New Vancouver Community College Program Teaches Volunteer Management For Today’s Non-profits
Canadians love to volunteer. According to Statistics Canada, 47 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and over did volunteer work in 2010 (compared to 26 per cent in the United States). These 13.3 million Canadians devoted over 2 billion hours to their volunteer activities, which is equivalent to about 1.1 million full-time jobs.
According to Vancouver Community College (VCC) instructor and Volunteer Management Institute founder and Executive Director Milena Santoro, however, the actual business of working with volunteers has been historically overlooked. “It’s a misconception that volunteers are just volunteers—that they’re free,” she says. “There is a cost attached to managing volunteers. You need to recruit, screen, train, recognize, support, and manage them no differently than paid staff.” Read more.