Evi-Dems: A European pre-experience master in “volunteer management”

Session Submission Type: Innovative content or format

Abstract

Volunteer managers are unsung heroes in non-profit organizations, responsible for organizing and coordinating volunteering. They guide volunteers throughout their journey, shape volunteer opportunities, and bridge the gap to upper management and the board. However, their roles have grown more complex due to changing volunteer work forms, volunteer motivations, and the need for professionalism and digital skills. Surprisingly, there is very limited formal education available for volunteer managers or administrators (see Evi-Dems state of the art report). A better educational offering in Europe for volunteer managers is essential to raise standards so the challenges of today and tomorrow can be addressed.

To pick up this challenge the EU Erasmus+ program (2021-2-nl01-ka220-HED-000048818) funded Evi-Dems to create a pre-experience master level program (60 credits). Evi-Dems has been developed by three European Universities: Rotterdam School of Management in The Netherlands, University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania), together with the European Centre of Volunteering (CEV), the Croatian Volunteer Development Centre and Out of the Box Europe (Portugal).
The master program consists of twelve courses, which are conceptualized along four levels, the individual, organisational, societal, and professional:The material for each course consists of a course manual (including learning objectives, reading list and the content of sessions), an assessment plan (with assignments for students to achieve the learning objectives) and an inspirational slide deck. Supporting all this, is a repository of 120 works of open access scientific literature, making the material truly accessible to all.

In the roundtable we will present and discuss this program, it's development and the context around it, the current status of education and where it should develop towards, needed improvements and how to generate more educational opportunities.

Host: Ivo Geers – Rotterdam School of Management

1. Master program – 4 integrated modules
Lucas Meijs – Rotterdam School of Management
Presenting the pre-experience one year master program for volunteer managers created during the Evi-Dems Erasmus+ project.
Discussion:
- What should a master program for volunteer managers look like?
- Is a pre-experience master program the right means to address the need?

2. The Value of Volunteering deep dive
Philine van Overbeeke - Rotterdam School of Management
Providing insight into the content and process behind the Value of Volunteering course
Discussion:
- The course design i.e. topics, learning objectives assessments etc.
- This course in the larger context of the programme.

4. The next step: post-experience education
Gabriella Civico – European Centre of Volunteering (CEV),
A presentation on the current and future need of professional volunteer managers.
Discussion:
- What is the actual need we see in the volunteer management profession right now?
- Who would ideally be responsible for creating and giving developmental means?

References

https://www.europeanvolunteercentre.org/_files/ugd/3ec99c_d8be9f45996f4d3ab200733d3ffab166.pdf
https://www.evi-dems.eu/output2

Sub Unit

• Teaching on the Third Sector

Moderator

• Ivo Geers, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Presenters

• Lucas Meijs, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Philine van Overbeeke, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Gabriella Civico, Centre for European Volunteering CEV