Volunteers Make for a Better Community
Be a friend of the bush or help stage a community event! Here’s some information about how you can get involved.
Council is committed to supporting volunteering across Devonport. Volunteers help to strengthen our local community by enhancing local connections, helping to share and build skills & expertise, often supporting those people and areas most in need. Being a volunteer is a great opportunity to get actively involved in your local neighbourhood and make a difference.
We are committed to meeting best practice standards for volunteering and we work in partnership with local groups to identify and promote volunteer opportunities across Devonport.
Council has set up the Volunteering Working Group to implement the Strategy. The working group is seeking to raise the profile of volunteering across Devonport, encourage more people to become volunteers and support organisations that rely on volunteers.
Members of the group are from local volunteering organisations such as:
- Volunteering Tasmania
- Mersey Community Care
- Don River Railway
- Meals on Wheels
- Red Cross
- Devonport Junior Soccer
- Devonport Library
Why volunteer?
Volunteering enables you to:
- meet new people
- get work experience
- share your skills, life experiences and expertise with the community, other volunteers and employees
- stay active and involved in your community; and
- learn new skills or maintain current skills.
Devonport City Council and Volunteering Tasmania are working in partnership to make a positive impact on sustainable volunteering community. We believe that all members of our community equally deserve the right to be included in volunteering and experience the benefits, regardless of their background or current situation.
Volunteering plays a key part of the activities and services provided by many clubs and organisations in Devonport.
To find a volunteering role that suits you visit Volunteering Tasmania
Council is keen to take on new volunteers to assist in the delivery of services to our community through:
Read the Role Statements for current volunteer opportunities with Council (in the Related Resources section below) to find a volunteer role that suits you.
Read the Volunteer Handbook to find out what you can expect from Council as a volunteer and what Council expects of you as a volunteer
Complete the online Volunteer Registration Form (printable version available in the Related Resources section below and return it to Customer Service or email it to [email protected]).
The Devonport Working Group created resources to help volunteering organisations:
Attracting volunteers
There are many creative ways you can attract volunteers to your clubs or organisation that aren’t complicated or expensive.
This could mean doing things such as asking your current volunteers to recommend a friend or relative, or organizing a day where people interested in volunteering with you can come and learn more.
It could be looking at having different types of volunteer roles such as online volunteering or micro volunteering – one-off tasks or having shorter shifts by breaking up tasks.
It could be about attracting volunteers from a broader segment of the community that has not traditionally volunteered with your club/organisation.
When thinking of ways to attract new volunteers it is helpful to reflect on why your current volunteers have decided to join your club or organisation. This could help you understand how to promote volunteering opportunities. Questions you could ask include:
- What attracted your current volunteers to volunteer with your club?
- Why were they attracted to your organisation?
- What does volunteering with your organisation offer to your current volunteers?
Download the Attracting Volunteers checklist to help you find ways to increase your pool of volunteers.
Find out more
- Micro-Volunteering: Popular Questions (And Answers!)
- Volunteer recruitment strategies you can try today | Rosterfy
- Recruiting Volunteers | Help Sheet – ourcommunity.com.au
- How to Attract & Recruit the Best Volunteers (And Keep Them) | Donorbox
- The Ultimate Guide to Volunteer Recruitment: 15+ Strategies – Qgiv Blog
Volunteer Recognition
Not every volunteer will have the same reason for volunteering. In the same way, not every volunteer will be motivated by the same type of volunteer recognition.
An important part of recognising the contribution your volunteers make is to understand their motivations for volunteering with you, and the type of volunteer recognition that your volunteers will appreciate. For instance, some people will appreciate public recognition, but others would prefer to receive the recognition privately.
Recognising volunteers doesn’t have to involve spending a lot of money. It can be as simple as saying ‘thank you’ or taking the time to show that you value the work volunteers do.
Some things to keep in mind when recognising the contribution of volunteers:
- Make sure it is sincere. People can generally tell when it’s not.
- It’s good to show your appreciation as soon as possible. You don’t have to wait to hold a formal event.
- Simple gestures can go a long way.
- Sometimes it may be appropriate to recognise all your volunteers, at other times it may be more appropriate to focus on specific individuals.
- Volunteer recognition can be informal (e.g. regular check-ins) or formal (e.g. awards).
Some ways to recognise volunteers
- Saying thank you for their time, effort, commitment etc
- Small tokens and gifts
- Events and celebrations
- Newsletters and social media
- Plaques and recognition walls
Download the Volunteer Recognition checklist to help you work out a volunteer recognition approach that works for your club or organisation.
Find out more
- Recognition – Volunteering Australia
- Volunteer Appreciation: A Guide to Thanking & Recognizing Your Volunteers (galaxydigital.com)
- The complete guide to creating a volunteer recognition program – Awards Management Software (awardforce.com
- 5.7 Recognising and Valuing Volunteers | Resource Kit (vaslan.org.uk)
- Your guide to delivering a great volunteer placement (theaccessgroup.com)
Best Practice volunteer management
Using best practice principles to manage volunteers – recruiting, screening, inducting, engaging and activating volunteers – in your club or organisation will increase the chances of attracting and retaining committed volunteers.
Many good practice principles are not complicated, but sometimes when you didn’t have time to step back and look at how you are doing things, it can be easy to take short cuts that end up causing problems down the track.
The National Standards for Volunteer Involvement provide a framework to guide and support the volunteering sector in Australia. They provide good practice guidance and benchmarks to help organisations attract, manage and retain volunteers, and help manage risk and safety in their work with volunteers.
Download the Best Practice volunteer management checklist to identify ways to improve your volunteer management practices.
Find out more