www.outreachmoldova.org

Tips & Guidelines for ORM Advocates

Before the meeting:

Make sure you’ve advertised/displayed the event notice in places where people will read and take notice of them. You and your audience are giving up your time to run/attend this meeting so you want to make it worthwhile and have a good sized group to speak to.

Nerves are perfectly natural when speaking to a group of people. Perhaps consider getting a friend or fellow volunteer involved so if you get flustered while doing your presentation, they can help you out and fill in with some thoughts or words of their own. This may help you feel more comfortable.

Prepare well for your presentation/information meeting. Knowing in advance the order of your presentation and what you intend to say throughout will make it much easier to get through it.

Show up at your meeting location early and have everything ready to go approx 20-30 minutes before you expect people to arrive.

Just at the start of the meeting : Before you start make sure everyone can hear you; make sure you know how to click on to

the next slide; relax, take a deep breath and don’t put your glass of water next to your laptop!

Tell them about you, your background, your involvement to date and welcome them on behalf of ORM.

During the meeting: Don’t overload people with information; speak slowly and clearly using simple statements

and don’t be afraid to repeat yourself to emphasise important points.

Be enthusiastic! The best resource you have is your own enthusiasm for ORM: your belief in the cause, your positivity about your own volunteer experience. Volunteering is all about being passionate for your chosen cause so share your passion about the children and young

adults in ORM’s care. Its easy to give facts and figures but it’s the human aspect of what we do that is most powerful.

Focus on the positives – the ‘After’ rather than the ‘Before’, i.e. how much healthier and happier the girls are now, how much joy the volunteers can give to them (and vice versa!) etc.

Stories heard whilst in Moldova or through the grapevine at home may not have any factual basis, so always bear in mind that you are an advocate not only for the charity but for the children, so protect them by relaying only accurate and factual information to your audience.

Don’t forget to emphasise what a great experience volunteering in general is; how much you learn, how it challenges your perceptions, how it introduces you to likeminded people and new friends and contacts, how personally rewarding it can be, and so on…

At the end of the meeting: Leave some time for questions, but don’t worry if there aren’t any: just make sure you point

people towards the website and remind them of the information/leaflets you provided to them.

Be prepared to give some one on one Q&A time after the meeting. Not everyone will feel comfortable asking a question in a group setting to make it known you are free afterwards if anyone would like to chat.