What seems to be the impact of volunteering?
While the impact of volunteering on society and its development is undoubted, it is less known that the society is not the only one to benefit from volunteering. Here, we have decided to focus on questions what kind of impact volunteering makes on the volunteer itself, how can we measure it and use it for assesing the quality of volunteering programs they have participated at.
The list of all potential benefits is not definite, depending from concrete circumstances and the volunteering experience. However, we could single out some of the key benefits one has from volunteering experience.
Are we (trainers, youth workers and organizators of volunteering) the ones who should track the progress of volunteers involved in our programs, or that is beyond our concern?
Should we aim to develop meaningful programs – we have to take care they are the ones to answer to both needs of community and volunteers. As discussed above, volunteering is potentially very beneficial activity for self development of volunteer.
How could we measure success of our voluntary programs in terms of impact made on volunteers? There are several tools you can use to ask the right questions and get reflection on program impact. Some of the options are listed below.
1. Ask volunteers for their opinion
Finally, share the insights of your findings. Community of volunteers is curious to know if their work and time is making an impact. To prove their engagement valuable, you can rely on metrics and data analyses. Communicating the impact of volunteer work in your organization will help you retain volunteers and enable them to feel the part of success.