Karen Knight - Creating Communities of Practice for Volunteer Leaders

Do you suspect that there are tools and tricks that other leaders of volunteers know that you don’t? Do you often think that you may be reinventing the wheel? Do you sometimes just want to talk with someone who truly understands what you’re dealing with? A community of practice (CoP) is a circle of people who share a common concern and/or set of problems, and who collaborate to come up with effective ideas and to support each other in fulfilling goals for both the individuals and the group as a whole. This workshop guides you through the seven steps to creating a CoP. Through facilitated discussions, group activities and networking opportunities, you will become comfortable with the strategies, tips and tools to help each other improve the impact all of your programs have in your respective areas. You may even find the people to build your CoP with!

Janna Werry - Volunteer application process that will engage potential volunteers from the first click

Engaging the potential volunteer from all generations with user friendly technology. Don’t lose a potential volunteer because they didn’t want to take the time to sign up for your application. Potential volunteers are looking at your website – is it ready to engage them? People are busy, by streamlining your application process the volunteer leader will save time for both them and the potential volunteer. Is your application process less than 15 minutes total. Why? Because 60% of Gen Z job seekers won’t spend longer than that on a job application. And, with 48% of potential candidates dropping out of the job application process due to a confusing or complicated user experience, extrapolate those statistics to applying for a volunteer position. Whether you have a hard time recruiting volunteers or have too much interest, with user friendly free technology applications the potential volunteers stay informed and on the radar. A detailed plan will be presented outlining the different applications, how they are used for the volunteer application and onboarding process and converting that applicant into accepted into the volunteer management database. The presentation will be interactive using PowerPoint with participants invited to engage in real time through Slido.

Rob Jackson – Philosophy of Volunteering

There is nothing as practical as a good theory. In this workshop you’ll have the chance to explore what you believe about volunteering - what it is, what it isn’t, why you think that – and consider what this might mean for your work as a volunteer manager. The workshop will be highly interactive and is always a bit provocative and a lot of fun.

Leah Gagnier & Danielle Lima - How our senior Volunteers have changed priorities since Covid-19

This session will discuss lessons learned from the presenters having over 4000 volunteers in their thrift stores. It will be an open session about sharing what works in different organizations to create an avenue for new and creative ideas, including:

• How to create video content to motivate senior volunteers to volunteer at your organization.
• What we do to create inclusivity and belonging within our stores to foster valuable and productive attitudes for giving back through volunteering.
• Tips: from Mission Thrift Stores