Volunteers are a vital component of any NFP organisation, without whom there is a great risk of your organisation failing to thrive, or even survive. They provide all manner of support, both long term and short term, and even at one-off event or activity level. However there are some troubling international trends happening at the moment.

Unfortunately, across the board, the number of people volunteering for charitable and Not For Profit organisations has been in decline. There are a number of reasons for this, from the changes in technology and the way organisations engage with the community, to the increase in number and type of organisations, to the increase in competition with increasing numbers of organisations and the ability of individuals to solicit their own support.

A myriad of other factors is also contributing not only to the decline in people volunteering, as well as a shift in the types of volunteering options available. These changes will inevitably have some level of impact or influence on the future of your organisation, if they haven’t done so already.

Determining these changes, and predicting the impact is, of course, exceptionally difficult to do. Unless you are extraordinarily familiar with international volunteerism, and have the ability to read former trends in order to accurately predict future trends.

So how do you know if, when and how your organisation is likely to be affected?

US and Australian volunteering experts, Tobi Johnson and Peter Deveraux, before their keynote address in this year’s 205 Australian Volunteer Conference will discuss the shifts in volunteering and what they mean for Australian NFPs. Via a 60-minute webinar they discuss opportunities to address the decline in volunteering, as well as new ways of engaging volunteers.

The webinar will also consider the impact of “voluntourism” and provide an understanding of the opportunities of the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals in relation to volunteers and volunteering.

The Executive Webinar: International Trends in Volunteering is open to those interested in securing the future of their NFP, and to assist not only in securing volunteers, but engaging them in way that is of benefit to your organisation, and the community you support.

It is being held on Wednesday the 23^rd of March at 11am.

Bookings for the webinar can be made here https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/international-trends-in-volunteering-tickets-22370161756