Enhancing Volunteer Impact - Developing European Management Standards

<< Background >>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 and needs in terms of recognition of volunteer managers as a profession and in general. That’s why the common action was needed to gather relevant experiences, expertise and skills to collaborate to produce HE learning opportunities (modules) and associated learning resources that can serve to properly train and accredit voluntary managers with qualifications that are given against European standards and reflect European values. PR1 – the state of the art report, which examined the current state of HE and other educational offerings for volunteer managers laid out how across Europe this offering is nearly completely lacking. Confirming the vision on the matter that existed before starting the project. Additionally, the aim was to develop some needed practical guides for volunteer managers.<< Objectives >>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.<< Implementation >>The Project Handbook was developed in order to provide a shared and clear vision for the project partners and to monitor the implementation of the project against the specified objectives. This has supported the management of contractual obligations related to the project including the management of the finances of the project. Evaluation of the quality management process concerning communication and cooperation, methods applied, progress of the output delivery and the project impact on target groups was conducted, and interim and final reports have been produced. The transnational project meetings have been held to ensure shared understanding concerning the objectives and activities of the project and give the space for any necessary adjustments to be made. Monthly meetings have been held throughout the project, to keep production on track and to address any concerns immediately. Two sessions with a European programme committee (created for this project consisting of experts from each partner country) were held to gain outside feedback on the material created for PR2. A training event was held in Lithuania where invited university lectures, teachers and other experts from practice were invited to provide input, co-create and provide feedback to the PR2 material. Each partner has held a multiplier event in their respective countries.<< Results >>PR1: State of the Art report about Volunteer Management in Europe was produced where the current state of affairs around formal and informal educational offerings was examined in various countries including those inside but also outside of the consortium.PR2: The project has produced a one-year (60 ECTS) pre-experience educational programme at masters level for volunteer managers. It consists of four modules (15 ECTS each) at the 1) individual- 2) organizational- 3) societal- 4) and professional levels. Each module contains 3 courses that can be taken together or individually by interested candidates. Each module has three underlying documents: 1) a Course Manual, including syllabus 2) an assessment plan and 3) a slide deck for lecturers to support lectures. These slide decks were not promised in the original proposal and developed additionally. On top of that, an overview presentation, a literature overview, an introductory document a.o. including programme learning objectives and minor programme suggestions and a learning objective overview were also created on top of what was written in the proposal. PR4 – 6 are guides created to support the master programme courses but are also valuable resources for those in practice already. They provide insight and practical value on their respective topics. These are: PR3: a “European Code of Ethics for Volunteer Managers”, PR4 a “Guide to Volunteering, Solidarity and European Values” PR5: a “Guide on the role of volunteer managers in facilitating inclusive volunteering” and PR6 a “Guide to managing volunteers contributing to disaster prevention, preparedness and recovery”. This common curriculum, available to any interested Higher Education institution in Europe, EVI-DEMS promotes Inter-connected Higher Education Systems. All of this concretely results in 45 highly coherent, cohesive and qualitative documents.As PR1 showed, the EVI-DEMS Master Programme is the first of its kind, it provides something truly novel and is an important landmark in the development of volunteer management as a profession. Through having a more prepared higher education sector with the tools and materials to better meet the training needs of current and future volunteer managers the volunteer sector in Europe will become stronger and the volunteer-involving organisations will be more enabled to better argue for the professional recognition of volunteer managers in those countries where it is not currently possible in Europe.Further outcomes to this newly available volunteer manager training and qualification will be seen in increased sustainability of volunteer organisations assisting them to enlarge the outreach and capacity building of their networks staff and expertise in supporting quality training and qualifications for volunteer managers. The project will also support organisations to exchange good practices in the field of education to increase the effectiveness of volunteers through better volunteer management expertise.