Jessica Pang-Parks - Self-Advocacy for Leaders of Volunteers 

Self-advocacy at work goes deeper than speaking up. You can use self-advocacy to help your manager and organization better understand you. You can also use self-advocacy to get better compensation or resources. The session will start by examining how your work is influenced by frameworks entrenched in our sector's "standard practices". You will be asked to challenge ways of thinking that may make you uncomfortable. The session will use Mentimeter, allowing participants to anonymously share insights and brainstorm opportunities. Together, we'll become more intentional and effective in self-advocacy.

Charlene Dishaw - Liberating Structures: Tools for Engagement

Participants will actively partake in three Liberating Structures to discover how Liberating Structures can be use with volunteer teams to unleash ideas, create innovation and solve problems. Liberating Structures are useful tools to engage groups to participate in decision making and build teams, leading to better retention. By the end of the workshop participants will be able to lead a Liberating Structures session in their organization.

Michelle Mungar Lumley - Examining the Youth Experience

Youth are continually reimagining the world. Their ability to inspire, motive and coach us is incredible. Engaging youth within volunteer programs builds capacity and inspires our communities, but even as we actively recruit youth volunteers, many volunteer programs still struggle with the retention of youth. This session will use real world examples to examine what a successful youth volunteer program looks like and provide opportunity for Leaders of Volunteers to start brainstorming ways to adapt their programs to meet the unique needs of youth volunteers. Youth (ages 13-17) have different motivations than past generations, and we need to adapt our recruitment, engagement, and the volunteer roles to successfully support their involvement. Participants will leave with an understanding of their importance in the youth experience, and how they have the ability to motivate and inspire youth to apply, volunteer and stick around for longer. Youth are capable of anything and everything, Leaders of Volunteers can have a huge impact on the trajectory of youth volunteers' success.

Sammy Feilchenfeld & Adriane Beaudry - Opening the Door to More: Identifying and Removing Barriers to Volunteer Engagement Success

What is a barrier? Whether real or perceived, our processes, approaches and strategies can create or perpetuate obstacles in volunteer engagement. In this session, we’ll explore some of the barriers you and your volunteers may face, and share a collaborative framework for building solutions. Whether a barrier is surface-level or digs deeper into the need for systemic change, we’ll discuss how you play a vital role in making changes to welcome more volunteers into your organization. Come ready to learn and play through this mix of scenarios, discussions and interactive learning.

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

Kasandra James - Examining Decent Volunteer Engagement: Decolonial and Anti-Racist Approaches to Recruitment and Screening

Over the last few years, formal volunteering rates have been declining across Canada and organizations are reporting sustained shortages of volunteer labour. While efforts to recruit and retain volunteers are ongoing, this session will ask us to consider how organizations can promote Decent Volunteering (as aligned with Decent Work philosophies) and foster decolonial approaches to volunteer recruitment and screening. Through digital engagement with Mentimeter2 and co-learning activities with peers in small and large groups, participants will be asked to critique how systems of volunteer engagement exclude, harm, or marginalize some community members and imagine new ways of fostering communities of belonging in volunteer programs.

Maelin Cheung & Mel Ifada - The Key to Volunteer Engagement: Why Supporting Your Board is Essential

"The Key to Volunteer Engagement: Why Supporting Your Board is Essential" examines the importance of a well-supported board in the process of attracting and retaining engaged volunteers. The workshop explores how a well-supported board can create a positive and productive environment, fostering a culture of engagement and commitment among volunteers. This session will offer practical insights and strategies for board organization that directly impact volunteer involvement and retention. The workshop will include a small-group, interactive brainstorm component to get attendees thinking about real-world challenges they've encountered in their teams, as well as solutions they can implement after the conference, using frameworks learned in the presentation.

Erin McLean - Corporate Volunteer Engagement - Lessons from the Success of a Holistic Partnership Approach

Corporate Volunteer Engagement can sometimes feel like a daunting task, and establishing successful relationships in this area can be a moving target.

In this session, we will explore lessons learned from the successful development of a Holistic Partnership Approach to corporate volunteering. We will break down the successes and challenges related to this process, as well as discuss how sector trends can impact success. Through discussion, hands-on activities, and take-away tools, this session will provide a framework for exploring the development and consideration of holistic partnership relationships as an approach to corporate volunteer engagement. Together we will explore the evaluation and recruitment processes, how to build a partnership menu, and also how to integrate organizational standards into corporate volunteer engagement, while incorporating long-term relationship stewardship.

Tony Goodrow – Reporting the Full Value of Volunteer Engagement - SOLD OUT

The hours your volunteers contribute are an important metric, but those alone do not accurately communicate the value to the community that is created though the volunteer engagement you manage. Most Leaders of Volunteers under-report the real value but there’s a simple process you can use to make a substantial difference in your reporting.

IN THIS WORKSHOP YOU'LL LEARN:

• A new approach to using for the Wage Replacement Value provided by Volunteer Canada
• How to determine the overall Community Benefit Value (CBV)
• New approaches to volunteer placement that increase CBV and contribute more to your mission
• How to prepare new types of reports that create compelling fundraising communications and can fuel data driven decisions

Adam Janes - Investing in Your Volunteer Program (House) to Invest in Your Volunteer Community (Home)

We will be exploring the importance of enviornments, UX, space, reality of how a volunteer engages with your organization. We will be creativly drawing a blueprint and renovation plans for the systems and structures of your organization. Its one part Advocacy and one part HGTV

Jeffrey Abraham - Partnering For Better Volunteer Engagement

Come to this workshop where you will learn more about how to boost volunteerism by building relationships with other internal staff teams, with external organizations, clarifying mismatched values or objectives, how partnerships with other volunteer-driven organizations helps to raise learning and awareness, and how partnering with individual volunteers all make a difference. You'll have time in small groups to discuss an issue you may be facing, and how partnerships may unlock the way forward to solving this issue.

Shaminda Perera – Data-driven Engagement

This session will provide leaders of volunteers with an overview of how to utilize data to inform decision-making and build a case for volunteer management. In this session, we will explore the benefits of a data-driven practice, how data can be applied, key sources of data, and how to build a case for volunteer management using data. Participants will also be introduced to the Canadian Knowledge Hub for Giving and Volunteering, a hub for data related to fundraising and volunteerism.

Rob Jackson - Ethical issues in volunteer engagement

This interactive session will allow you to work with colleagues to examine and explore
real-world ethical dilemmas relevant to your work as leaders of volunteer engagement.
You’ll have the chance to discuss, debate and reflect on how you might handle them and
reflect on what this might mean in your day-to-day work.