Leading and supporting volunteer effort is all-too-often a lonely and largely unsupported role in many agencies, where funding may be limited or where the volunteer team are organizationally structured in such a way that the person leading the volunteers is not positioned as part of a larger internal department.
For these reasons, many volunteer engagement professionals have had to develop ways to link with their colleagues externally, as a means of being able to access the insights and generosity of their peers, share experiences, trade strategies, and develop resources to assist them in the important work that they undertake.
While reading books, attending conferences, and engaging in online forums go some way to filling this void – there’s no short cut to the many benefits gained by connecting with colleagues, more formally, through membership of external professional association or network.
In this article, we will explore the history and nature of these associations and provide direct links to further resources you can explore for yourself.
It is important to understand that professional associations are nothing new.
In North America, the now defunct Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA) emerged as far back as 1961, while Volunteer Management Professionals of Canada (VMPC) had their origins as far back 1980.
Over the ensuing years, many Professional Associations have been created all around the world.
These include:
Sadly however, a number of these national resources have fallen by the wayside or been merged into other and newer initiatives, but the above list certainly assists in our understanding of just what a global profession the leadership of volunteers really is.
In short, an ‘Association’ is designed to bring together volunteer engagement professionals in a structured way, for the purpose of networking, professional development, the standardization of practices and possibly for the purpose of advocacy to a broader audience.
An example of this is AL!VE’s current mission statement which reads:
AL!VE serves to enhance and sustain the spirit of volunteering by fostering collaboration and networking, promoting professional development, and providing advocacy for leaders in community engagement.
An Association can take several forms.
Professional associations of this kind are national in their scope and membership representation, often require the payment of an annual membership fee and are more likely to have advocacy as a key string to their bow. Typically, the core mission of these kinds of agencies will be volunteer leadership and the membership made up primarily of volunteer engagement professionals. It is intended that the national collective voice of such associations can give weight when ideas are presented to other bodies such as volunteer center networks and government departments.
Examples of national professional bodies include the Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE) in the USA, Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM) in the United Kingdom and Volunteer Management Professionals of Canada (VMPC).
In some places and particularly the United States, state or provincial based associations have also emerged. Their structure and mission often mirror those described above – but of course with a more local membership that represents only their part of a country. Commonly called Directors of Volunteers in Agencies (DOVIAs) in the United States, associations of this kind can be found the world over.
Examples of state or provincial associations include the Minnesota Alliance for Volunteer Advancement (MAVA) and the New York Association for Volunteer Administration (NYAVA)
A little less common, are professional associations for leaders of volunteer engagement who work in specific sectors – to be able to get together with peers working in the same industry and to directly share experiences specific to their type of volunteer engagement.
Some examples of this include the New England Association for Directors of Healthcare Volunteer Services (NEADHVS) and Heritage Volunteering Group (HVG) in the UK.
Outside of these larger groups, there are literally hundreds of smaller, locally run networks for volunteer leaders that are hosted around the globe. These are often auspiced by local Volunteer Centers or cities / council / municipalities who in turn often have close affiliations with their respective state / provincial and national bodies. While there’s an argument that these groups are not really a ‘professional association’, they do need to be mentioned in the context of this article simply because their overarching purpose of connecting and education volunteerism leaders is often shared by more formal associations and because they are often far more accessible. While we will not be providing a comprehensive list of these groups in this article, please do check with local volunteer support agencies in your area to see what they offer.
While a volunteer center may not strictly fall into the category of a professional ‘association’, they do often serve many of the same purposes and facilitate many of the same opportunities for leaders of volunteer engagement whose agencies are members of the center. A volunteer center will often have the budget and staff to produce quality resources for members, the drive to create conference and educational opportunities and the desire to connect leaders of volunteering through the hosting of peer network gatherings and training opportunities. For that reason, we have chosen to include reference to volunteer centers in the list of resources provided below.
The list below represents some of the key resources, listed by country, that are current as of the date this blog was published:
The above list only scrapes the surface of the resources that are available for volunteer engagement leaders to be able to connect, through association, with agencies within their own country, state, province, or city – or even globally.
What’s most important is to remember you’re not alone in this important work that you do – so get out there and get ‘connected!’
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