Lakes Great Leaders for your work doing XYZ, and we'll pull that white from the Qualtrax survey. So that's something that you can think about. As I said, we'll use this information then to highlight and spotlight these volunteers for the amazing work that they're doing in our communities and they'll all get some recognition. We hope that you'll consider nominating someone sometime, you can start today and continue to do that throughout the year as things pop up.