COMMUNITY BUILDING THROUGH SELFMANAGED VOLUNTEER GROUPS
ISSUES THAT WE ADDRESS
Many NGO-s are frustrated by the fact that while they play an essential role in society by tackling important social issues (they fight against poverty, prejudices, inequlaity, mental health problems, social isolation, unemployment, etc), and while they also have a range of tested and effective methods to deal with these issues, they have limited human and financial capacity to fill the need that arise in these fields. They can expand their reach to an extent by involving and managing volunteers, but even this solution consumes part of their already limited resources.
On the other hand, there is potentially a mismatch between what volunteers want to do/are capable to do and what organizations looking for volunteers offer them to do. Compared to traditional ways of volunteering, a more active role could be more appealing/motivating for many volunteers.
The COBU project offers a possible solution to this problem by creating a network of self-managed volunteer groups, that can act more or less autonomously and independentley from the „host/initiator” organisation.
WHAT DO WE OFFER OUR VOLUNTEERS WHO WOULD LIKE TO JOIN THE PROGRAMME?
For those who wish to participate, we offer free consultations on the following topics:
- Identifying areas of interest, topics (and related skills and strengths) around which a group can be organised later. Participants can come with ready-made personal plans, but can also come up with new ideas during the consultation.
- Entrepreneurship skills training or consultation, during which an action plan for the implementation of the chosen group idea is prepared and a step-by-step overview of the tasks and skills needed to set up and run the group is developed.
We also provide supervision if needed to help address difficulties encountered in the functioning of the groups.
Volunteers joining the programme are welcome to attend the monthly volunteer meeting.
AVAILABLE RESOURCES:
- An introductory study (downloadable here in English, and here in Hungarian) on the different implementations of self-organised volunteering
- We have created a web platform (https://www.kepeskozosseg.hu/) where the materials are available and which volunteers can use to publish their calls, to find out about each other and to get in touch
- We have put together a guide (downloadable by clicking on the image below) describing the steps for training self-organising volunteers
- We have summarised our own experiences and those of our volunteers in a case study (downloadable by clicking on the image below)
- The case study is accompanied by an Appendix with further descriptions of the exercises, available here, in English
Many NGO-s are frustrated by the fact that while they play an essential role in society by tackling important social issues (they fight against poverty, prejudices, inequlaity, mental health problems, social isolation, unemployment, etc), and while they also have a range of tested and effective methods to deal with these issues, they have limited human and financial capacity to fill the need that arise in these fields. They can expand their reach to an extent by involving and managing volunteers, but even this solution consumes part of their already limited resources.
On the other hand, there is potentially a mismatch between what volunteers want to do/are capable to do and what organizations looking for volunteers offer them to do. Compared to traditional ways of volunteering, a more active role could be more appealing/motivating for many volunteers.
The COBU project offers a possible solution to this problem by creating a network of self-managed volunteer groups, that can act more or less autonomously and independentley from the „host/initiator” organisation.
WHAT DO WE OFFER OUR VOLUNTEERS WHO WOULD LIKE TO JOIN THE PROGRAMME?
For those who wish to participate, we offer free consultations on the following topics:
- Identifying areas of interest, topics (and related skills and strengths) around which a group can be organised later. Participants can come with ready-made personal plans, but can also come up with new ideas during the consultation.
- Entrepreneurship skills training or consultation, during which an action plan for the implementation of the chosen group idea is prepared and a step-by-step overview of the tasks and skills needed to set up and run the group is developed.
We also provide supervision if needed to help address difficulties encountered in the functioning of the groups.
Volunteers joining the programme are welcome to attend the monthly volunteer meeting.
AVAILABLE RESOURCES:
- An introductory study (downloadable here in English, and here in Hungarian) on the different implementations of self-organised volunteering
- We have created a web platform (https://www.kepeskozosseg.hu/) where the materials are available and which volunteers can use to publish their calls, to find out about each other and to get in touch
- We have put together a guide (downloadable by clicking on the image below) describing the steps for training self-organising volunteers
- We have summarised our own experiences and those of our volunteers in a case study (downloadable by clicking on the image below)
- The case study is accompanied by an Appendix with further descriptions of the exercises, available here, in English
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TARGET GROUPS
- Adults who wish to participate in this new way of volunteering
- Other NGO-s, organisations working in the field of volunteering/community development/civic engagement who could adopt our method to engage selfdirected volunteer teams that could extend the reach of their mission.
www.cobuplatform.eu/
Participating organisations:
- Képes Alapítvány (Hungary), coordinator
- Elan Interculturel (France), http://elaninterculturel.com/main/en
- La Asociación La Xixa Teatre (Spain), http://www.laxixateatre.org/
- Storytelling Centre (The Netherlands), https://storytelling-centre.nl/en/
The project was funded by the European Union and was carried out between November 2019 and July 2022.
We welcome interested volunteers after the end of the project period and will continue to provide training.
