Nonprofit New Year's Resolutions

This post by chelseamurphy over on Points of Light's blog about their New Year's resolution to help more people in communities get involved in solving their biggest problems by volunteering is inspiring. Here's to hoping one day soon we can help even a fraction of as many people serve their communities in developing nations around the globe and make the kind of difference Points of Light and their HandsOn Network do.

"Every day, people of all ages, races, ethnicities and faiths step up to tackle problems in their communities and around the world. In 2010 more than 2.7 million of them did so with and through Points of Light.

Over the next three years, we plan to grow that number significantly and help broaden and deepen the ways in which our constituents create real and lasting change – and in the process define a new kind of volunteerism for the 21st century. A form of volunteering and civic engagement that calls on people to utilize the full range of their assets – their time and talents, their financial resources and their voice as citizens – to improve the world."

I really like the use of the word engagement for what we are talking about here. Each person can make a greater difference when they are engaged in the community because they can see the problems affecting people and are motivated to help find a solution. Engagement is a holistic approach to doing good for your community because it involves seeing yourself as an integral part of that community and its well-being, and it encourages a desire to do your part to maintain that well-being and to inspire fellow community members to do the same. Here's to making 2012 the year of community engagement.

Read the rest of the post on Points of Light's blog.

And for some bonus New Year's resolutions from impact nonprofit professionals check out this post over at The Chronicle of Philanthropy.