How would you start a volunteer park organization?

22 Steps to Creating a Friends of Group

1- The One with the Reason

There will always be a reason to get out there to support improvement in your community. You only need to look. The first thing that I saw was overflowing garbage cans, The second is broken glass. Having monthly cleanups allow us to make a difference in litter removal.

This photograph of glass in the park is from July 2020.

Thank you to NYC Parks for support, we had our first cleanup on August 30th 2020!

2- The One with Connections

Having a Matt Symons as a park Park Administrator has been amazing for our group. He wants to see more amenities and support for this park. In a 2015 QNS article, he explains that his position is as a community liaison to help encourage volunteer participation. He is also a liaison with community boards and elected officials. Matt was an NYC Urban Park Ranger for 14 years -providing him with skillsets and knowledge that NE Queens Parks benefit from. Matt says that “I think it’s always important…to develop a sense of stewardship with the public, so we want people to feel engaged and interested and to feel that the parks belong to them,” Symons said. “It’s not the city owns the parks and they just visit them, but the parks are something that belong to them.” We are fortunate to have his dedication to NYC Parks and our programming is only possible because of Parks like Matt!

3- The One with the Name

Names are important! The organization originally played with the idea of being Crocheron Park Alliance, using that as an email for a few weeks. Luckily my conversation with Matt Symon's and her research on NYC Volunteer groups led us to decide on Friends of Crocheron & John Golden Park. Overtime, this has become shortened to Friends of Crocheron.

4- The One with a Mission

Chris and I created the original mission and refine it during the Fall of 2020. The mission continued to be refined by our growing membership during the Winter of 2020 and then with the NY Law School Legal Clinic into Spring of 2021. Some things remained the same, focusing on conservation of the parkland, preservation of the park's history, and being nonpartisan - we have expanded our mission and work to include more community events. In the Winter of 2021, we also created bylaws and then refined them with NY Law School Clinic. We are very gracious to NY Law School Legal Clinic for their work with us on this process!

Nonprofits are a bit like a perpetual start up. Using our nonprofit business plan as a baseline that we refine overtime. We work with our volunteer and members as different project ideas arise.

• NYC Get Food Community Food Giveaway for a Free Farm Stand in Crocheron. 
• Our free yoga classes where Ambeka volunteers her time for over the Summer and Fall.
• Collaboration with NYC Parks Urban Park Rangers to request events in Our Park.

Our leadership and members are able to talk with Matt Symons and NYC Parks to see if projects are feasible at Our Park. Conversations help direct what works for Friends' volunteers and what Friends needs to advocate for in order to support NYC Parks. These conversations and discussions help us to plan we can do now, what we can do later, and realize what may always be a bit of a dream.

Just some of the amazing folks from our 2020 and 2021 events in Crocheron & John Golden Park.

5- The One with the Logo

With a loose background in graphic design, I created the logo in Microsoft PowerPoint in August of 2020. It took a bit of time and fiddling to figure out the best representation for the park group.

PowerPoint provides limited graphic capabilities, but I still wanted to bring color/life to the logo. So I included the rainbow Friends to make the logo happier and more appealing. The word Friends is also 7 letters, the same as ROY G BIV. It also came from the 90s TV show Friends set in NYC - and their love of Central Perk.

6- The One with Community

Getting in touch with the community happens in a number of ways. We have met some members through existing relationships with NYC Parks, those who know Matt Symons. I used my personal connections, got my friend Chris involved to help plan and host events. For new community members and connections, I made contact with them through messaging possibly supporters on Instagram page, using a search for #crocheronpark and #johngoldenpark. Aside from meeting people in the park or neighborhood, Chris and I set up an outreach table during events. We also use our web presence and continue to interact with people on it.

Through these routes, we are able to connect with various professionals that share our love for Crocheron & John Golden Park. These volunteers have taken the time to not only come out to events, but their support and guidance helped us direct our activities.

7- The One with Something Different

Our park is unique and different than other parks in NYC. Like many parks in Queens, we have a diverse population that enjoys the beautiful park. We also have many people interested in learning about our local history, as the Bayside Historical Society is a major cultural institute of NE Queens. This passion for history fits into my background in history and working at archives too. With the support of NYC Parks, I began to explore the history of Crocheron Park and realized that it is a rich source of community pride. This additional focus on the history of the parkland is something that helps us connect with one another over our shared cultural heritage. Working with NYC archives, community members, and local historians allows us create more support for the park by creating educational programming.

Creating the tour brought me to connect with Charlotte Megill Hix FGB, a genealogist, historian, and descent of the Crocheron family. She wrote a blog entry for us on July 2021. We are grateful for Ms. Hix's time and energy working on the research in the 1970s and revisiting it for Friends' history tour. We are also grateful to staff at local archives and NYC Parks that have helped us create a digital archive and historic tour of Crocheron & John Golden Park.

1870 Bay Side, Queens, Census listing Joseph Crocheron and Mary Crocheron as Hotel Keepers.

8- The One with the Maps

A map lets us show off different things in Our Park.

Since Our Park is large, at 62 acres it is the 12th largest in Queens, I decided to make a  park map that would fit our needs. The one that is featured by NYC Parks, although good for their needs, is not as detailed as we would like for our work. The above maps were created using the NYC Parks map of the area as a template. NYC Parks staff along with volunteers and members helped create and/or fine tune the maps as well. Thank you to Dana for his work on the Tree Map and the corresponding Tree Tour during the 2021 John Golden Day. These maps are very simplistic and do not use specialized technology that can create more dynamic maps.

9- The One Where We Research

There is a lot of information out there to help support the process of growth. Aside from mentors and leaders that are in our area that help us, I also research into Parks. This is important to continue to learn about the area you are serving. There may be things that others overlook or something that a lot of groups do because it works! Many parks are regionally managed. This means that things are different in your park or area compared to one in another borough or district. And learning from parks in different states or countries can help expand your knowledge of what makes local parks thrive. Plus, it never hurts to ask your Park Administrator if something is feasible.

Central Park Institute video on their Volunteer Horticulture groups

Now a days, posting online is a given. Do not forget to post on physical bulletin boards and street posts. Post updates on social media, a website blog (like here!), updating a website, and online calendars helps to spread the word about your group. Sometimes journalists pick up this story too.

Ask supporters to  like and share our posts. With our professional photographers attending many volunteer events, we are able to post visually engaging images. We also ask incoming volunteers how they heard about us so that we can better director our outreach.

11- The One with a Website

Creating a website and securing a domain is something that we did to help us with outreach. I secured the domain and created the website. I have some background in webpage design and website builders, so it was a bit easier for me to get things going. This decision was made for a number of reasons:

• Not everyone is on social media, this allows more volunteers and supporters to learn about us, especially as we increase our SEO (search engine optimization).
• We were looking to have a platform to better interact with the community.
• The website allows us to provide an experience for visitors, to learn more about the park, what we do, and future events that the park will have. Tracking how many people view the website and what pages they do allows us to better interact with the public.
• Having a website helps us improve communications with supporters.  For example, we use our website crocheronpark.org/ as the base for communication. It acts as a 'tiny url' or 'bit.ly' in many ways. We can direct volunteers to our registration page using the /reg -  so it is attractive and easily fits on flyers. We can also use url redirect to send visitors to an external donation page.

Video from Queens StartUp, web designer Erica Heinz.

This has been a great way for us to connect with your community and give them a way to share events at the park. Along with having a web presence and flyers, we use a newsletter and brochures to keep our community involved in actives in Our Park. We also have a separate updates for Friends members to fill them in on updates and get their feedback.

The newsletter promotes our monthly volunteer events and highlight things that are happening in Our Park. NYC Parks and the local rep for City Council 19 representative, Paul Vallone (who was term-limited out at the end of 2021 after 8 years), have been extremely supportive of these events at Crocheron & John Golden Park. Our Park had a number of movie nights and widely attended performances of Shakespeare by Hip to Hip Theatre. These newsletters are great ways to connect with people that are not frequently on social media - and a great way to get people to check out the website. We also use them to communicate local happenings in the community.

14- The One with the Helpers

We like to call our volunteers helpers - but as an organization, we also need helpers! These are folks that help their community by building up and mentoring others. These helpers are from other organizations and government offices - and they come in various sizes and shapes. These are partnerships and collaborations that help us to build our organization's capacity, improve our connection with community member, and better communicate our mission to decision makers. See our partnerships page for more information on these organizational partners.

15- The One with a Tagline

Parks Don't Just Happen

Tell your story with a short slogan. Volunteer Greg, came up with the slogan 'Parks Don't Just Happen' to help us tell the story of Friends stewardship and the history of park stewardship in the community. As a hashtags #parksdontjusthappen is featured in all of our posts about the park. Each one tells the story of how parks happen - through volunteer efforts, requesting for NYC Parks to have work done, and outreach to make parks happen.

• #crocheroncritters is volunteer Jan came up with. Jan is a a birder and has helped us to connect with Queens County Bird Club. The hashtag will be featured in a campaign in the future to help promote the park's diverse wildlife.
  
• #crocheronkids is a concept that volunteer Jeff came up with. He saw how great events are for families and thought that including Crocheron Kids within flyers and newsletter is important.
• #crocheroncanopy is an alliteration, the one that I came up with, that helps to explain a unique feature of Our Park. At 62 acres, there is a diverse tree canopy, we look to explore this more in the future!

16- The One with The News

Local news journalists have been extremely helpful in covering our events and sharing important information. We are grateful that our community does care about Our Parks, so local journalists are often interested in covering the events. Doing something different and something unique is also a great way to get attention of a larger audience.

We are fortunate to have journalists cover our events from the first go. Coming about during a pandemic means that the need for good news and an in-person event were rare. This stories and short video interviews help to explain our mission and what we are doing to the community.

17- The One with the Business Plan

Who? What? Why? When? And How? - Oh and how much?! Always how much.

Knowing where your volunteers are coming from, what tools you have at your disposal, and where your group looks to go ensures that you will have the confidence to succeed. Sometimes it is easy to get the outcome that is desired - other times, there is a longer chess game that goes into it. Educating yourself is always the first step in any of these conversations. Seeing and ceasing on opportunities allows the group to grow and become better known to the community. Not everyone is interested in the same thing and trying different angles will allow the group to find a way in.

Friends of Crocheron has expanded our mission to include wider support for the community during COVID. Using the parkland as a gathering space, volunteers have stepped up to instruct free yoga before monthly events or a popup free farm stand with GetFood NYC's free food giveaway program. As with life, the pivot is critical for long term success. If there is a change in organizational direction, be sure to use it to the advantage and seize on another opportunity or angle to effect change. There are many ways to plant a garden. It takes time to get it just right, and even then, a new friendly neighborhood gardener can come in to bring you to another plateau. 

John Golden Day is one important addition to the business plan. It is our signature event that we will have yearly. It came about through research for our history tour, looking into primary sources from NYPL from their John Golden Papers Collection. This research made it clear that we look to recreate the community spirit of John Golden. Along with celebrating John Golden Day, we created the John Golden Community Spirit Award to hand out annually. Our first year we gave the award to our volunteer Ambeka, who brought free yoga to the park! This is something that was on the business plan before Ambeka thought to reach out and offer to share her professional zen knowledge with our park community.

18- The One with a Survey

New Yorkers For Parks provides groups with great information about how to start park groups. Among them, they suggest to create a park survey. Through our 2021 survey we have been able to collect information about park users' demographics, their concerns, what kind of parks amenities they use or would like to see improved, and what events they are interested in bringing to the park. You can see the survey results in our blog.

Along with a survey, we have membership meetings and speak with the community members at the monthly events. We have quarterly meetings and are open to new members. We look to work with folks to find more ways the community would like to improve Our Park.

19- The One Where We Raise Funds

Working in NYC allows us to have access to a number of nonprofit organizations that are looking to do good work. These groups create different opportunities given the community they are looking to reach and what their own mission is. Friends has worked with a few of them, from foundations that provide grants, crowdsourcing platform, help with capacity building, or provide fiscal sponsorship for our program.

Having a solid mission that to believe in  and support of community helps to create fund opportunities. If you create a sponsorship packet, you also need to have knowledge of what you are able to sell, like how many followers on social media, analytics from the website, and using connections that you have to make more. 

Grants

Applying for grants seems daunting. Sometimes they are. A trick that can be helpful is to save all of your grant applications and pending application answers for future reference.

In-Kind Donations

Requesting in-kind donations from local businesses starts with writing a letter. I created a simple letterhead. Local businesses have provided us with gifts for volunteers, gloves for cleanups, and free raffles to fill out John Golden Day. We would not have been able to put on all events without their help!

Fiscal Sponsorship

20- The One with Cool Shirts

A unique design can set a shirt or flyer apart. We put an ad on Taproot Foundation for a pro-bono graphic designer and received a couple of responses. One, Marta Aleksander was a great fit for our project. Over a month, she designed the below, sending us updates and asking for what we are looking to show off. Of course the paths themselves are a major attraction at the park. We highlight the connection to the Greenway, but you need to walk your bike down some stairs to meet up with it. The sports fields are often in use with soccer, tennis, baseball, and basketball. For our animals, we have red-eared slider turtles, hooded merganser ducks, and red tailed hawks that help keep the squirrel population in check. This design also shows off some of our beautiful trees, many of them are centers of the landscape views, as well as the diversity of our community.

Making your voice heard is an important part of being an advocate for public spaces. City Council Hearings may be a bit intimidating at first, so I started by talking with your local Community Board. Give them a call and ask to sign up to speak at a Park Committee or Full Board Meeting.

I was able to testify a few times in 2021. First 2021 during a park committee meeting I was asked to introduce myself. Along with testifying at the Community Board 11 meetings, I have testified at the City Council Parks Committee Meeting. During this testimony I spoke about the lack of funding for large parks like Crocheron Park, limitations of public private partnerships, and need for more recreation programming for in NE Queens.

I spoke with current City Council Member for CD 19, Paul Vallone's staff about this issue in April 2021. Unfortunately, there have not been enough capital funding to the park in recent years for the 62 acre park.

22- The One with a Long-Term View

While we are ecstatic to see changes right away, we understand that many goals are long term. Our work with NYC Parks is not only to request repairs for things in the park but also to help create support for larger capital projects. Some projects, like Golden Pond Cleanup, have budgets have been drawn up. While others, like repair of the paths, has become such a problem that many parts of the paths are set to be fixed under State of Good Repairs.

Others major project need more community support to bring the necessary attention to the needed repairs:

• The Buz O'Rourke Playground is one area that needs a repair, the playground is over 20 years old and has numerous hazards for children and adults.
• The view out to Little Neck Bay from the Gazebos is another area that we are looking for an ecological restoration. This would help climate invasive Norway maples while planting native species that help prevent erosion.
• A new need is the cleanup of the debris left by a failed retaining wall surrounding the pond. This disaster, caused by heavy rains during Ida in September 2021, has left hundreds of pounds of sand and other debris in the forest floor and pond. Neither Parks nor the private home owner's insurance have fixed the problem.

We look forward to continuing to work with community members to advocate for our beautiful 62 acre parkland. Thank you to NYC Parks for their ongoing support in elevating the parkland and brining more amenities to the community. Thank you to our members, leaders, volunteers, and supporters for their ongoing work to help support our mission to conserve, improve, and bring historical programming to the parkland! We could not do anything without each of you!