Enhancing Volunteer Impact - Developing European Management Standards

Europe needs well trained volunteer managers to properly harness the vast potential of volunteering impact but lacks quality ‘volunteer management courses’ at the HE level. There are also big gaps...

For one, to gain a greater understanding of the current situation regarding the training and qualifications currently available to existing and potential volunteer managers. Then, with this increased understanding, the partners aimed to develop a HE master level programme and associated resources that increase the opportunities for the partners and stakeholders to increase the opportunities across Europe for existing and future volunteer managers to be properly trained at HE level and receive a recognised qualification based on common European standards for volunteer management education. This will serve to ensure that volunteers across Europe are managed effectively and in a more ethical way, avoiding exploitation, instrumentalisation and job substitution. It will also increase the capacity of communities in general regarding disaster prevention, preparedness and recovery through having better trained and qualified volunteer managers and increase the diversity and inclusivity in the volunteering sector with better trained and qualified volunteer managers able to assess the inclusiveness of the organisations where they are active and develop, manage and follow up on plans and strategies to mitigate risks of lack of inclusivity.