Reflections from the Corporate Community Engagement Summit 2020

The evolving relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility teams and company stakeholders. January 27-29 Volunteer Canada convened 30 companies at the Corporate Community Engagement Summit in Surrey. Delegates were corporate professionals managing programs and initiatives for their employees, and other stakeholders, to give back to communities – whether through volunteering, donating, learning or other civic engagement. The summit provided a forum for learning and effective practice exchange among peers and other leading professionals in the field as they challenge the status quo and push for innovative approaches. Based in Calgary, Megan Marshall is the Senior Community Programs Advisor at Cenovus Energy. This […]

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Compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue for volunteers

Volunteers who work with vulnerable clients often describe their work as meaningful, rewarding and impactful. The compassion that infuses the work that volunteers do is transformative both for the client and for the volunteer. At times, it can be demanding and exhausting to work regularly with people who are chronically ill, lonely or experiencing other difficulties. When engaging in the increasingly challenging context of health and social services, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction must become part of the lexicon of the administrator of volunteer resources. Compassion fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction Simply put, compassion fatigue can be described as the emotional strain […]

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How to engage people doing mandatory community service

Eight per cent of Canada’s volunteers give back because they’re required to (Statistics Canada). Mandatory community service come in many forms, including students needing to complete a certain number of hours to graduate, people required to volunteer to receive or top up their social assistance and people ordered by the court to volunteer as an alternative form of sentencing. Although there are challenges with engaging participants of mandatory community service programs, they can be a source of new energy for your organization. These programs also introduce people to volunteering who may not otherwise get involved. Here are the five main […]

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