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VNZ undertakes research and development projects with partner organisations into the various aspects of volunteering in order to further develop volunteering frameworks, guidelines and policies that will ensure the future of volunteering in New Zealand. You can download the full set of findings related to our most recent research projects below.
Volunteer management capacity in New Zealand
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In partnership with Volunteering New Zealand, Victoria University of Wellington undertook a nationwide survey of Managers of Volunteers between November 2009 and February 2010. Funding for this research was received from the Tindall Foundation.
The research report titled "Managers Matter, Who manages New Zealand's volunteers " published during Volunteer Awareness Week 2010 offers NGOs and community sector agencies a demographic profile of who manages volunteers in New Zealand. Responses to questions on the management role indicate a huge variety of job titles and a range of employment conditions (a complex continuum between being paid/unpaid, a part-time/full-time dedicated position, or managing volunteers as part of a number of other responsibilities) - not unexpected in a sector that is so widely varied in focus and size of organisation.
A number of challenges have been identified. With 54% of respondents indicating they are aged over 50 there is some succession planning to think about. Not having enough time or money to achieve goals is a concern, particularly where there is no budget to support the volunteer programme. While it is evident there are high levels of job satisfaction, the keen desire for further professional training is not being met as long as there are time and resource constraints.
This report is significant in several ways:
The summary of the report is available here (pdf document, 5KB) and the full report could be downloaded from here (pdf document, 448KB).
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Developing health & safety Guidelines
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Currently, Volunteering NZ is developing Employee Volunteering Health and Safety Guidelines with funding assistance from Mobil Oil New Zealand. In discussions with the Department of Labour about ACC coverage for volunteers, the question asked was whether employee volunteers who are on 'paid leave' when involved in employee volunteering project should be considered to be at work if injured resulting in an absence from work. This highlighted that there are special health and safety issues relating to employee volunteering projects and hence the need for special guidelines. These would need to cover the responsibilities of the employers, the employees and the host community organisations.
It is planned to print a limited number of the guidelines with them also being made available online through the VNZ publications webpage. The results of the survey are available here (pdf document, 56KB)
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