HABITAT FOR HUMANITY DESERT FOOTHILLS – ReStore Project
OPPORTUNITY CLOSED - The Organization is no longer accepting applications for this project
Habitat for Humanity Desert Foothills (Habitat) intends to build its capacity, improve connections and collaboration, and reduce a gap in social services delivery. In April 2010, Habitat opened the doors to a ReStore in the Anthem, Arizona area. This 16,000 square foot facility has gently used and new household items for sale to the general public. Proceeds from the ReStore go directly toward covering all administrative costs of the Affiliate, thereby allowing 100% of all other donations from individuals, corporations and foundations to go toward the Affiliate’s affordable housing construction program.
The VISTA Member will work toward the ongoing sustainability of the ReStore by developing a volunteer recruitment, orientation and retention program. The VISTA member will also work to establish long-term, collaborative relationships with other Valley nonprofit organizations. These relationships are to be reciprocal in nature by exchanging donated items from one another to best meet the needs of the vision of the second-hand stores that each party manages. To find out more about Habitat for Humanity Desert Foothills, please visit their website at: www.habitatdf.org.
Member Duties: The VISTA member will develop a volunteer recruitment, orientation, and retention process. In order to accomplish this, the VISTA must research effective orientation processes and use a computer to generate documents needed to educate interested volunteers about Habitat ReStore volunteer opportunities. The VISTA must also recruit volunteers by visiting places of worship, schools, clubs, and local businesses, as well as represent Habitat at selected events as assigned. As a piece of the retention process, a meaningful ongoing recognition plan for volunteers must also be established.
The VISTA will also be working on collaborating with other nonprofit organizations such as, UMOM, St. Vincent de Paul, Sojourner Center and Kiwanis of Cave Creek/Carefree. The goal of this collaboration is to create a reciprocal relationship where nonprofit organizations can collect all items a donor is looking to contribute. It is often common practice that a nonprofit organization only accepts products/items that they can sell in their store. This creates an added burden to the donor by requiring that they go to numerous locations to donate all items. Often, this may lead to product ending up in a landfill and become harmful to the environment. By creating these relationships, donors can contribute all items at any time to numerous nonprofit second-hand stores. If there is product, such as cabinets that one of our partners cannot retail in their second-hand store our goal is to have them still collect the items and partner with us to retrieve the items and then Habitat can retail them in the ReStore. In return, Habitat will pick-up/accept items that we do not retail (clothing, shoes, etc) and then provide this product to the nonprofit partner to retail in their store.
Service Areas: Community and Economic Development, Community Outreach, Education, Environment, Homelessness, Housing, Neighborhood Revitalization
Skills: Passion for the Habitat mission, critical/analytical thinker, experience with Microsoft Office software, strong people skills, public speaking ability, ability to work well in a team, excellent written communication skills, flexibility, ability to complete tasks in a timely manner, self-direction.