Nearly 50% of Ontario’s non-profit organizations are run completely by volunteers, with no paid staff of any kind. Volunteer Toronto wants to know what kind of issues these groups face, and it’s organizing a series of focus groups to find out.
Nimira Lalani, a researcher and educator at Volunteer Toronto, says “These organizations often have small budgets and unique needs that are not completely addressed through existing resources.” Volunteer Toronto’s focus groups, called Grassroots Growth, will be trying to “build the capacity of grassroots organizations to improve their volunteer engagement.” Lalani says, “We are looking for small, volunteer-run organizations, with no paid staff and budgets under $75,000, based in Toronto, to participate in these focus groups.” They’re especially interested in hearing about the groups’ experiences with volunteers: how to recruit, organize, and retain them.
The Grassroots Growth program has goals for both the short- and long-term health of the province’s non-profit community. In addition to networking, the four focus group sessions will give grassroots groups “the opportunity to share their volunteer management needs and experiences with similar organizations in a supportive context,” Lalani explains.
Combined with other elements of Volunteer Toronto’s environment scan—which will include an online survey, a literature review, and interviews with key stakeholders in the sector—the end result will be supportive educational materials and a peer mentorship program. Volunteer Toronto is aiming to make these tools available free of charge to grassroots groups across Ontario out in the fall of 2016.
In the meantime, the Grassroots Growth forums will be taking place in Toronto in June and July, with the first focus group on June 10. People from volunteer-run non-profit agencies can find out more information about participating at Volunteer Toronto’s Grassroots Growth
web page. Says Lalani, “The goal of this project is to build the capacity of grassroots organizations to improve their volunteer engagement.”