November 2011

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“Making a Noise” – Free Online Seminar closing the European Year of Volunteering 2011

Submitted by Susan J Ellis
on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 15:36

Volunteer Centre Warrington is an active resource for leaders of volunteers in the UK.  As part of the European Year of Volunteering 2011 (EYV), they have been delivering a series of free online training sessions which will wrap up on December 8th  with “Making a Noise: What volunteer managers need from leaders and decision makers.” 

November 20, 2011: International News From the Field

Submitted by Susan J Ellis
on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 00:00

Emergen (http://emergen.com.au) is an online community for "emerging young leaders" in Australia, made up of over 1000 professionals aged 20-35. Along with online and in-person learning opportunities, it provides participants "the opportunity to develop their professional brand and reputation. Members can do this through blogging, being interviewed for Emergen TV or participating in our Awards program." They even provide Bloggers Training online.

One of Emergen’s projects is "Blogging for a Cause Ebooks," the latest of which is a Tribute to the International Year of the Volunteer. This 60-page, graphically elegant document (using the issuu publishing platform) offers first-person accounts of different volunteer experiences, as expressed by volunteer bloggers. The contributors are diverse in all sorts of ways: culturally, ethnically, degree of involvement in volunteer work, and the types of causes they support.

The essays even tackle negative perceptions and controversies about

November 13, 2011: International News From the Field

Submitted by Susan J Ellis
on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 00:00

As the European Year of Volunteering draws to a close, a flurry of conferences and special events have been taking place, including some for special audiences. On November 10-11, the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which promotes and coordinates Catholic charity, brought together about 160 bishops and representatives of charitable organizations from 25 countries to discuss volunteering in conjunction with the European Year of Volunteering. Speaking at the event’s closing session, Pope Benedict XVI said:

Through volunteer work, Christians become signs of God's love in the world . . . Especially at a time of serious economic crisis, moral uncertainty and social tension, Christian volunteers show "that goodness exists and that it is growing in our midst" . . . The pope thanked the European volunteers and "the millions of Catholic volunteers who contribute, regularly and generously, to the church's charitable mission throughout the world."

As he wrote in his first encyclical, "Deus Caritas

November 6, 2011: International News From the Field

Submitted by Susan J Ellis
on Sun, 11/06/2011 - 00:00

Volunteer2 (volunteer2.com), provider of popular volunteer management software, has created another free online resource for the volunteer field:  the Mission Points ROI Calculator, designed to help measure the “Return on Investment” associated with engaging volunteers at an organization.

Most organizations value the contribution of volunteer time without assessing its true worth.  The concept that a report documenting more and more volunteer hours appears better does not take into consideration what gets accomplished during those hours – and what if that time was actually wasted?  Further, the most popular method of measuring the ROI of volunteer engagement is calculating the wage replacement value of the number of hours contributed by volunteers.  This simply furthers the questionable idea that hours equal cash equal impact.  

The Mission Points ROI model treats the number of volunteer hours consumed by an organization as an expense.  It also allows measurement of desired outputs

November Hot Topic: Part-time Volunteer Management Means Equally Limited Volunteer Involvement

Submitted by Susan J Ellis
on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 04:00

The majority of people who lead volunteer involvement do so only part-time. There is a serious disconnect between an organization’s desire to engage volunteers and an understanding of how much expertise and time are needed to assure success. Why is the position underestimated? How can we show that spending time on volunteer management is a necessity, not a luxury?  Read the full hot topic

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