This web site showcases volunteerism resources and tools that will be helpful to national, state, and county 4-H youth development staff. This includes recently created documents about the Framework for 4-H Volunteerism, the National Learning Priority Team Rubric, Self-Assessment, and Professional Development Plan as well as the registration site for Everyone Ready®.

The overall purpose of the National Framework for 4-H Volunteerism communicates and guides decisions and actions related to volunteerism across the Cooperative Extension System. The Framework serves an important purpose of communicating the value of volunteers, provides key core elements of an effective volunteer delivery system, and serves as a tool to evaluate county, state, regional, or national volunteer programs against.

We encourage you to use the assessment tool to critically evaluate your volunteer delivery system to determine gaps that must be addressed. Then, as you engage with the Everyone Ready® on-line professional development modules, we encourage you to pay particular focus on those areas needing the most immediate attention. In the coming months, additional tools and resources will be identified and shared with the 4-H system that supports the Framework core elements.

The results of the work of the National Learning Priority Team – Volunteerism for the Next Generation are posted on this web site. The Volunteerism Rubric and Syllabus identifies the competencies, skills, and knowledge that 4-H youth development staff need in order to create and maintain effective local volunteer delivery systems for their 4-H programs. The Rubric outlines topic components, learning outcomes, and suggested reading and learning activities. Extension Staff are asked to review the Rubric and then complete the Volunteerism Self-Assessment which will determine their current level of knowledge and skills. The results of the Rubric can be utilized to support the development of professional development plans to complete the essential learning appropriate for a staff members’ specific position and local expectations. The Personal Professional Development Plan is a tool to assist staff in identifying goals and making arrangements to avail themselves of the resources and tools identified in the Rubric – such as the Everyone Ready® modules and Volunteerism for the Next Generation Fact Sheets (VNG).

Everyone Ready® is a volunteer management online training produced by Energize Inc.. National 4-H Council, through a grant from Monsanto has contracted with Energize Inc. to provide this program to all Extension staff for free regardless of title or program area for the next three years. The purpose is to help equip staff to engage volunteers in creative and meaningful ways and to help staff expand their volunteer delivery systems for the 4-H and other Extension programs. This section of the web site is where staff will register to participate in Everyone Ready and then where staff will log in each month to access the variety of resources available. These include Online Seminars (every other month) and Self-Instruction Guides (alternate months). New topics are introduced on the third Monday of each month.  Registration is free and quick!

The VRKC Taxonomy is the result of a multi-year, multi-state research project to identify the competencies that volunteers will need in order to effectively deliver 4-H youth development programs and activities in the next decade. VRKC provides Extension staff with an outline for volunteer education. Eventually there will be VRKC lessons, fact sheets, and power point presentations posted on this site that staff may use in training 4-H volunteers.