Leadership for the Volunteerism Sector
Volunteerism has been top of mind for many government, funder, community, and media stakeholders during the pandemic. As Canada's largest volunteer centre, Volunteer Toronto has been a key voice for the state of volunteerism, and the ethical engagement of volunteers, throughout 2020-2021. Not only has our advocacy enabled meaningful volunteerism in Toronto, it also provided a springboard for engagement in national publications and committees.
While positive volunteerism stories in response to COVID-19 were shared aplenty in media outlets across the world, some outlets knew that volunteering was undergoing a dramatic disruption and sought to profile thought leaders. In the early stages of the pandemic, Volunteer Toronto was sourced to write two opinion editorials to speak to our observations from the frontlines. One for a national publication and another for a local publication. Read excerpts from both below:
At a time when demands are this great, and donations have dipped, more than half of interested volunteers during the pandemic haven’t heard back from non-profits. Why have we dismissed and ignored millions of volunteers in Canada when we need them most? The easy answer — safety concerns. The hard answer — a consistent dismissal, at the leadership level, of the necessity of investing in volunteerism.
Boldly put, volunteer management must become a core function that enables social services to increase capacity. Not only is this necessary to meet ongoing community needs, but also to compensate for decreased donations and precarious funding during an economically challenging time that will undoubtedly last longer than a handful of months.
For many high school students at the beginning of the pandemic, it was difficult to know whether Ontario's 40-hour volunteer mandate still applied and would impact their graduation, particularly for grade 12 students. Our Remote Volunteer Advisors also reported several parents reaching out with questions about how the pandemic would impact their child's ability to volunteer.
Recognizing our community needed answers, we reached out to the Toronto District School Board, Ministry of Education, and our own high school student volunteers to source up-to-date information on the status of the mandate. From this outreach we proactively shared updates with local media outlets and through our public-facing programs.
Ontario’s education ministry has waived the requirement for high school students graduating this year to complete 40 hours of community volunteer work. But some advocates say that doesn’t mean they should stop volunteering — especially now.
Youth volunteerism was also a top issue for the federal government, who announced a Canada Student Service Grant in the spring of 2020, where eligible youth would receive payment for reaching a pre-determined number of volunteer hours. However, questions about the grant swirled from every audience in our network, and as a major enabler of volunteerism, we knew we needed answers.
To secure more details about the Canada Student Service grant program, we contacted our national counterpart, Volunteer Canada, and various Members of Provincial Parliament. We learned that the design of the program was not in line with our own perspective of ethical volunteerism, as it put both youth and non-profits at risk of unfair labour practices. In response, Volunteer Toronto offered commentary to national media outlets covering the program's announcement and roll-out. Eventually, the Canada Student Student Grant program would be cancelled.
Placing student volunteers en masse makes it less likely that they will find valuable roles for their development or the charity’s work, says Joanne McKiernan, executive director of Volunteer Toronto. “It’s a recipe for the development of ‘make work’ projects,” she says. It could also disadvantage small organizations that can’t handle that kind of influx, many of which have been hit hardest during COVID-19.
As government looked to fund COVID-19 response initiatives in 2020, Volunteer Centres across the country were in need of a unified advocacy strategy to communicate our active role in mobilizing volunteers and building capacity for non-profits.
In collaboration with Volunteer Canada's advocacy committee, Volunteer Toronto led the development of an Advocacy Toolkit which was deployed in both English and French across the country. The toolkit increased each centres’ confidence in their ability to influence change at local, provincial/territorial, and federal levels. It also provided a national approach to identifying priority issues and key messages for the voluntary sector.
The toolkit's hallmark was an open letter, signed by 44 centres, which was then deployed through local media outlets in each region to mark Labour Day 2020.
Volunteer Ottawa has been engaged in a comprehensive ongoing advocacy campaign with our city Council for over three years in an attempt to secure core funding from the municipality. But there has been an ongoing need for consistent, concise and forceful messaging around the role of volunteer centres. The Volunteer Centre Advocacy Toolkit not only filled these needs but was an excellent template upon which to tailor and build our messaging and activities – a resource that proved to be invaluable.
— Marie Eveline, Executive Director of Volunteer Ottawa
Volunteer centres are catalysts for impact, building and supporting the voluntary sector often behind the scenes. The Volunteer Centre Advocacy Toolkit was an actionable resource to advocate for the work of centres across the country. It offered PIN – The People and Information Network a new opportunity to connect with MPP’s, MP’s and municipal government to discuss the importance of volunteerism, the impact of COVID and how the leadership of volunteer centres was vital
to responding and rebuilding.
— Kim Cusimano, Executive Director of The People and Information Network (Waterloo)
Thank you to the City of Toronto, United Way of Greater Toronto, the Toronto Non-Profit Network and Volunteer Canada for hosting calls for community agencies, all of which have held a significant role in prioritizing our advocacy efforts. We continue to collaborate with community leaders to advocate for the meaningful engagement of volunteer labour.
by Joanne Mckiernan for Foundation Magazine (published August 2020)