With thousands of not-for-profits in the Ottawa area alone, potential volunteers have plenty of choices where to spend their efforts. We need to put in effort to keep our volunteers engaged, to keep them coming back and doing their important work. Volunteer engagement is not a specific skill; rather, volunteers will be most engaged when your volunteer management program is run professionally, with recognition embedded in your daily practice.
This session will give you an overview of the volunteer management cycle, including planning, recruitment, orientation, supervision, and recognition. You will lean how these stages interlink, and how they all contribute to excellent performance, engagement, and retention.
Our speaker:
Maria Lahiffe is the Education Coordinator with Volunteer Ottawa. In this role, Maria coordinates all aspects of the VO Education program, including recruiting instructors, developing instructional content, and marketing. Before joining VO in early 2016, Maria worked in a diverse range of roles and organizations, including Outreach Coordinator for Queen’s University , K-12 teacher for a public school board, Senior Chemistry Teacher at a Secondary School in Ghana and Environmental Engineering Consultant in Northern BC. Maria’s varied background in education, business and the voluntary sector provided the perfect foundation for leading workshops geared towards Non-Profit professionals. A proud alumna of both UBC and UOttawa, Maria is a member of both the Ontario College of Teachers and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.