Change, Dealing with/Managing
Is Less Volunteer Support Better Volunteer Support?
In the volunteering support space, there are two distinct audience segments: organizers and volunteers, sometimes lumped together as “stakeholders” with needs that may vary based on your program and operations. Providing support to these volunteers or to organizers isn’t just about giving instruction on how our technology works. It's about helping these stakeholders maximize their own potential by setting them up for success! Likewise, digitally-enabled volunteer management is not simply volunteer coordination.
Are Volunteers Our Most Valuable Stakeholders?
The global pandemic – along with raised consciousness on diversity, equity and inclusion – has forced many organizations to refocus, change directions and reflect on a range of issues. For example, some are re-evaluating how they serve their community, from both a procedural and ethical lens. Others are tweaking volunteer engagement to make it more accessible online. And still others are undergoing a wholesale review of the place and value of volunteers within their work.
Rethinking The Language We Use to Describe What We Do
The language we use to talk about Volunteer Engagement is a topic we’ve touched on before in Points of View. We revisit the theme in this issue because earlier this year, author Simon Sinek published a short YouTube video that posed quite a challenge for those of us working in the not-for-profit / nonprofit / voluntary / charitable sector. His challenge was to make a fundamental shift in our vocabulary, and it certainly got us thinking.
Radical Welcome as a Guide for Community Engagement
From the outside, the large agency looks like a model nonprofit when it comes to involving volunteers. It hosts a significant volunteer and paid staff team. There are volunteer applications, legal waivers and comprehensive training. The team is guided by operational plans based on lessons learned from the corporate world and nonprofit consultants. The leadership heeds and hones best practices for volunteer management; it collects and makes decisions using many, many data points. It has come a long way from its humble all-volunteer roots.
We Are Building Back Better, But For Whom?
The light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic tunnel may finally be coming into view. After over a year of lockdowns, restrictions and changes to how we all live, there is the promise of a return to something like the lives we used to lead.