Nazli Parvizi, Matching Volunteers With Nonprofit Organizations in Need of Aid

This month the Mayor’s Volunteer Center, in partnership with United Way of New York City, unveiled a Web site that matches volunteers with nonprofit organizations looking for help. The executive director of the center, Nazli Parvizi, 28, spoke with The New York Sun’s Daniela Gerson last week about the site and other activities of the agency.Q. Do other cities have a volunteer center like New York’s?A. It’s very rare to have a city-funded volunteer center; most are independent nonprofits. Our records show that we were the first city to have one. We even receive visits and calls from delegations from places as far as Japan, Germany, South Africa, and Denmark seeking information on how our office operates and on setting up similar offices in their countries.The mayor has stressed using technology to improve services. Has this influenced your work at the volunteer center?I think the best part of working under the current administration is that you’re actively encouraged to think big and there’s a support network and strong intra-agency communication that allows these big ideas to come to fruition.We started a volunteer mailing list that New Yorkers can sign up for at the city’s Web site, www.nyc.gov, nearly two years ago. Now, 13,000 potential volunteers receive information on volunteer events once a month. This has been a great way to promote large-scale volunteer events happening around the city.We’ve also streamlined our referral process. Before, if you wanted to volunteer, you had to make an appointment, physically come down to our office, fill out a four-page form, and then sit down with an adviser who used an in-house database of opportunities. You were given phone numbers for three or four nonprofits, and hopefully followed through by making an appointment to volunteer with one of them. It was a really lengthy process. I thought what we needed to do was to get these opportunities online so that people could have access to all of this information at their fingertips. The new Web site, VolunteerNYC, was the result.Various nonprofits and national groups have volunteering Web sites. What makes the VolunteerNYC site special?We partnered with United Way to create the first and only volunteer Web site that has been tailored specifically for New York City. First of all, it’s completely free for both users and nonprofits. It’s essentially a matching service – you tell us what you’re interested in helping out with, and we’ll do our best to match you with a nonprofit that can best harness your skills and energy.And it thinks like a New Yorker. For example, since many New Yorkers don’t have cars, it can narrow your search within your ZIP code or a mile of your house and keep your choices within your borough if that matters to you. It also allows volunteers to search by an extensive array of criteria such as area of interest, time availability, and one-time versus ongoing opportunities.The other great thing about the tool is the exposure it provides for nonprofits. It levels the playing field for big and small nonprofits, because any of them can post and they get the same amount of publicity for their events.How has traffic increased to your Web site?When I started working at the Mayor’s Volunteer Center about two-and-a-half years ago our Web site was getting about 100 hits a month. We redesigned the site and launched a campaign to raise awareness about volunteerism and how easy it is to get involved, if you knew to make use of the resources our agency offered. Now, between the publicity generated through our mailing list, 311, our ad campaign, and the Web site, we receive over 10,000 different visitors a month to our Web site.How many volunteer opportunities can someone access on the Web site?Currently we have 412 nonprofits represented, and our goal is to get that number to at least 2,000. We have 522 opportunities representing slots for thousands of volunteers.What are some of the out-of-the-ordinary requests the department has received?One man called and said, “I work as a clown and want to give back,” and so we sent him to a hospital. Another time, we got a call from Columbia Pictures. They had spent a lot of time in the city filming “Spider-Man” and wanted to come up with a creative way to give back to the city. So we all came up with a great contest called Little Apple Heroes, where we asked kids how they would be a hero through volunteerism. We got entries from kids all over the city with their proposed projects, and the prize for the winners was that our office actually put together their pro-jects. It also started a great relationship from then on with Columbia Pictures – we even helped arrange a visit from Spider-Man to the pediatric cancer ward at Columbia-Presbyterian.As someone who is just 28 years old, how did you land the job as the executive director of the department?I think when the city was seeking a new executive director they were looking for someone who could bring a fresh outlook to volunteerism with an eye toward technology.I had worked at various nonprofits and was running a catering business as well. I saw myself as someone who owned a business and wanted to find a way I could give back using the same skills I profited from – so I volunteered in the kitchens of God’s Love We Deliver helping prepare meals. I knew the challenge of running a business, working at a nonprofit, and finding time to volunteer, all of which I think prepared me for this job.What types of volunteers do New York City nonprofits need more of?I’ve noticed long waiting lists at many mentoring organizations for young children who want to get matched up with someone to serve as a role model, friend, coach, or tutor.What do you tell people when they say they’re too busy to volunteer?I’m trying to let people know that you don’t need to volunteer 20 hours a week at five different organizations to be a volunteer. Volunteerism means caring about your city, your neighbors, and your own quality of life. It’s about civic involvement on the smallest and largest scales. It’s about one-time activities like painting a school, calling 311 when there’s a pothole on your street, or giving blood when city blood banks are running low. It’s also about ongoing opportunities like reading to a child at school once a week during your lunch hour, or visiting a homebound senior. It can be whatever it needs to be to fit into your life.

Nazli Parvizi, Matching Volunteers With Nonprofit Organizations in Need of Aid

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