Workshop Descriptions: Other Training & Workshops

Staff Roles In Creating Successful Volunteer Program Operation

Do your staff think that volunteers are aliens? Do they think that volunteers can’t be trusted with confidential information? Do they think volunteers can’t be fired, but spend a lot of time talking about why they should be fired? Do your staff think that most volunteers still wear bonnets and carry baskets? This may be the staff training session you’ve been hoping for.

In this short workshop designed specifically for front line staff who are (or soon will be) working alongside volunteers, we bust the myths that so many paid staff still harbour about volunteers and what volunteers can be asked to do. We look at the important role paid staff plays in creating a supportive culture in which volunteers feel like valued members of the agency team. We talk about accountability, standards, and what staff can legitimately expect from their volunteer partners. This is a great in-service session upon which you can build more productive and more mutually supportive volunteer-paid staff teams.

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Policy Development For Volunteer Centres

Volunteerism is at a critical point as we grapple with issues such as volunteer/paid staff/labour relations; community service; corporate/workplace volunteering; risk management and liability; diversity and supported volunteering; mandated service, workfare and welfare reform, and public policy development. This critical juncture needs to be managed with careful thoughtfulness, and volunteer centres are in a pivotal position to shape the definition, the practice, and the future of volunteering. Clear values and policies are needed to guide what we do, and do not do, and few Volunteer Centres have found the time to pause, craft, and implement the policies, procedures, and values that will both guide their own services and shape more global notions of volunteerism itself.

This is a session specifically for volunteer centres and similar matching services. It explores the critical program questions, and offers concrete, practical, time-saving assistance with values identification and policy development. Here are some of the key policy issues we will discuss:

What is our business?

The referral questions

The agency-request-for-volunteers questions

The "what is a volunteer?" questions

The "dual client" questions

Linda Graff was the Director of the Volunteer Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, for nearly 10 years. She has written several books on volunteerism and volunteer program management, and is widely acknowledged as this field's leader in policy development. This workshop is based on Linda's manual, WELL CENTRED: Policy Development For Volunteer Centres, published by Volunteer Canada.

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Outcome Identification For Planning And Evaluation

Outcomes based evaluation has been recently heralded as the road to peak program effectiveness. Funders are pressuring nonprofits to justify their bottom lines with concrete evidence of their accomplishments. The problem is, what are we trying to achieve? Through outcomes evaluation we identify exactly what change we are trying to bring about with our clients or in our communities, and we can then discover whether we are actually accomplishing what we set out to achieve.

Outcomes based evaluation turns out to be much harder to do than one would think. In this workshop we look at outcomes in depth. We learn what they are (and are not), how to identify them, where to look to determine if they are being achieved, and some of the primary measurement devices that might tell you how well your agency really is doing. This workshop works equally well for measuring outcomes in volunteer programs and in agency programming.

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Volunteer For The Health Of It!

The publication Volunteer for the Health of It presents ground-breaking evidence on the relationship between voluntary action and wellness. It clearly documents that volunteering can be a significant contributor to the health, rehabilitation, vitality, and even longevity of those engaged in it. In this entertaining workshop Linda L. Graff, the author of Volunteer for the Health of It, reviews both the epidemiological and experiential evidence that proves that volunteering helps volunteers to stay healthier and more fit, and maybe even live longer.

This workshop is a light and interesting experience for managers of volunteers who can gain a new appreciation for volunteering as a health lifestyle choice. It can be an equally entertaining session for volunteers themselves. Its short format is perfect for a volunteer recognition event or after-dinner presentation.