The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in Geneva, Switzerland in early December 2003 and included a pre-Summit "Conference on Volunteering and ICTS" (Information and Communication Technologies). To put a more personal face on this event, listen to a sampling of interviews with attendees from five different countries.
Linda Watson, Volunteer Specialist at the Hospice of Central New York, describes her involvement in bringing the concept of hospice end-of-life care to Russia and introducing Russian colleagues to the importance of including volunteers in the caregiving. Since 1985, Watson has made seven trips to the former Soviet Union, assisting in the inception of Public Hospice #1 of Velikiy Novgorod:
I spent two weeks in Velikiy Novgorod in 2003, and had the extraordinary experience of meeting with four groups of people to present my knowledge regarding volunteer roles in a hospice setting. These groups included young medical students, nurses working in the community, and a group of women retirees interested in finding meaningful volunteer work. Although the time was too short to pursue any in-depth training, I was able to outline fully the tasks that volunteers might accomplish in their settings order to assist patients and their families. Subsequent trips will allow me to follow up with more information.
Learn more about this American-Russian exchange and how western principles of hospice and volunteering are being applied in a different environment.
Earlier this year, Elisha Evans and Joe Saxton of 'NFP Synergy' in the United Kingdom, released a report titled 'Five key trends and their impact on the voluntary sector'. The report looked at five demographic trends and explored their likely impact on the voluntary sector.
The five trends the report examined were:
The report offers many valuable insights into possible future trends affecting volunteering, a topic in which e-Volunteerism is clearly interested.
Rather than simply present you with the NFP Synergy document, we decided to invite several international leaders in volunteerism to review the report and add their thoughts, comments and opinions to those expressed in the report.
This Research to Practice article examines how Five Key Trends and Their Impact on the Voluntary Sector (a feature article in this issue) can be a model for interpreting data in a practical, put-it-to-use way.
The "Five Key Trends..." article is itself an example of translating research into material useful to practitioners. The article includes the original report by Elisha Evans and Joe Saxton, along with special comments on the implications for volunteering by an international panel of responders.
Here, new Research-to-Practice feature editor Steven Howlett (UK) adds his perspective on how "trends" literature can be applied.
Keyboard Roundtable participants from Australia, Canada, Rumania, the United Kingdom, and the United States discuss what an "entrepreneurial volunteer" really is (a pioneer or someone who doesn't like rules? a blessing or a nightmare?) and how a volunteer program manager can welcome and support out-of-the-box participants. Here's an excerpt from one of Abby Dyson's (UK) comments:
One area of discussion that I'm particularly interested in exploring, and finding solutions where there are obstacles, relates to that first group of volunteers that Rob identified which is, in my opinion, very similar to the final group that Linda refers to.
These are people who, for various reasons, are put off by the rules and bureaucracies that exist. One set of reasons may relate to a lack of understanding, time and/or willingness to navigate existing systems. Alternatively, perhaps as in the case of Linda's expected experience as well as Ioana's volunteer, there are people with a clear understanding of what they have to offer and/or want to achieve (often they don't have both) and an expectation that the organisations they work with will be able to accommodate them.
The first set of reasons will, I think, happily be tackled by Volunteering Managers seeking to, as Adaire says, "institute good volunteer management principles and practices" which will strip away the bad rules that may have developed over time as well as effectively communicate the need for good and necessary rules.
The second set of challenges are, I think, less likely to be embraced as the solutions are less clear, more challenging and time-consuming.
As Managers of Volunteer Resources, Executive Directors and other leaders of volunteer programs in nonprofit organizations, you are dealing with one constant: CHANGE. To stay current with trends in the volunteerism field, technology advances, new management systems, etc., you are challenged to lead organizations in new directions and with methodology to engage volunteers to have the most impact. But, too often your desire to promote a change is met with subtle or not-so-subtle signs of resistance. As you suggest changes you might hear these and other laments from staff and volunteers:
So, how do we encourage a readiness for change and a motivation to implement and sustain it?
Change theory is the subject matter of hundreds of books and thousands of articles. It is not the intent of this training exercise to trivialize change or make it appear as something that can be resolved by simply filling in the blanks of a formula. Rather this training design features a tool which can be useful as a separate coaching guide or as an exercise in a more in-depth training session dealing with the complexity of change.
At the recent Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City many non-Canadians would have heard our national anthem, "O Canada," for the first time. Of course, it is a young anthem, adopted only 35 years ago. Canada is a young country but we have a long history of volunteerism. During 2001, the International Year of Volunteers, I had the privilege of co-chairing what was called the National Volunteerism Initiative Table. This gave me the opportunity to examine volunteerism, to take flight and travel this young and beautiful country from coast to coast. The flight had its spells of turbulence along with periods of very smooth skies. It was really a privilege to be able to view volunteers in Canada from a position way up in the clouds. I listened to volunteers and those who work with volunteers. I had a most unique opportunity to learn about this country and its volunteers. They have many differences and much that is incredibly the same.
Susan and Steve explore the question:
Are people who are required to do unpaid service really "volunteers"?