Get ready

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals this year is to proactively (not reactively) recruit more Ohio Benefit Bank sites in my 7-county region (including Darke, Butler, Miami, Preble, Greene, Montgomery, and Warren counties). Over the past few weeks I have been researching food pantries, shelters, clinics, churches, and other non-profits not currently listed as Ohio Benefit Bank sites. Through hours and hours of cross-referencing and searching, I compiled contact information for more than 320 organizations into a massive database for future access.

Eventually, the next step will be to contact these organizations and inform them of what the Benefit Bank has to offer. Community presentations will be an instrumental part of this recruitment effort. So when I learned that Meredith would be attending an OBB presentation today, I asked to tag along to get a better idea of what such a presentation looks like.

This morning, we ventured out from Shared Harvest for a few hours to Sinclair Community College in Dayton where Shannon Teague, the Director of the Ohio Benefit Bank gave a basic overview of the OBB to interested area agencies. Greg Landsman, the Director of the Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, was also in attendance, and he discussed grant opportunities through the Governor's office for the organizations in attendance. Overall, it was a good session--most people tend to be impressed with the success of the Ohio Benefit Bank, and this day was no different.

All things considered, it seems relatively fun and easy to put out information about the Benefit Bank. The challenge comes in keeping agencies motivated to move forward in the process of actually becoming a site. This can be a frustrating part of our jobs. Over the past few weeks I have placed numerous follow-up calls with agencies still working on the pre-requisite requirements to becoming an OBB site. We have some agencies that began the process as long ago as November 2008, and still aren't sites! I am still trying to figure out how to [gently] push them forward, but it isn't easy.

Other problems arise when sites are centered primarily in urban areas, creating limited access for people living in rural areas. And those complications are only compounded when sites decide to close to the general public and serve only their clients. Not only will I need to target more rural agencies and organizations in my recruitment efforts, but I will also need to figure out a way to encourage sites to remain open to the public.

Piece of cake, right?