The VoW project focuses on volunteering for a sustainable future, linking general volunteering and volunteering for Fairtrade to the SDGs. One of its results is a short curriculum of e-learning sessions and training guidelines about volunteer management and sustainability topics that is freely available.
Young people are a key target group for VoW because it has been observed that organisations that use volunteers, and Fairtrade shops in particular, across Europe are struggling to recruit and maintain young people as volunteers, and to position themselves in a post-SDG sustainability narrative.
Students taking part in the ‘Managing NGOs’ elective within RSM’s MSc Global Business & Sustainability programme volunteered for a session showing the VoW project’s results and were asked for their input on the matter.
Young people and skill validation
A pervasive assumption that’s made about young people is that they’re enticed by the idea of improving their résumés. One way of making that happen is by validating the skills they gain during volunteering. Envisioning pathways to validation is part of VoW’s results, but how important is this to students? Shockingly, none of the students in this group said they found the validation of volunteer skills important, nor was it a factor for them choosing volunteer opportunities.
This is not to say skill development is not important, and more likely that having clear validation is not. However, validation for skills may be relevant for newcomers seeking language certification, or when the skills gained in volunteering are specific to a certain field such as first-aid training.
Successful retailing for charities
Students were exposed to a volunteering reality that was new to most of them: volunteering for charity retail. Using volunteers for the retail side of operating a charity is not well studied or covered. While the students generally seemed open to the idea of volunteering, they were more interested in the roles associated with the movement surrounding the cause. For them, it was the setting of the shop itself, and how far the volunteer tasks seemed removed from the ultimate goal that made them hesitant to want to volunteer. However, there was a strong difference in enthusiasm towards different types of shops for example Fairtrade, Red Cross, or Terres des Hommes, which shows that the combination of mission, products, and setting matters to these students, and that the discussion with young people should continue in order to increase the success of recruitment.
