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Trainings for volunteers

Want to help your community? Want to be a more effective volunteer?

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The following worksheets are offered by Art All Night-International (AAN-I) grant recipients to their volunteers. They discuss the basic skills that volunteers need to be effective in their role and provide an introduction into how non-governmental organizations (NGO) operate.

 

Each worksheet pairs with a one hour training that AAN-I grant recipients offer to their volunteers. These volunteers may then join one of the 8 committees that produce the Art All Night festival. Involvement on a committee allows the volunteer to further practice the skill learned in the training and see first-hand how NGO's operate.

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The worksheets were created because AAN-I could not find a concise guide to these skills that were written for a working-class audience. They are meant to be edited by our grant recipients for relevance to their country.​​​​​

Incentivizing volunteering
Why will working-class people, in countries without strong traditions of organized volunteering, donate their valuable free time? Each worksheet and training explains how the skill is useful in the private sector as well in the non-profit context. For this reason, and to incentivize participation by working-class volunteers, AAN-I grant recipients will act as a job reference for all volunteers who complete the entire training series. Volunteers who faithfully participate on one of the 8 committees that produce the event will likely earn stronger recommendations than those that don't volunteer on a committee.

To our knowledge, this kind of trade has never been tried before in developing countries. Yet, we believe it has a strong chance of succeeding because there are scant opportunities afforded to working class people who want to improve their employment competitiveness. 

Testing the efficacy of our program is one of the reasons why a pilot offering, with a rigorous evaluation component, is necessary. If it is successful, trading 'volunteering for job credentials' could be replicated. Not only would this empower working class people with leadership skills, it would extend the reach of philanthropic dollars. If volunteers are now able to perform some of the work that an NGO was paying people to do, additional dollars are now available to support the NGO's mission in other ways.  

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