Welcome to the Volunteer Resource Hub, your one stop portal to access all resources and initiatives on volunteer management to catalyse stronger and more sustained volunteerism in Singapore.
Volunteer Managers are a valuable part in building our community, driving impactful and sustainable volunteerism in Singapore. By leveraging on the strengths of volunteers, volunteer managers help to address manpower challenges to serve more service users.
Toolkits and Guides
Skills-Based Volunteerism Toolkit for Organisational Development (Newly Launched!)
Volunteers play an important role in augmenting the manpower capacity of the non-profit sector while providing a stronger support system for those in need. With the current increasing trend in skills-based volunteerism, we have partnered with social service agencies to develop the Skills-Based Volunteerism Toolkit. This toolkit aims to support organisations in building volunteer management capabilities.
The toolkit includes templates for users to plan and carry out skills-based volunteering projects for their organisation.
Volunteer Management Toolkit 2.0
Updated in 2020, this toolkit provides SSAs with practical tools and guidelines to help you build your volunteer management framework.
News article
Volunteer Management Maturity Matrix (VMM Matrix)
The VMM Matrix is a digital self-assessment tool that enables your agency to ascertain strengths and gaps in your volunteer management (VM) practices, and receive recommendations to better strategically plan and engage volunteers.
News article
Learning & Development Roadmap (LDR) for Volunteer Management Practitioners
The LDR aims to strengthen the capabilities of Volunteer Management Practitioners (VMPs) by providing guidance on the skills and competencies required to perform effectively and optimise volunteer resources. It also shows potential development pathways and learning opportunities for VMPs.
Besides VMPs, the Roadmap may also be used by management and HR staff of SSAs as a guide to develop these VMPs and recruit candidates for volunteer management roles.
VMPs may use the digital self-assessment tool to identify their proficiency gaps and find relevant training courses.
Volunteer Role Redesign (VRR) Guide
The VRR Guide provides a structured approach for SSAs to create new volunteer roles or adapt existing volunteer roles to better fit agency needs, adapt to new trends and enhance volunteer engagement.
The guide includes templates to bring users through the planning and change management implementation for the role redesign.
Volunteer Continuity Planning (VCP) Guide
The Volunteer Continuity Planning Guide guides SSAs to develop a personalised Volunteer Continuity Plan (VCP) for their organisation. It aims to help SSAs plan for continuity of volunteer activities during service disruptions by diversifying volunteer resources or equipping volunteers with relevant skills that will be in demand during a crisis.
The guide includes a workbook with examples to assist users in the development of their VCP.
Service-based Corporate Volunteerism Guide
A guide for corporates who are interested in developing and implementing service-based volunteering programmes within their organisation.
Reports and Infographics
NCSS Social Service Sector Survey on Volunteer Management 2021
The inaugural NCSS Social Service Sector Survey on Volunteer Management (VM) was launched in 2022 to provide sectoral insights for Social Service Agencies (SSAs) to inform their VM strategies.
Through the survey, we found that SSAs who have volunteer management practices (eg. VM framework, VM system, dedicated Volunteer Manager) in place yielded stronger volunteerism outcomes (eg. able to recruit more volunteers, able to recruit higher quality volunteers).
Included within the VM survey publication are also recommendations derived from the survey data and insights which we hope will enable SSAs to strengthen their volunteer practices and to work effectively with ecosystem partners – for expansion of overall organisational capacity to scale and sustain services.
Transforming the Volunteer Experience in the Social Service Sector
“Transforming the Volunteer Experience in the Social Service Sector”, was done in collaboration with SMU Lien Centre for Social Innovation and it provides insights and recommendations on how the social service agencies (SSAs) can develop data-backed volunteer management strategies to improve volunteer experience for more effective outcomes in attracting and retaining volunteers.
Through the perspectives of volunteers and volunteer managers via surveys and in-depth interviews, this report reveals a framework depicting five key features that contribute towards a quality volunteering experience. The study also makes recommendations on the actionable steps and strategies that SSAs can adopt to engage their volunteers more strategically, so that they can play a more significant role in delivering enhanced quality services to service users.
Driving Change Through Volunteers
This publication features the change journey of 16 SSAs on the VMCD Consultancy Project where they had the chance to better understand their strengths and piloted meaningful initiatives in identified areas to improve their organisational capabilities in volunteer management.
Themed “Journeying Together”, this report showcases the collective effort and achievements NCSS have made together with our SSAs and community partners in strengthening volunteer management and catalysing sustained volunteerism to improve service delivery and organisational health.
Volunteer Management Insights Infographic (from NCSS Social Service Sector Survey 2021)
NCSS drew key insights on volunteer management from the NCSS Social Service Sector Survey 2021 and produced this infographic to inform VMPs about the sector’s and givers’ plans and perceptions in relation to volunteer management.
Measuring Volunteers’ Satisfaction - Insights from NCSS Volunteer Engagement Tool (VET) 2021
The Volunteer Engagement Tool (VET) is an online tool for SSAs to measure volunteers’ satisfaction more efficiently. The VET provides a standardised measurement of volunteer satisfaction using a survey which enables statistical analysis through a live dashboard to track the satisfaction levels across the sector at any given time.
The responses from 633 volunteers across 27 SSAs, from January to December 2021, has been collated to form the sectoral report on volunteer satisfaction.
NCSS VET 2021 Infographics
101 ideas to enhance volunteers' experience
In collaboration with NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), NCSS provided guidance and support to a group of students for their final-year project (FYP) – The Valued Volunteer (TVV), a communications campaign from August 2022 to April 2023.
The key objective of this campaign was to increase the retention rate of volunteers in social service agencies (SSAs) through the enhancement of their volunteers’ experience.
As part of the campaign, the students conducted a survey to understand volunteers’ sentiments towards their past and current volunteering experiences with SSAs. The research report with the findings and insights gathered together with a booklet, 101 Ideas To Enhance Your Volunteers' Experience will provide the SSAs with invaluable ways to improve the experiences of their volunteers.
Media, News and Others
Beacon (Journey of a Volunteer Manager)
Directed by local award-winning filmmaker Mr Daniel Yam with volunteers from New Hope Community Services and Team Nila, the video takes us on the journey of a Volunteer Manager, in showing care for individuals and families in need in our community through volunteering efforts.
Changing Lives As A Volunteer Manager
Launched in conjunction with International Volunteer Managers Day (IVMD), this is a story about Ms Serene Cheng, a Volunteer Manager from Filos Community Services, and her passion in working tirelessly behind the scenes to bring smiles to the service users while curating meaningful experiences for the volunteers.
Join this grounds-up Telegram Group, started by a VM Practitioner for VM Practitioners, to share and exchange resources:
To provide guidance on the commitment for regular volunteerism and based on consultations with social service agencies, NCSS defines engagement of at least 4 volunteering sessions in a year through any type of volunteering. This is also taking in consideration on the emergence of micro-volunteering and with volunteering activities pivoting to digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, individual agencies may define regular volunteerism differently and to their discretion.
Want to find out more about our volunteer management initiatives, register to be a part of the NCSS Volunteer Management Community!
Alternatively, feel free to drop us an email at volunteer_resource@ncss.gov.sg for any queries related to volunteer management.
