We should all be champions of county services that help with our growth.”
– Stacy Killion, community engagement manager
Stacy Killion credits the training she received from Purdue Extension’s board development program for her positive experience as a volunteer board member. “I want to be an active member in my community,”the Terre Haute resident says. “There’s no better way than service.”
Killion is the community engagement manager for the Terre Haute Children’s Museum. She serves on the Vigo County School Corporation Board of School Trustees and is the Indiana School Boards Association’s Region 7 director. She is also on the boards of the Vigo County Public Library, Vigo County Education Foundation and the former Family Service Association of the Wabash Valley Inc.
Regional and county Extension educators host the three-hour, in-person program to better prepare volunteers for serving on local nonprofit and civic boards. “This workshop helps them have the skills to have a productive board and builds capacity for volunteers to be great members wherever they serve,” says Steve Yoder, Purdue Extension community development regional educator.
Yoder is part of a team of educators who teach the session as part of Extension’s Community Leadership program. The session is available as a stand-alone workshop for individual nonprofit boards as well. He also is on a larger team of Extension administrators, educators and curriculum experts who developed a version tailored for Purdue’s County Extension Boards, which launched last year.
During the workshop, participants learn how to recruit other volunteers; engage people once they have been recruited; and retain new board members and celebrate the success of their efforts in the community.
Extension’s goal is that volunteers like Killion leave as more confident leaders with a professional network and the know-how to recruit others, helping to make their boards more effective and strengthening their communities as a whole.
“Extension’s program helps you understand your role as a board member, that you’re there to serve,” Killion says.
Extension educators lead volunteers through training modules for recruitment, engagement and renewal -- the three phases of the board development cycle.