HandsOn San Diego becomes a certified Service Enterprise!

December 27, 2018

HandsOn San Diego is pleased to announce that it has been certified by Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, as a Service Enterprise! Achieving Service Enterprise certification is a very prestigious accomplishment for an organization. In fact, organizations that certify join the top 11 percent of nonprofits nationwide in volunteer management and organizational performance. Certification signifies that organizations have the capability and management expertise to strategically use volunteers to improve the performance of their organization.

HandsOn San Diego completed an extensive assessment, over 20 hours of training and coaching, and an extensive internal planning and change process to better integrate volunteers into our human capital strategy. By achieving this level of excellence and certification, HandsOn San Diego is now better equipped to leverage the time and talent of volunteers and better meet our mission.

“SEI gave us the language to redefine our vision of building a sustainable organization for volunteers by volunteers" said HandsOn San Diego Founder and Volunteer-in-Chief, Jaci Feinstein. "By going through the SEI process, we were able to reflect, refine and build upon our internal practices. Volunteers are the backbone of our organization and we want to ensure we are following best practices that we can pass on to our partners.”

During the Service Enterprise process, HandsOn San Diego established 3 volunteer-led action teams which will focus on growing HandsOn in the areas of programs, fundraising, and marketing. More information on the action teams can be found here.

Research conducted by the TCC Group, a national program and evaluation firm, found that organizations operating as Service Enterprises outperform peer organizations on all aspects of organizational effectiveness, and are more adaptable, sustainable and capable of scaling their work.

The Service Enterprise Initiative is a national change management program that helps organizations gain a greater return on volunteer investment to better achieve their mission. For more information regarding volunteer opportunities with our organization, please visit our calendar or our behind-the-scenes opportunities. For further information regarding the Service Enterprise Initiative, please contact California Volunteers.