Volunteers and Training

ULI volunteers are an essential component of UrbanPlan. They make a significant impact in the classroom with minimal demands on their schedule. We ask that volunteers have real estate (or related) industry experience to participate.

Becoming an UrbanPlan Volunteer

The first step to becoming an UrbanPlan Volunteer is to fill out and submit an UrbanPlan Volunteer Application and take the New Volunteer Training. Once your application is reviewed we will determine your elegibility to participate and confirm you for an upcoming training – we typically schedule training sessions twice a year (Spring and Summer). The training, which is led by a national UrbanPlan instructor, is a full day (~7 hours) interactive session where participants will learn the basics of the program, run through the exercise, and become trained on playing the role of a Facilitator and “City Council” member at our participating schools. There is also some required pre-training preparation which takes about 3-4 hours to complete.

Once trained, you will be eligible to participate as an UrbanPlan volunteer in the classroom or workshop. Trained volunteers can elect to participate in a Facilitation, which typically lasts 45 minutes to an hour, or a “City Council” day, which typically lasts between 90 minutes and 3 hours depending on the size of the group and how many teams are presenting.

For more information about becoming an UrbanPlan volunteer contact Sofia Guerrero via e-mail  at sofia.guerrero@uli.org  or call 917-773-8834.

Volunteers in the Classroom

The Students:

• High school students (typically 12th grade) in economics or government classes.
• University students whose focus is typically in land use: city and regional planning, business, real estate, architecture, and law.

Volunteer Roles:

Facilitator: Facilitators engage in Socratic interaction twice with the student teams over the course of the 15 class-hour project and prior to the presentations of proposals. This process is transformative to the students’ insights and capacities.

City Council: The “City Council” hears the student proposals, challenges them as would a City Council, and awards the development contract to the winning “developer.”