Latest News | Resources

We are super excited to announce that we have added a resource library to VolunteerConnector! From your dashboard click on Resource Library under Tools to find a bunch of things to help you on your volunteer engagement journey. We are always looking to add things to this area so please feel free to share anything that you think is helpful for anyone who supports people engaging in their community. We would love to feature it on there. 

Please let us know if you have any questions or if you feel like something is missing we are happy to create it! Get in touch with us at VolunteerConnector 

October 10 marks the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Day. Normally the dialogue around mental health and volunteering is about all the benefits the volunteering can offer to people; a sense of purpose and belonging, a sense of accomplishment. These are all true. So much so that the United Kingdom and other places have now taken on the idea of social prescribing. There is also other intersection of mental health and volunteering; the individuals and their complex existence that walks through the door of organizations across the country every day as volunteers. If you interact with humans on a day to day basis than chances are you are navigating someone’s mental health. We talk a lot at VolunteerConnector about being humans first and sometimes that is an identity that can get lost in all the valuable work that the charitable sector does. It is so critical however that we all take care of each other. If we believe that volunteerism is fundamental to our community cohesion and individual’s sense of belonging than we must also hold the responsibility of caring for people when they are not at their best. A great resource in this space is the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s Mental Health Continuum. If you are seeing a shift in a person who you volunteer alongside, it might be a good idea to start there. The more we normalize these conversations that stronger our communities will be. 

This week marks National Truth and Reconciliation Day. We know this work is not just a single day, it is daily and generational work. 

For Organizations, The 94 Calls to Action, if you want an example of how these calls can be actioned. We would encourage you to read the Canadian Museums Association’s Moved to Action: Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums. 

For individuals, check out 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning.

We love meaningful conversations so please reach out if you want to chat further about please do reach out. Please take time to breathe deeply and reflect over the course of the weekend, we look forward to connecting further. 

VolunteerConnector is a platform that exists on the world wide web, which is very cool! It also offers a hyper-local solution to people looking to be connected inside their community! It is the best of both worlds helps humans to build thriving community whatever that version is for them! There are three spots when posting your opportunity that can help ensure the humans you want to see your postings are. We have this handy little sheet to help you make the best out of those features!

Remote- use this toggle if it does not matter where a volunteer is located. Remote means someone can be in a different time zone and at a coffee shop or in their living room! It does not mean 

Address- use this for the physical location of role. If you are needing humans live and, in the flesh, (think a festival, museum greeter, youth programming, fitness instructor) use the most accurate location for where this work is occurring. People need to know where they need to be and if that works for them. 

Audience- you get to choose where your opportunity will show up for people. If you are thinking the humans, you need are in your postal code select local. If you are looking for someone who lives anywhere across the country than national is the space, you need. If you are looking for support in different provinces or territories, you can directly target them as well. Choose the option that works best for you and what is reasonable for the person seeing this opportunity

It surprises me that every year that the blog on National Volunteer Week always feels like one of the hardest to write. It is likely a combination of things…social media already feels bombarded with ‘thank you volunteers’ imagery and paragraphs of gratitude. People who work in the volunteer world are often busy with events. It could also be the intersection of labour and volunteerism where this feels like a week where we use a monetary value to try to convince the world of the value of that humans provide in their communities, which frankly feels weird. The world in National Volunteer Week 2024 also feels heavy; genocides, climate change, profound issues of justice, capitalism…yikes.

And yet we keep going. And trying. And there are glimmers every day that empathy and goodness are everywhere. Here are some glimmers this week. 
The Haida Nation has their title officially recognized to their more than 200 island territory. The draft is expected to be finalized by the end of the month, it is the right thing, and the full story can be read here. 

The Widget/API is live! For those on our contact list and Regional Partners got an insider scoop but our much-anticipated widget is live. We know that volunteerism lives in lots of different places across Canada and you can now share volunteerism in your corner of the internet. This is a result of years of work and input from many people across the country. It offers a wonderful hyper local option and makes life easier for people wanting to engage in community. If you want to see what it looks like in use, check out the Columbia Valley Chamber of Commerce. Get in touch if you need help or have questions!

The Tortured Poets Department is coming out. A new album from Taylor for a bunch of Swifties feels like a great way to end the week! Stay tuned for lyric easter eggs in future blogs because they will be there. It’s us, we are the problem :)

Volunteer Toronto has launched their much-anticipated Research Report: Never Enough, Five Years of Meals on Wheels Volunteer Shortages. Huge congratulations to Kasandra and the whole team at Volunteer Toronto for putting this together such enormous energy and effort to produce!

You should read the whole report, we wanted to highlight some things we thought were interesting. 

This report is such a cool discussion on intersectionality. The first layer being the humans requiring the services of Meals on Wheels and the various identities that they hold in our community. The labour that we put on these humans to access the supports they need to have quality of life is wild and undoubtedly exhausting. The other layer of intersectionality we found interesting was the weaving of the broad issue of food security, the world event of the Covid-19 pandemic and how those two issues collide with grassroots organizing, mutual aid and formal existing non-profits. There is such a layered story there and it is cool to examine how it has looked in a particular place at a particular time. 

Another aspect of the report that stuck out to us was using demographic data to potentially identify the “Ideal” Meals on Wheels volunteer and concluding that does not exist at the quantity needed to fill the need in community. It is cool to think about organizations applying this process when thinking about their own volunteer engagement and formulating opportunities. Furthermore, using that lens when deciding how reasonable it is to continue struggling in their volunteer recruitment. It seems like another strategy to tackle the shift in volunteerism. 

Finally, very helpful to return to a story five years later. We often see data come and go, highlights or trending topics pop up. Volunteer Toronto initially studied Meals on Wheels volunteer recruitment struggles in 2018, tried some interventions and supports and now in 2024 are revisiting. Certainly, gives weight to the recommendations that Volunteer Toronto has laid out. 

Thanks again for all your awesome work in the land of volunteerism Volunteer Toronto! 

“I had the best time!”, I learned so much”, “I met some cool people”. We have been hosting guest writers on our blog for a couple years now and one thing is for certain when people have a positive experience volunteering with an organization, they want to talk about it. These experiences have ranged from one-time events to longer relationships with an organization. We do not have data around the ripple that this causes for an organization or community, but it sure does make a person curious. Does this positive experience cause a person to donate? Does this cause other in their network to volunteer for the same organization or cause? Does it open the door for someone’s own volunteering story? Does it create a sense of community belonging that then shows up in other spaces? The data shows that word of mouth has significant impact on people’s behaviour in terms of consumerism so it does not seem like a far reach to think it can also impact an organization volunteer program. If we take the advice from the product and brand world and try to apply it to volunteerism here are some tips to utilize word of mouth in promoting volunteerism.

-Make sure volunteers feel connected. This can be through whatever means works for the culture of the organization- text, WhatsApp, Email, newsletter, live human moments etc. Listen to what they have to say. 

-Ensure volunteers are in the loop about all the things the organization is up to. The special events, the fundraisers, the meetings, the accomplishments. 

-Let people know when you are looking to engage more humans in your organization. Encourage them to share all the things with the people in their lives. 

-Give all the humans who are engaging with your organization a fantastic reason to talk about the their experience by making it a good one. 

Volunteer Canada has launched their 2024 National Volunteer Week Toolkit. Hooray!

 The theme of the week is #EveryMomentMatters. It contains free resources, social media images and all the things! There is a zoom background and some editable canva pieces as well which could be helpful for your organization. They have also shared a bunch of printable things like cards and certificates. You can check it all out here on the Volunteer Canada site. 

If you are looking for some additional support around recognition we are happy to chat, we also created this little gem last year Volunteer Celebration Worksheet to help capture the thoughts and feeling of the humans who are giving their time to your organization. 

We love seeing what our friends across the country are up to. The work they are doing and open to sharing- 

Volunteer Halton published their ‘Our Halton’ report which brings together their own data along with tons of other research to tell the story of volunteerism in Halton Region. Check out the footnotes for so many brilliant other points of interesting reads, including research from the University of Waterloo are on engaging youth in philanthropy. 

Our friends in Edmonton at ECVO published a lovely story featuring Turlough from the Winspear Centre (Edmonton Symphony Orchestra) and how we took an opportunity to shift the culture of a volunteer program. Turlough was a speaker at our Symposium in the Fall and we also enjoy his perspective. 

CBC’s show Now or Never featured a whole episode on people stepping up in their community to respond to need. You can listen to that episode here!

In the past 30 days the conversation around corporate volunteer groups has come up a lot. It is this season that puts a magnifying glass on what can be a tough experience for both organizations and the humans inside a company, all to the tune of a lovely holiday jingle. 

Volunteering should always feel meaningful for both parties. Volunteer Canada has put together this helpful resource for organizations and corporations in thinking about engaging in a mutually beneficial relationship. Volunteer Canada (2023, November 14). Different Ways to Engage with Your Local Business Community [PowerPoint Slides]. Centerville Network Forum – November 2023, Volunteer Canada.

If you are looking to work with an organization in your area, have a look on VolunteerConnector and start next year off with a conversation.