Description
The project addresses the lack of capacity of NGOs to attract, use and retain volunteers preventing NGOs from working with volunteers. The project aims at boosting NGOs’ capacity to work with volunteers by raising their skills and facilitating communication and exchange of good practices via an online platform. First, a website linked to TimeHeroes.org will be developed and used for communication, exchange of experience between NGOs. Second, an expert team will carry out about 300 interviews with NGOs to study their needs and good practices in their work with volunteers. Third, a guide on working volunteers will be developed. Finally, a series of trainings to boost the NGO capacity to work with volunteers will be carried out in several cities. The project will benefit the whole NGO sector, volunteers and the users of the NGO services.
Summary of project results
Bulgaria ranks last in the EU in terms of volunteering activity. One of the major reasons is the lack of capacity of NGOs to recruit and retain volunteers and use their resources efficiently. The project of Time Heroes addressed this issue. The platform wiki.timeheroes.org was created under the project. It is a public platform fed with information that is disseminated among the target group: NGOs, informal groups and citizens working with volunteers. The platform was visited approximately 2500 times during the project. A Handbook for efficient work with volunteers was drafted in an electronic and printed format (
https://timeheroes.org/bg/pages/handbook). The experience of more than 250 NGOs related to issues with volunteers was studied for that purpose. 1000 NGOs received the Handbook by mail; several thousands of organizations, groups and active citizens have online access to it. A number of training workshops were held for efficient work of NGOs with volunteers and approximately 100 organizations took part and evaluated them with a grade of 5.56 on a six-point scale. The project created a broad database of knowledge bringing together the experience of hundreds of organization and compiled the database in an online wiki platform, the manual and the training sessions. Thus the project created a space for discussion and exchange of experience, raising the capacity of NGOs to work with volunteers and helping improve their organizational and financial viability.
Summary of bilateral results