Special Events

Episodic volunteering – as one-time or short-term volunteering is often called – is becoming the norm as times change and individuals move away from traditional volunteer roles that require consistent, long-term commitments. Technology has made it easy to find and sign up for events on the spur of the moment. It also makes it easier for organizations to organize such events and perform volunteer management functions such as recruiting, scheduling, and follow-up. Some of these events involve thousands of volunteers, and include marathons, sporting competitions, and festivals. 

One such mega event was the World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia in 2015. In this Research to Practice column, reviewer Laurie Mook looks at the results of a study of the experiences of over 2,400 volunteers at this mega event in the City of Brotherly Love. Mook’s examination provides useful insights for episodic volunteer management.

The United Nations General Assembly has mandated December 5^th each year as “International Volunteer Day.” This day is viewed as a unique chance for volunteers and organizations to celebrate their efforts, to share their values, and to promote their work among their communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government, and the private sector. 

Armed with social media hashtags and themes, organizations around the world utilized this day in 2017 to highlight the work of their volunteers. In this Voices, writer Allyson Drinnon shares stories from individuals and their different organizations on how they used this day to recognize volunteers. What worked? What did not? Can you effectively recognize volunteers in a single day? Through Drinnon’s report, it may be possible to start planning for the 2018 International Volunteer Day event right now!

Free, live-streaming video platforms like Facebook Live, Twitter’s Periscope, and YouTube Live allow users of smartphones or tablets to live stream something they are viewing in person so that people off-site can view and share in it, too, in real-time – events, speeches, announcements, celebrations, and more.

The keyword here is live. Viewers watch the video at the same time it’s being filmed. While videos are recorded on Facebook and available after the live event (just like on YouTube), the draw for Facebook viewers is that they can view the event as it is happening, in real time. As with other Facebook posts, they can even join in by commenting.

Could Facebook Live and other live-streaming video platforms be used to celebrate volunteers? Welcome new volunteers? Educate and train volunteers? Recruit new volunteers? “Sure!” argues Jayne Cravens, an internationally-recognized volunteer management researcher, consultant, and trainer. In this e-Volunteerism feature, Cravens outlines some captivating ideas for how to embrace live-streaming video platforms to benefit volunteer engagement, noting that you can even “plan out” your video ahead of time. “It doesn’t have to be entirely spontaneous,” writes Cravens. “It just needs to feel that way.” 

In this special Voices, Allyson Drinnon, the director of the Volunteer Resource Center for Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Georgia, reports from the field at the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) World Volunteer Conference that took place in Mexico City, November 2016.

Through her reports and on-the-spot audio interviews, Drinnon presents an array of diverse voices and opinions from the international volunteer community, capturing thoughts on issues, challenges, and ideas. Read and listen as Drinnon talks with Joselito C. De Vera, Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency; Alex Torres, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; Viviana Zazil, Centros de Integracion Juvenil; Anita Ramachandran, Micromentor; and Alejandro Mayoral Banos, PhD student from York University. 

The larger a conference, the harder it is to actually meet new people. And if participants are really diverse, the obstacles to personal interaction seem to multiply.  To address these issues, the Asian Pacific Volunteer Leadership Conference (APVLC), which took place in Honolulu, Hawaii, in September 2008, designed a special series of small group sessions called “Reflection Pools.”  Over 300 conferees from a dozen countries were divided into groups of 10, and convened four different times during the three-day event.  The Reflection Pools participants were given clear instructions in order to jump-start their conversation.

In this Training Design article, Susan J. Ellis describes how she designed the Reflection Pools, how the APLVC experience represented real success, and how anyone can use this idea to add value to any conference.

Homeless Connect is an initiative of the Brisbane City Council (Australia) to put over 300 homeless persons in contact with various service providers from housing, medical and legal organizations. This comprehensive one-day effort, staged in City Hall, also links service providers within the homeless sector. Volunteering Queensland has twice recruited and trained over 200 volunteers to provide one-to-one support to the homeless participants, clearly an enormous undertaking that ensured the success of Homeless Connect in 2006 and 2007.  This article explains how Volunteering Queensland accomplished this task.

With the world’s largest sporting event, the FIFA World Cup, recently winding up in Germany, we at e-Volunteerism decided it was time to turn our attention to the nuances involved in volunteering and volunteer management practices within the context of hosting major events.

Major events utilize the support of thousands of volunteers which, by sheer weight of numbers, creates management complexities not experienced by volunteer managers working in more conventional kinds of volunteering.   Some of these issues, which we discuss in this Roundtable, include:

• Infrastructure and planning required for handling such a vast workforce
• Transference of volunteers, skills and knowledge across nations
• Pressures of working to complex and finite time lines
• Importance of reward and recognition of major event volunteers
• Utilization of volunteers themselves in the management and training of other volunteer team members

This Keyboard Roundtable offers a variety of opinions from volunteerism leaders around the world, involved in coordinating volunteer effort across a wide range of major events. We invite you to learn about this unique style of volunteer involvement from their experiences.

Nametags are your best friends – especially in volunteer situations where new people constantly come and go. They provide outlets for communication not unlike front porches, in that they make people less uncertain and more approachable. What’s more, with the disclosure of personal information, nametags close the chasm between synergy and isolation, thereby transforming strangers into friends.

This Training Design explores four basic principles of nametags:

• Preparation and Creation
• Designing and Wearing Nametags Effectively
• Implementing Nametags during Meetings and Activities
• Leveraging Nametags in Specific Fields

And it does so with humor, illustrations, and even a cartoon! Scott Ginsberg is "the world's foremost field expert on nametags" and the author of HELLO my name is Scott.

David Brettell was the Manager of Venue Staffing and Volunteers for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games ('SOCOG"). This article includes excerpts from keynote speeches David Brettell gave at three volunteerism conferences in July and August 2001, in Singapore and in Adelaide and Fremantle in Australia.

Excerpts from Speech:

You have, I'm sure, heard the expression "from dreams come realities." Sydney has just been through the dream and the experience of its life, as have all the citizens of my country. A slightly cynical Australia went "soft" in September 2000 and embraced the Olympics and Paralympics with exactly what they needed: PASSION. We were genuinely "touched" by the Games and what they represent. Our CEO says it much better than I. He says that Sydney and Australia "brushed the sky" for that short period in September last year.

Volunteers from all round Australia and some from overseas as well were amazingly supportive of the Games. The Sydney Games saw the largest gathering of volunteers at one time, in one place, in Australia's post-war history: 62,000 volunteers (47,000 for the Olympics and 15,000 for the Paralympics) gave their time, skills, enthusiasm, warmth, and never forgetting their passion, to make the Games a great success. They received lots of acknowledgment and recognition but nothing matched what was given to them at the Closing Ceremony of the Games. On the 1st of October, 2000, Mr. Samaranch (CEO) awarded them the ultimate recognition, calling them "the most dedicated and wonderful Games volunteers ever."