Volunteer Centers and Infrastructure

When it comes to workshops for managers of volunteers, the regular training topics that we too often wheel out represent a continuous cycle: a repetition of recruitment, policies, procedures, regulatory environment, support and recognition for volunteers, and maybe something on impact measurement. 

What’s typically missing is attention to the philosophy of volunteering and to our understanding of organizations, how they work, and how to help them more fully engage with their stakeholders. In short, volunteer managers need to know and understand volunteering infrastructure.

In this feature article, long-time volunteerism advocate Sue Hine elaborates on this claim by illustrating why these missing infrastructure pieces are so important. Readers will soon realize how a greater understanding of these missing pieces can contribute to the scope of volunteer program management, and to the status and respect for volunteering.

Over the last 10 years, a number of formerly thriving national Volunteer Centres in English-speaking countries have faltered, forced to find avenues of new funding or to merge with other organisations. But what about the fates of local and regional Volunteer Centres? How have they fared?

Using the development of volunteering infrastructure in Australia as a starting point, writer Annette Maher considers the pressures on Volunteer Centres everywhere – national, regional, and local. She considers their struggles to meet the needs of volunteers and their organizations, and to advocate for the field of volunteering in a world that is rapidly changing. In this feature story, Maher also examines such universal issues as the formalization of volunteering, professionalization of volunteer management, the benefits and dangers of government funding, and the need to collaborate. 

Cees M. van den Bos, a pioneer in the volunteering field in the Netherlands, recently discovered that there was very little academic research on the subject of volunteering infrastructure. So he set out to investigate the establishment, development, and functioning of local volunteering infrastructure since the 1970s in these eight countries: Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States.

In this special e-Volunteerism issue devoted to Volunteer Centers, van den Bos presents his research and findings on volunteering infrastructure, and shares his conclusion that Volunteer Centers should be defined as “agencies that have the mission to support volunteers, volunteer-involving organizations, and volunteering in general.” He specifically notes that Volunteer Centers are characterized by six functions: brokerage, the marketing of volunteering, the development of good practices, the development of volunteering opportunities, and the strategic development of volunteering.

Through his important research, van den Bos provides insights and findings that he argues are “relevant for makers of volunteering policies, for people working within the volunteering infrastructure, and for countries that aspire to establish a volunteering infrastructure.” And, he concludes, the “legitimacy of volunteering infrastructure cannot be considered outside the context of the increasing political recognition of civil society and civic engagement. Political interests in the concepts of civil society and civic engagement in the eight cases investigated has caused volunteering to be rediscovered and re-evaluated.”

Not long ago, three Volunteer Centres in neighboring communities near the Waterloo-Wellington area of Ontario, Canada were all trying to provide top-quality training and professional development for their member organizations. After noticing that many topics of interest were the same in all three communities, representatives from each centre concluded that the combined resources of three centres were better than one. Which begged the question: Could they work together as a team to deliver the best possible training and education programs?

The answer was a big, resounding “Yes.”  A few months later, the seed that would eventually grow into the Waterloo-Wellington Learning Alliance (WWLA) was planted.

In this Training Designs, authors Sarah Daly and Joanna Michalski describe how the three Volunteer Centres worked together in 2010 to create a partnership benefiting all three of their communities. Though the authors admit that creating WWLA has been a “rollercoaster of learning curves,” they use this Training Designs to share examples of how community-focused collaboration strategies can translate into training and professional development opportunities that other volunteer organizations can benefit from and implement, too.  

What does a successful and relevant Volunteer Center look like? In a time when many question the viable future of Volunteer Centers, what common traits and best practices do thriving Volunteer Centers share?

In this edition of Along the Web, authors Arnie Wickens and Erick C. Lear attempt to answer these questions by presenting 30 examples of Volunteer Centers and related resources that operate quite well throughout the world. In selecting these sites, Wickens and Lear attempt to stay true to the tenets outlined in the October 2013 Points of View column, where Susan J. Ellis and Rob Jackson described what volunteer centers must do to remain relevant: 

1. Focus more attention on the big picture and support their communities in responding to the 21st century volunteer;
2. Offer an umbrella and neutral meeting ground for connecting many different constituents;
3. Look for innovative practices and make sure everyone learns about them; and
4. Educate funders and legislators about the need for local infrastructure to support volunteering efforts.

 “While by no means an exhaustive list,” the authors write, “the Web sites (listed here) are highlighted because they demonstrate successful approaches to presenting their vision and mission. Serving as leaders in vollunteer recruitment, management, outreach, and community problem solving, many Volunteer Centers have been change agents throughout the world. Failure to maintain their services would be a loss to their individual communities and the field of volunteerism as a whole.”

This quarter’s Research to Practice contributes to the theme of Volunteer Centers. Reviewer Laurie Mook looks at a study of the direct and secondary impacts of the HandsOn Network and its affiliated member organizations: Measuring the Impact of HandsOn Network: An Evaluation of Direct and Secondary Impact from the Stakeholder Perspective.

Based in Atlanta, GA, HandsOn calls itself “the largest network of local volunteer centers around the world,” with 250 affiliates. Whereas previous studies relied on self-reports from affiliates to provide evidence of their impact, the researchers in this study used surveys and interviews to collect data directly from affiliates, community partners, and volunteers. Based on the perspectives of these groups, the researchers developed a conceptual framework that other Volunteer Centers and other intermediaries can use to measure the impact of their work.  

 

This much is clear: Volunteer Centres are vital to build and sustain local and regional volunteer ecosystems. Often seen as the “one-stop” help for individuals looking to get involved in the community, Volunteer Centres are not only remarkable at surviving funding and policy changes but they have also inspired the development of volunteering innovations like service-learning, community service, family volunteering, and corporate volunteering. 

But this much is clear, too: Volunteer Centres throughout the world can no longer operate as they have always done. Volunteer Centres have to be responsive to the changing times they helped bring about or they will lose their ability to create a volunteering legacy for the future. Inspired leadership and creative vision are absolutely critical elements for Volunteer Centers to move forward, with experts predicting that a high-tech, high-energy, Apple Store-style social action centre may help redefine the Volunteer Centre of the future. 

From Canada to the Netherlands to Australia, from the United States to the United Kingdom, six experts on Volunteer Centres join together in this critical and provocative Keyboard Roundtable to discuss the issues facing Volunteer Centres around the globe. These issues, the experts discovered, are quite often the same regardless of geography. 

Every article in this issue of e-Volunteerism looks at the subject of Volunteer Centers and, as always, readers can post responses to each article. But the editorial team wanted to include an area where readers could expand the conversation beyond the particular subjects presented by individual authors. Because Volunteer Centers are important to the volunteer community, we encourage you to comment on the entire Volunteer Centers theme, raise issues not already covered in the articles, and share your vision of the future of this volunteering infrastructure. Debate welcomed!

So this is a call for your voice. Through this Voices, you can submit your thoughts as text, audio, or video. Join in!