Build into your monitoring project plenty of opportunities for volunteers to develop as leaders. Pamper your volunteers. Volunteers give up their free time to come to meetings, attend training sessions, and trudge out to monitoring sites. Provide social opportunities and reward volunteers for a job well done. Use your data.
Report findings to volunteers and to the community.
Help volunteers present monitoring results at fairs and town meetings. Send your findings to your contacts in state and local government. Create a newsletter or data report and let the world see what you've accomplished. Volunteer coordinators in the 10 EPA Regional offices provide some technical assistance for local programs and help coordinate regionwide conferences. The Regions are also responsible for grants to the states that can be used, in part, to support volunteer monitoring programs that help assess nonpoint sources of pollution or that serve to educate the public about nonpoint source issues.