Volunteers add real value
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The Community Involvement Through Volunteering project under the Victorian Government's Volunteer Support Grants looked at how to involve homeless clients from Hanover Welfare Services as volunteers within their organisation by scoping out how employees would feel about having homeless clients volunteer in the organisation.
They found:
- 91% of employees were in favour of clients volunteering at Hanover and
- 88% indicated they saw volunteers as an important asset
One Hanover staff member stated:
Hanover has moved from an organisation that saw volunteers as very much being on the periphery of what we do, to seeing them as a valuable asset.
The project also discussed what homeless clients wanted to get out of volunteering with a wish to contribute and be part of the community highlighted. As a couple of the participants commented:
You feel good about yourself helping others.
[Volunteering] makes you feel proud of yourself that you've helped out.
Along with consulting Hanover clients and staff, the project worked with other organisations to look at how they could get involved in similar volunteer programs in their own organisations via exchanges at seminars, steering committees, workshops and at a National Conference on Volunteers.
Since starting the project, Hanover has achieved over 90 percent ratings on seven of the eight areas of the National Standards for Volunteers. The National Standards are a best practice model in volunteer involvement for not-for-profit organisations, describing systems for involving and managing volunteers.
Comments
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Posted by Spy on Phone - Thursday, 17 November 2011 17:36
Posted by FTS - Thursday, 10 November 2011 01:16
Posted by Acai Berry in India - Thursday, 04 August 2011 07:42
Posted by Kran Kozlovoy - Sunday, 31 July 2011 06:07
I love that so much is being done to help - never enough though ;).
Keep up the good work !
Posted by Mooney - Thursday, 12 May 2011 10:52
Posted by Goldfishka - Tuesday, 10 May 2011 00:06
Posted by George Smith - Monday, 09 May 2011 15:12