Towards a decolonial and anti-racist approach to volunteer recruitment

Gain insights on how nonprofits can incorporate anti-racist and decent work practices into their volunteer recruitment/retention strategies.

Over the last few years, volunteering rates have been declining in Ontario and organizations are reporting sustained shortages of volunteer labour. While efforts to recruit and retain volunteers are ongoing, this session will ask us to consider how organizations can promote Decent Volunteering (as aligned with Decent Work philosophies) and foster decolonial approaches to volunteer recruitment and screening.

Attendees will be asked to critique how systems of volunteer engagement exclude, harm, or marginalize some community members and imagine new ways of fostering communities of belonging in volunteer programs.

Throughout the session, we will address:

• Volunteering as indecent work
• Decent recruitment and barrier-free volunteering
• An anti-racist lens to volunteer screening

This session will be informed by the work of ONN and Volunteer Toronto, and includes reflections from Volunteer Toronto’s upcoming Volunteer Lab course: Decent Volunteering for Racial Justice.

The webinar will be recorded. Participants will receive the recording, and relevant resources, including presentation slides within one week of the webinar. If you have any questions, please email info@theonn.ca.

Speakers:

• Candice Zhang (she/her), Policy Advisor, ONN
• Kasandra James (she/her), Director of Programs, Volunteer Toronto

As Director of Programs, Kasandra James provides strategic leadership of Volunteer Toronto’s programs, services and events that connect Toronto’s diverse volunteer-seekers with the organization that need them. Since joining the team in 2015, Kasandra has used her experience and expertise in non-profit and volunteer management, community development and program design to support capacity building efforts in hundreds of organizations across Ontario. Her work includes oversight of the Volunteer Toronto’s learning programs for community members and non-profits, public activation and events such as volunteer fairs and information sessions, and programmatic partnerships with non-profit stakeholders, networks and funders.

Kasandra is a reluctant academic and serial volunteer. In addition to her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and certificate in Non-Profit Management, Kasandra is currently enrolled in a Masters of Education program focused on Community Development, and has the privilege of using academic space to think and write about the issues of volunteering, community and civic engagement that inform her work.