International Volunteer Managers Day 2021
Today on International Volunteer Managers Day I am pleased to share the news that last night I was announced Emerging Leader in the Third Sector Awards. This award acknowledges the vital importance of the work that volunteer engagement practitioners do as part of the not for profit space.
The act of volunteering brings about meaningful connections and wellbeing outcomes for both the volunteer and the community they engage. With the theme of excellence for IVMD we should recognise and support volunteer engagement practitioners who enable these meaningful connections and wellbeing outcomes.
Using the example of meals on wheels, traditionally, the meals are seen as the primary public good that solves hunger, and volunteering is a way of getting them out. Volunteering now needs to be regarded like the meals, as a primary public good itself that solves ‘hunger’ for connection, ‘hunger’ for identify and purposes, and ‘hunger’ for opportunities that lead to employment.
What does this mean for how we engage with volunteers? We need to move away from the traditional models of volunteer management which sees volunteers as cheap labour. We want to switch this around to acknowledge that the craft of organising volunteers is nuanced and beyond an administrative role. It is a community building role that requires a relational approach that builds connections between volunteers and the community.
Volunteering must now be recognised as a form of public good and deserves much more investment from both government and community (as the pandemic has pointedly proved).
We need to invest in volunteering to make it more inclusive and meaningful and a powerful mechanism for social change. This takes purposeful collaborative design and develop practice leadership.
Volunteer West is calling for this invest through our VolREACH platform. Volunteering Victoria interviewed our CEO, Thu-Trang Tran, which expands on how we are approaching excellence in volunteer engagement through a collaborative platform.