Profession/Field of Volunteer Administration

Liz Adamshick shares her experience in soliciting financial donations from volunteers and her realization that volunteer administration professionals must work more collaboratively with fundraising professionals. She notes:

It took many conversations to bring us to the point of drafting and sending a letter, and logistics were central to the discussion. Philosophically, the financial development director and I were on the same page: Donating money to an organization is a personal decision, and not ours to make for our volunteers.

Up to this point, we had been making this decision for volunteer staff, simply by not inviting them to consider supporting us financially. But our respective departments each worked with separate databases for the audiences we reached and tracked. We lacked any kind of contact management system that would allow us to identify overlap between these audiences, and specific evidence of their dual support of the organization through volunteer involvement and financial donations…

So while we had a skeletal system in place, we still had to meet on several occasions to exchange and compare lists, identify which volunteers were already donors (some were major donors, and had just recently been solicited to support more substantially a different campaign), and determine what to do with donors and volunteers who resided outside our organization’s jurisdiction…

During this process of refining lists, reviewing drafts of solicitation letters, and periodically touching base on related philosophical questions, I began to think more creatively about the potential for a deeper level of collaboration with my financial development colleague, and recognized that our respective professions had more in common than either of us had explored in the past.

Read Adamshick’s recommendations for why and how we must learn to work together.

Hong Kong has a long history of developing volunteer services. People from all walks of life are familiar with the concept of volunteerism while a wide variety of specific volunteer opportunities have been opening up, ranging from management roles to the execution of specific projects and tasks. The quality of volunteers and the sustainability of volunteer participation have become significant concerns within many volunteer organizations. It is expected that volunteers shall be well trained and equipped with adequate knowledge and appropriate skills to serve the needy. Further, it is believed that the enhancement of volunteer competencies and increased job satisfaction will lead to a higher commitment to volunteering.

The Agency for Volunteer Service (AVS) maintains a pool of over 10,000 volunteers and, in order to address some of these issues, established its Volunteer Training and Development Centre in 2003. A new initiative of the Centre is the “VQ Sustainable Training Scheme,“ promoting “Volunteer Quotient towards Volunteer Quality” – an attempt to provide progressive training to enhance the quality of AVS volunteers as well as to sustain their commitment to and aspiration of helping others.

This article provides an overview of what VQ is, how the training is structured, the three levels of achievement, who is being trained and who is doing the training, and other elements of the pilot project underway.

In the last edition of e-Volunteerism, we took a look at an innovative work exchange between Volunteer Program Managers from Australia and Canada.

This issue we continue our exploration of international work exchanges, taking a closer look at a program offering an international perspective to colleagues from the United Kingdom and the USA.

Andy Fryar (Convening Editor)
During 2000, a partnership between Community Service Volunteers (CSV) in the United Kingdom and the Minnesota Association of Volunteer Directors (MAVD) in the United States, achieved a long planned dream of participating in a work exchange of Volunteer Program Managers from both countries. e-Volunteerism asked three participants about the first exchange between the two organisations: Arnie Wickens, the Director of CSV Consulting in the United Kingdom; Sandy Bergeron, Past President of MAVD; and Melissa Eystad, e-Volunteerism Editor of the All-Volunteer Groups feature area and the initiator of this exchange project.

At a time of world crisis , this paper calls for proponents of volunteerism to join together in a rethink of priorities and programs. Managers of volunteer programs and volunteers are challenged to take a big picture approach and see volunteerism as a powerful tool in reassessing values and activities and in building constructive relationships between individuals, cultures and nations. As we know, volunteering provides citizens with the opportunity to take the initiative, have a voice and build community. Actions can be taken which focus attention on values and long-term goals that are important in life. Some examples of possible responses, covering a range of interest areas, are given as a starting point for readers who are keen to widen their horizons and institute initiatives aimed at making this world a more tolerant, equitable and cohesive society.

e-Volunteerism is always on the lookout for new innovative programs, practices and initiatives to share with our readers. When we learnt recently of two international work exchanges among volunteer management practitioners, we were quick to speak to those involved.

In this issue we will take a look at a work exchange that took pace between two volunteer program managers from Canada and Australia. In our next issue will feature a new exchange program established between the USA and the United Kingdom.

How did the work exchange come about?

Rosie Williams (Australia)
I initiated the work exchange for a number of reasons. I wanted to have an adventure, to think and live outside the square I live in, to challenge myself and to gain new knowledge and skills. I considered a range of options to achieve this end and finally decided that a work exchange would give me a range of opportunities while minimising my risks considerably.

Judi Reed (Canada)
I responded to Rosie Williams' invitation after seeing her advertisement for an exchange partner on the Energize web site in September 1999. I was seeking education, but of an informal and experiential nature. The opportunity to work in another English speaking country and use my volunteer management skills seemed like a chance to learn, share, and grow.

In the mid-1970s, the Association for Volunteer Administration embarked on a revision of its professional credentialing program. AVA selected a performance-based system, based on a core group of competencies deemed essential for the effective administration of volunteer programs. At the recent international conference in Toronto, Canada, Sarah Jane Rehnborg - the system developer - offered her reflections on the competency-based credentialing format. This article is based on her presentation, which includes an important call to recognize that "our work is steeped in purpose and energized by passion."