Activity Report January-May 2006

Conferences:

v     March 2006 – “Mutual Relations between the Media and Volunteering,” in conjunction with Yad Sarah’s Public Relations Department.  Over 100 managers of volunteers and representatives of volunteer organizations participated.

v     May 2006 – “Tools for motivating, rewarding and evaluating volunteers,” held in Yad Sarah’s Rishon Lezion branch service center. About 50 volunteer managers from the Rishon area took part.

v     Planned for summer 2006 – “Cooperation among volunteer organizations,” in Kiryat Gat.

Seminars, workshops and lectures: 15 workshops and lectures were held in the first half of 2006for volunteer organizations, the education ministry, the Israel Defense Forces and municipal welfare offices.  Six more are planned for June and July for welfare offices from Jerusalem, Beersheba and Kiryat Gat, for the Civil Defense organization and for Hadassah Hospital.

Training courses: 

v     A half-year course for organization directors on managing volunteers was completed at the end of May (four hours a week).

v     A half-year course to train volunteer coordinators is in progress, to end in September.

Development of teaching kits: The one on compensating volunteers has been completed. Two more – one on inter-organizational cooperation and one on ethics in managing volunteers – will be ready by the end of July 2006.

Publications:

v     A booklet on managing volunteers by institute staffers will be completed this summer.

v     A book of theory and practice regarding volunteers, written by the Institute staff together with the JDC and the Israel organization of community centers, will be ready this summer.

v     An article on recruiting volunteers by Michal Yagel, Director of Yad Sarah’s Department of Volunteer Division who works in cooperation with the institute, appeared in a number of magazines on social issues.

v     A major article “The Influence of Internet Use on Patterns of Volunteering,” was written for the Institute’s June 2006 newsletter by Ayelet Navon, editor of the web magazine on NGOs.

v     Another Institute newsletter on volunteering will appear in October.

Development of materials on volunteering: Ongoing work throughout 2006 on two areas – recruiting volunteers and dismissing or retiring volunteers.

Research and surveys:

v     A comprehensive study, in its second year, examines the volunteer experience, hoping to answer key questions about motivation, training, reward and evaluation, recruitment, placement, and termination of volunteering. Working with the Institute professionals are students from Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Academic supervision by Bar-Ilan and Hebrew Universities.

v     A number of surveys will be designed this summer by the Institute among Yad Sarah’s 6,000+ volunteers countrywide, to be carried out in 2007. 

Virtual and Stationary Libraries: Thus far in 2006, a number of virtual and written books were purchased, and articles translated into Hebrew. About 100 articles and other publications have been sorted and catalogued.

The Volunteer Portal: Yad Sarah, via the Leir Institute, is a senior and active partner in the internet Volunteer Portal operated by the National Council for Volunteering.  Leir Institute volunteers feed updates into the portal on a bi-weekly basis (its publication frequency) regarding volunteer projects, articles by institute staffers, and translations of research papers on volunteering.

International information exchange:

v     In May 2006 Yael Caplin was invited by the South Korean government to give a week-long seminar there on managing volunteers for representatives of Korea’s health, welfare and education ministries.

v     In February 2006 Yael Caplin and Margalit Goldstein gave a seminar on developing a volunteer infrastructure to representatives of Turkish volunteer organizations who were visiting Yad Sarah.

v     Active participation in international forums.

Staff:

General coordinator: Margalit Goldstein

Program development coordinator: Yael Caplin

Part-time organizational consultant, part-time training director, part-time trainer, part-time secretary

13 volunteers engaged in various tasks

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