Learn more about the Affinity Teams
Many of the group's members agree that one of the biggest values of the group is sharing best practices and challenges among one another. Members of the group are able to offer their own experience and advice to help one of their fellow volunteer coordinators.
Brooke Thomson, the Development and Volunteer Coordinator at The Annex Teen Clinic, said:
"I love this group. It's a great resource and a place where we can bounce ideas off one other like-minded people who understand each others roles."
This affinity team is made up of representatives from our members that have food shelves as a part of the programs. Staff that manage or work in food shelves attend to connect with one another, share best practices, and learn about new resources.
The early childhood affinity team has developed some powerful collaborations among the participating members including a drop-in childcare collaborative contract with Hennepin County.
This is an area many of our member communications staff are always looking for resources to stay ahead of the curve- social media best practice is ever-evolving. This affinity team provides a place for those who may have responsibility for managing social media to gather, share ideas, and hear from experts in the field.
One of our newest affinity teams, formed after a critical mass of members doing work in the senior services area expressed an interest in connecting with one another. This group has begun conversations about identifying service and funding gaps that exist for senior-serving programs.
This affinity team is slated for possible development in 2016-2017. We've had a number of members express interest in this area to see what MACC members can do in the advocacy arena if we pool our resources. We expect some additional updates on this pending our 2016 strategic plan implementation design.
This affinity team has collaborated a great deal to bring in training, programming and capacity building resources to the participating members' youth programming.
This affinity team is slated for possible development in 2016-2017. In 2016, MACC was awarded a social enterprise capacity building grant from the Northwest Area Foundation. There will be opportunities for members to receive technical assistance and peer support around social enterprise development.
This affinity team help members build capacity to apply evaluation strategically at their organizations. Evaluation is a powerful tool both for telling the story of our work (and helping us do our work better) and telling the story of our communities and the people we serve.