New Report Published on Best Practices in Communications, Outreach, and Volunteer Management

Community development professionals have their work cut out for them. Great effort is put into revitalizing communities. Compounding matters, those involved working for community development organization are often working with a small to nonexistent budget and may be volunteers rather than paid staff. These challenges can make it difficult to find the time to step back and assess and compare an organization's strategies to peers. Even when strengths and weaknesses are evaluated, organizations cannot always identify next steps to bring the organization to a new level of success.Recognizing these challenges face by our members, PCRG has published a new report intended to assist organizations in evaluating their organizations and learning new strategies for success. Written as part of a suite of research being produced by PCRG’s Reimagining Communities Initiative, this first report details best practices in communications, outreach, and volunteer management for community-based organizations.The report is broken up into sections based on the type of best practices – social media, e-newsletter, print materials, outreach, and volunteer management. In each section, an organization can find several best practices related to the topic and recommendations for how to implement them based on the size and capacity of your organization. This way, community development professionals can determine appropriate and realistic goals for their organizations.Professionals at organizations at every level of capacity and staff from across Pittsburgh and beyond were interviewed about their work to showcase their acheivements. With seventeen best practices, three case studies, and a decision-making tool, this publication is an essential and practical read for those in community development who are interested in learning new strategies they can put in place at their organization.PCRG's Reimagining Communities Initiative will be releasing additional reports intended to support the work of community development professionals both in Pittsburgh and the region.