CLIPBOARD : Volunteer Center of Greater Orange County

It is not that nonprofit groups in Orange County do not have goals: it is the resources to achieve these goals that they are lacking.

The Nonprofit Management Assistance Center and Resource Library, part of the Volunteer Center of Greater Orange County, provides services to help these groups implement their goals. On a quarterly basis and for nominal fees, the Assistance Center provides nonprofit management training and assistance: Workshops are led by professionals to help recruit and develop executive skills for the board of directors of organizations. Retreats are arranged for the purposes of planning, problem-solving, establishing priorities and general brainstorming. Grant-proposal writing is also taught through workshops to aid in fund-raising.

The Center recruits 25,000 volunteers annually and matches these individuals with more than 1,200 county nonprofit agencies.

A total of 4,000 individuals have attended the Center’s workshops, said director Hallie Strock.

Most clients are middle-sized to grass-roots organizations looking for guidance on management. The Nixon Library sought the center’s training for new docents. Seniors hoping to re-enter the workplace attended the center’s training programs in preparation. Other clients have ranged from Companion Animals Meeting People (operated by an animal trainer) to the Development Department of Cal State Fullerton (“I’ve become a Volunteer Center program groupie,” read a letter from Cal State Fullerton’s public information director).

In addition, the center helps the courts find community service chores for convicts who must perform such work as part of their sentences. Also, in collaboration with UC Irvine, the center offers a five-unit certificate for a course in nonprofit executive management.

The resource library is “the front line, the first-time contact with the center,” Strock said. Seminars in the center help in writing a good proposal; the resource library, the only library for funding from private corporations in Orange County, helps in “pinpointing the right foundation,” said Carolyn Lehmann, associate director of the resource library.

One mark of the center’s success is that one-third of the organizations it has counseled gained funding in the last five years. One client, Advanced Resources for Kids, was awarded a grant for $72,000, twice as large as was hoped.

The library holds a comprehensive collection of books, periodicals and audio-visual materials on volunteer and nonprofit management, fund development and board development. The library acquired a complete collection of current foundation directories and funding information from California Community Funding, a library that moved out of Orange County.

The center has even compiled and published its own resource directory of county foundations. The Volunteer Center of Greater Orange County practices what it preaches: funding for its own office and a pamphlet it publishes come from government contracts, seminar fees, court referrals, the United Way and grants. The instructors and workers in the office are all volunteers.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 1 to 5 p.m. Friday

Address: 1000 E. Santa Ana Blvd. (Santa Ana Train Station), Suite 200, Santa Ana

Telephone: (714) 953-5757