Lachlan Preston – Ardoch
This session will help prepare volunteer coordinators for having bold conversations with senior leaders. Learn how to help them see the potential of volunteer involvement and gain their buy in to shake up their organisation and achieve social change through enhanced volunteer involvement.

Sara Sterling – Volunteering Victoria, Herman Tse & Kohyar Kiazed – Monash University
This session will provide an overview of the recent evaluation of Volunteering Victoria’s CPD program, in partnership with researchers from Monash University Business School. The findings provide a profound understanding of how to enhance the effectiveness of future CPD programs, and in turn, better equip volunteer managers to excel in their roles.

Sharon Walsh – Bendigo Health
Learn about the process undertaken to build a school holiday volunteering program that has engaged our students, local schools and staff, which offers students a complete pathway to acceptance at a major university.

Alex Connor – Communiteer
We all know what we ‘should’ do when it comes to engaging young people in volunteering. Flexibility and opportunities to lead and grow are important. But how do you do this in practice? In this session, we’ll explore case studies and structural advice on how to DO the program development and design that will allow new ways to volunteer.

Ellen Kimball – Community First Development
Using examples of our own work in volunteer engagement, this session will explore how embedding organisational values and purpose throughout every step of a volunteer program can significantly impact not only the communities we work alongside, but the lives of volunteers.

Tracey O’Neill – Brotherhood of St Laurence
The often-cited Volunteer Engagement Cycle is outdated and can limit our ability to successfully engage volunteers. In this session, we will explore a reimagined Volunteer Engagement Cycle – one that supports thinking strategically, that helps us achieve the outcomes volunteers are seeking, and that can lead to increased impact.

Ross Wyatt – Think Impact
The ‘colonial’ foundations on which volunteerism-as-we-know-it is built are no longer fit for purpose! Given the structural changes around us – compliance, ageing volunteer profile, risk management, individualism, time availability, virtual community, etc – it is time to reimagine volunteerism for the future. Learn how to apply ‘participation continuum thinking’ and see how it is being applied in real life.

Robyn Erwin – Wellsprings for Women
Winner: 2023 Inclusive Volunteering Award

This presentation will challenge volunteer managers to build richer, diverse and resilient volunteer teams by engaging women from migrant and refugee backgrounds. Members of Wellsprings for Women’s co-design team will share experiences of their challenges, barriers and how volunteering has empowered them to build fulfilling lives.

Jack Fawcett – AMES / Volunteer West
Drawing on AMCS / Volunteer West’s recent collaboration with Victoria University, this presentation will focus on the knowledge gained from working with CALD groups in a co-design context, as well as the benefits of working with academia and how it can drive lasting change.

Alistair Shaw – Bendigo Volunteer Resource Centre
Newly arrived migrants are typically underrepresented in formal volunteer numbers and many established volunteer programs lament a lack of diversity. But the ‘same same’ approach isn’t working and we need to shake it up! This presentation will explore how we can use a cultural lens, activate a space to serve community needs, and combine what we know about best practice volunteer management and community development in new migrant communities to achieve our goals.

There is nothing as practical as a good theory. In this workshop, you’ll have the chance to explore what you believe about volunteering – what it is, what it isn’t, why you think that – and consider what this might mean for your work as a volunteer manager. The workshop will be highly interactive, a bit provocative and a lot of fun.

Lisa Jones – Ardoch
In this presentation, Ardoch CEO, Lisa Jones, will outline why as an organisational leader she sees the value of embedding volunteering throughout the organisation to achieve maximum purpose. Lisa will discuss some of the steps Ardoch is already taking to increase and redefine volunteer involvement, and the unique role senior leaders play in leading cultural change for embedding volunteer involvement in new ways.

Brianne Keogh – ANZ
Part of the ANZ corporate volunteering program, Given the Chance provides refugees and asylum seekers work experience to help them obtain meaningful employment in the Australian workforce, with ANZ staff given the opportunity to become participant mentors. This presentation will be a panel discussion between the ANZ Program Lead, an ANZ Mentor, and Brotherhood of St Laurence Program Lead. The panel will discuss what a good volunteering partnership looks like and how it benefits both the community and employees.

As lawyers, we see some tricky issues arise around discrimination, safety, screening and privacy law when organisations seek to embed diversity in their volunteer recruitment plan. Our challenge then is to use the law to support diversity. This workshop will use practical case studies to highlight the kinds of legal issues your organisation needs to consider to confidently build and grow a diverse and strong volunteer workforce.

Julia Roache – St Kilda Mums
This session will look back at a decade of bold volunteering choices at St Kilda Mums; a grassroots, volunteer-driven organisation. We will look at the hits and misses, and why we are once again shaking things up with a new 3 year Volunteering Roadmap. Learn more about the key components to our successful volunteering program, and how we’ve adapted to the hurdles we have faced along the way.

Emily Scott – Kids First
This session will offer practical tips and suggestions for those who are new to the sector and are looking to expand, grow and diversify the types of volunteer roles in their organisation. This will include the benefit of consulting and building relationships widely across the organisation, raising the profile of your volunteer program, and ideas for championing your volunteers internally.

Alida Williams – Family Life
With our Op Shop volunteer program decimated through lockdowns, Family Life needed a BOLD CHANGE in order to rebuild. To better engage volunteers in the current landscape, we had to understand our audience, understand their motivations, connect and respond. This session will outline how we created a volunteer experience that nourished those motivations, strengthened that connection to our purpose, and that attracted others to join in this exciting dynamic.

Rosemary Joiner – Federation Uni
As the face of volunteering changes across generations and into the future, we know that volunteering organisations and communities are adapting to encourage young people to consider volunteering. But could young people better understand what volunteering can look like and the impact it can have on individuals and communities? This session will explore the role storytelling can play in inspiring younger people to take up volunteering.

Johanna Leitch – Awards Victoria
In this presentation, we delve into the dynamic interplay between the needs of today’s youth, the realm of volunteerism, and the imperatives of educational institutions. Drawing from extensive research and practical experience, we explore how volunteering organisations can effectively engage and attract young people as volunteers. Additionally, we examine the pivotal role of volunteering in addressing the well-being priorities of schools, from the perspective of someone deeply immersed in both the education and volunteering sectors.

Sara Sterling – Volunteering Victoria
In partnership with Volunteer West, the Volunteering Victoria ‘weConnect‘ initiative aims to capture volunteer impact through a user-friendly online platform. In this session, get your first look at this exciting new tool, aimed at providing organisations with valuable insights regarding the impact of their volunteer programs. 

Tracey O’Neill – Brotherhood of St Laurence
This presentation will explore how centring community can support better volunteer engagement and, ultimately, better outcomes. Together, let’s explore the possibilities of how we can shift our relationship with volunteers and the way we position our programs to create transformational change and a much broader impact on our organisations’ outcomes.

Victor Lee – Communiteer
The face of volunteering is changing in a complex modern world. This requires the sector to rethink how volunteering fits into civic life and collaborate across the system to align diverse interests in order to grow our national volunteer pool. During this presentation, Communiteer’s CEO Victor Lee, will delve into his experience building these cross-sector relationships, the common misalignments and miscommunications, and the potential that can be unlocked for Australian communities.

Shona Bass – EV Strengthening Communities
Place-based navigation services are essential for engaging and sustaining our future volunteer workforce. But successful navigation is more than just finding an opportunity. This session will explore how to optimally match opportunities with volunteer expectations, engaging those who face barriers to volunteering, and recommendations for bold and creative thinking moving forward.

Lisa Hester – South East Volunteers
Bold change is all about challenging the old paradigm. This session will guide you through techniques to understand your unique serving proposition, how to sell your story to reach more people, and strategies for delivering an experience that the community relates to. You’ll come away with a toolkit to support you in making bold moves and feeling confident with approaching volunteering in a different way.