Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery
 

40 years strong

Danielle Brady | MAVA Spotlight

Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration (MAVA) recently featured Danielle Brady, Crisis Nursery Volunteer Services Manager, in their monthly membership spotlight!

From MAVA:Danielle Brady

You might recognize Danielle Brady from the Strengthening Service Breakfast on Thursday, October 11, 2018, where she served as the “Host with the Most.”

When Danielle isn’t volunteering for MAVA, she is the Volunteer Services Manager at the Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery, a role she’s be in since 2008.

The Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery Volunteer Program has over 2,000 volunteers come through their doors every year. Last year volunteers gave over 25,000 hours of their time – that is the full time equivalent of 12 employees. Their volunteer opportunities include working directly with the children, cooking or making snacks for the kids (saving the nursery over $85,000 in food/staff costs), doing enrichment activities, administrative work, yard work, building maintenance, medical care, trainings, speaking engagements, and volunteer fairs. In their child care program, they have a volunteer retention rate of nearly 80%.

When Danielle first started at the Crisis Nursery, she worked as a supervisor of staff in direct care for the children, so she worked alongside volunteers. She started to get burned out, yet still had passion for the work, so leading volunteers was the next best thing. She was able to continue working toward the nursery’s mission, but wouldn’t have to have such a direct role. AND since she had worked directly with the children, she had the knowledge of what to look for when recruiting volunteers. “It gives me an unique perspective that I have found really useful in my role today.”

Danielle joined MAVA in 2009 and was a member for over a year before utilizing her membership. “I remember first thing I finally tried was the Impact Leadership Series and it changed everything for me. It solidified that there was a process and a formal way to do this work. Then I started going to everything and meeting colleagues in the field. It was so helpful because it can be a little lonely when you are a one-person department. I always suggest MAVA to people in the volunteer engagement field. It’s such an easy mission to stand behind and truly has the ripple effect throughout the community!”

For new and sustaining MAVA members, Danielle recommends getting involved by attending MAVA connections, trainings, and events. “If nothing else you will meet like-minded people trying to change the world through one volunteer at a time!”

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