ALDR 7020-LOGIC MODEL

Evaluating Volunteer Involvement at the Georgia Mountain Research and Education Center
Olivia Browning, Kelvina Doss, Haden Ellis and Katlyn LaVelle
University of Georgia

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Situation:
The Georgia Mountain Research and Education Centers Community Council is having a
difficult time recruiting and retaining valuable volunteers to assist in all program areas. Our group is
attempting to help the Community Council find stable and helpful volunteers from a specific target
audience to eventually take on leadership roles. For a variety of reasons, our group has decided our
target audience will be retired, volunteer seeking, community members from an established five county
area (Union, Towns, Fannin, Cherokee and Clay). After a needs assessment, our group has determined
this topic would be very beneficial to the staff at the GMREC, as well as the existing volunteers of the
Community Council. As of now, volunteers are an area the Community Council is having a difficult
time with. This could be detrimental to the education and preservation programs offered at the center
because they are all volunteer-based. Our group hopes to aid the existing volunteers and staff members
by pinpointing why there is not more community involvement in these programs. In the long term, we
hope this will allow an increase in volunteers and eventually a larger pool of volunteers to select
program leadership from.
Evaluand priorities, mission, goals, and objectives
The top priorities of the GMREC and Community Council are to conduct research and education
projects.
The mission of the Community Council is to expand the outreach and service of the GMRE
Center to the region.
The goals of the GMREC and the Community Council are to offer educational programs for
youth and adults, work on preservation issues, and outreach efforts

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The objective used to meet the adult education goal is to provide seminars in order to diffuse the
research and information provide at the center. The objectives used for the youth education are that
the center and council offers various programs by age group. Johnny Appleseed for kindergarteners,
Bird programs for first graders, Water, Water Everywhere for second graders, Regions of Georgia
for third graders, All About Trees for Third and fourth graders and Environmental Day for fourth
and fifth graders. The objectives used to achieve preservation efforts are developing an Appalachian
Ethnobotanic Demonstration Garden on the grounds of the Georgia Mountain Research &
Education Center, Monday morning Garden Tours of the Appalachian Ethnobotanic Garden, the
Woodland Medicine Trail and the Cannery Interpretive Center, and certifying Appalachian Native
Botanical Sanctuaries for landowners in the region. Through adult and youth education and
preservation projects the center and council is able to also meet their goal of public outreach.
Description of Stakeholders:
Clients: The Community Council was formed in 2003 to expand the outreach and service of the
GMRE Center to the region. Volunteers work through three program committees Education,
Outreach and Preservation to fulfill the goals of the GMRE Center. The Community Council of
the Georgia Mountain Research and Education Center provides monthly adult education programs
as well as environmental education programs for children and youth in Fannin, Union and Towns
counties in Georgia, as well as Cherokee and Clay counties in North Carolina. The Georgia
Mountain Research and Education Center is located 3 miles south of Blairsville, Ga. The station
grounds cover 415 acres of orchards, test plots, pasture land, specimen and preservation gardens,
historic sites and forests. The members of the Community Council are primarily seeking new,
reliable, and enthusiastic volunteers to bring new blood, and eventually new leadership in the
Community Council.

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Victims: The victims in this case are the community members and children in the five county
areas (Fannin, Union, Towns, Cherokee, and Clay). The North Georgia Mountain/Western North
Carolina demographic is fairly consist and unique to both the state of Georgia and North
Carolina. The community members is this area are generally a mixture of socioeconomically
depressed families and middle aged individuals with a large, involved retiree representation. The
Community Council is valuable and special because it is one of the only organizations in the area
that has the unique ability to combine both the dominant populations. As of now, the volunteers
that run and form the Community Council are almost exclusively retired professional who have
chosen the five county are as a later in life homestead. In direct opposition of the demographic
that make up the volunteers, the main beneficiaries of the Community Council are the
socioeconomically depressed adults in the area looking to better themselves and the children in
the title one public school systems.
Beneficiaries: the beneficiaries to the Community Council are primarily the donors. Almost all
funding to the Community Council comes from private donations. The donors are recruited
through personal solicitation, word of mouth, and community advertisement.
Inputs:
Resources are invested in the evaluand make up a large part of what we need in to happen
in order for our evaluation plan to work. It is crucial to have the center or the Community
Councils presence would not be possible. The GMREC requires salaries, a facility, curriculum,
supplies and qualified professionals. The Community Council is powered by volunteers. These
volunteers input a great deal of time to invest in the program they work with.
Our team recognizes that the greatest inputs will be money, volunteer time, and staff time if
we want our specific plan to be successful. Money will be spent on recruitment literature such

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as pamphlets and brochures, newspaper articles to publicize what we are doing, and displays
and swag for information booths. Volunteer time will consist of existing volunteers
committing time to recruit new volunteers. We will almost certainly need the staffs time to
recruit for the Council, since the institutions go hand in hand.
Outputs:
Currently the Council and Center are word of mouth to recruit volunteers. Our group would
like to open this up a bit. We want to spread the word through newspapers, county/city
commissioner meetings, info booths at community events and so on. We will be helping the
stakeholders by solving their issue with lack of volunteers and lack of leadership in the long run.
Participation: Target audience
The participants our group is choosing to focus on are retired, volunteer seeking
community members, stay at home parents looking to get more involved and residents of Fannin,
Union and Towns County in GA and Cherokee and Clay counties in NC.
Outcomes: Short-term
Knowledge is what the short-term outcome will be base. We want to first tackle the amount of
knowledge people have about the Center and the Council with the hope that interest will be
sparked. Ultimately, we would like to raise awareness about the center, and educate the public
about the programs offered through a variety of tactics aimed at reaching our target audience
including:
o Information booths at fairs, festivals, and other community events.
o Speaking at Town Hall meetings

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o Advertising in the newspaper, speaking with reporters about articles
Outcomes: Medium-term
In the medium-term, we want to see an attitude change in the participants we are targeting. To
assist in the attitude change, we want more people attending events and activities, leading to
more interest in volunteering. It will be crucial for individuals from our target audience to find
value in the importance of outreach provided by the Community Council both in youth and adult
programs. Once value is established, volunteers will be motivated to take an active role in the
Community Council and GMREC as a whole.
Outcomes: Long-term
In the long-term outcomes, our group plans to change the behavior of people who could be
volunteering for the Council. We want to see more volunteers begin to lead classes/activities.
Eventually, the volunteers will turn into leaders for the Community Council initiatives and the
Community Council finds the strong leadership it is seeking by having a larger amount of
volunteers to choose from.
Assumptions: for the program to work several staples need to be in place. First of all, the
existing volunteers need to be aware of the need for more community involvement through
increased volunteers. Basically, the existing leadership/organization needs to have the right
attitude about volunteer recruitment. The Community Council needs to have the support of
beneficiaries, the community, the University of Georgia, and GMRE Center. The Community
Council needs to have access to funds, facilities, and resources.
External Factors: External factors that could pose challenges to the Community Council
include: lack of strong leadership, shortage of reliable and quality volunteers, limited advertising

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and community knowledge, and limited pool of available volunteers to name a few. For
clarification, the limited pool of volunteers comes from the fact that only people who do not have
full time jobs are able to volunteer for almost all the work done by the Community Council. For
example, all of the youth educational programs happen during school hours, a majority of adult
seminars happen during work hours, and volunteers that give facility tours only conduct tours
during work hours.