HandsOn NWNC has a strong and deep partnership with the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits, the statewide network of nonprofits, that dates back to the founding of the former Nonprofit Connections. Initially, the Center was approached about providing services that would help increase the capacity of Forsyth County nonprofits, and this led to the formation of the Forsyth County Capacity Building Consortium. For many years, the work of the consortium, supported by a network of local funders, was organized by a part-time Center staffer. Eventually, local leaders decided to take ownership of the consortium themselves, creating an advisory board consisting of both funders and local nonprofit leaders, and hiring a part-time director of its own. This re-vamped initiative was launched as Nonprofit Connections in 2006, and they entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits to continue to provide a seamless continuum of services to local nonprofits.

This partnership remained in place through Nonprofit Connections’ merger with Volunteer Connections and the subsequent birth of HandsOn NWNC. We are pleased to continue to leverage the resources of the Center to the benefit of local nonprofits. The partnership allows us to offer a variety of factsheets on our website and serves as a valuable referral source. For its part, HandsOn NWNC continues to promote Center services and workshops, and offers scholarships to the Center’s statewide network to local new and emerging nonprofits who would most benefit from this premier learning opportunity.

In the summer of 2010, HandsOn NWNC, together with multiple community partners, began the creation of a Neighboring volunteer collaborative, a volunteer-driven program to strengthen youth and families in the neighborhoods that are anchored by Forest Park Elementary and Willows Peak Learning Center. Neighboring is the quitenessential model for "doing with, rather than doing for" a community, engaging residents and families who live in marginalized and low-income communities as volunteers and leaders in volunteer-directed community activities, program planning and execution, advocacy and leadership development. The collaborative seeks to model innovative volunteer programs to promote more inclusive engagement of volunteers from this community, which is traditioanlly under-engaged in civic life. The collaborative also seeks faith-based and neighborhood organizations as partners while promoting volunteering as a means for community residents to connect to economic recovery opportunities, needed services and support, and caring and nurturing social networks that promote community change.

At Forest Park Elementary and Willow Peaks Learning Center, the collaborative seeks to engage students and their families by connecting them to nearby faith-based groups, businesses and other nonprofit and neighborhood resources in an effort to identify and address their community’s challenges effectively through the development of resident and volunteer leadership. Our focus will be to increase youth development and civic engagement within both the schoos and the surrounding neighborhoods, while also increasing volunteer leadership within local faith and business partners. Residents will identify challenges they want to change in their community and we will assist them to reach their goals through leadership development and community service projects. Students and their families will be leaders in every aspect of project planning and execution.

Current members of the Neighboring collaborative include Forest Park Elementary School, Willows Peak Apartment Community, Housing Authority of Winston-Salem, Communities in Schools, Community Appearance Commission, the Safe Routes to School Program, and Hispanic League. If you are a citizen or organization that is currently active in either community and is interested in joining the collaborative, please email Michelle Bennett.  We also welcome interest from volunteers outside of the neighborhood, including bilingual individuals, skills-based volunteers who have experience in leadership development, grant writing, project planning, or evaluation, as well as those willing to serve and mentors and tutors.

The ECHO (Everybody Can Help Out) Council came into existence at the end of 2003 when 40 community leaders gathered to promote the building of social capital in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County . Its mission is to build a better community by providing opportunities to create enriching, trusting and long-lasting relationships between people. Initiated by the Winston-Salem Foundation, the ECHO Council acts like a “think tank” for generating community innovations such as leadership summits, conversation groups and organizations such as Volunteer Connections, one of the predecessor organizations of our local HandsOn. The ECHO Council was spun off as its own independent nonprofit in 2009 and became the ECHO Network. ECHO and HandsOn NWNC are co-located in the Red Cross building. More details on the ECHO Network and their ongoing initiatives can be found on their new website.

Locally, HandsOn currently partners with ECHO in support of the Winston-Salem Time Bank Network. Time Banking is the reciprocal giving of one hour of time to do something for someone else, and getting in exchange one Time Dollar for something you need done. Local Time Banks, which are active in over 300 communities across the globe, build grassroots community and social capital by recognizing and valuing the talents and gifts that we can all bring to our neighbors, outside of traditional, organization-based “volunteering.” Other members of the network include faith organizations, neighborhood associations and grassroots nonprofits. Building of the network is ongoing, and has been receiving support from TimeBanks USA . HandsOn will continue to play a vital role in the development and eventually roll out of a community-wide Time Bank in Winston-Salem.  For more information about Time Banking, check out www.timebanks.org.