Quality Standards

A good match between the volunteers’ skills and expectations and the project requirements is the most essential key for a successful volunteering job. This requires not only a clear awareness and communication of which skills are needed but also an intense selection process to find out whether volunteer and project fit together. Often, volunteer placements require special tasks such as teaching that need special training and qualifications. It is the agencies duty to either select only candidates bringing skills and qualifications or to provide them with the necessary training.

This requires an individual work description stating the expectations of the project which should be available to the applicant as well.

Responsible agencies should have at least a basic selection process, including personal contact with the applicants. Despite the motivation for doing a volunteer program, not every person is capable of doing so.

After the selection, the agency should provide all the necessary information regarding the stay, the arrival, the visa requirements, and further information. Although these aspects are often left in the responsibility of the volunteers, agencies should offer support here to ensure a smooth process. Especially legal requirements of voluntary work must be clear. Many countries require a special visa for work, even if it is not for profit. Volunteers must be assured not to break local laws by working in the project. Furthermore, volunteers should be provided with as many information as possible on their concrete task, the accommodation, colleagues and the project. Preferably the agency enables the volunteer to contact former volunteers for inside information. All this should be available before signing a contract or a definite booking to enable the applicants to make a real choice.

But the selection process should not only be limited to the volunteer and the agency. The projects themselves have to be well-informed about the profiles of the incoming volunteers and have to have the right to refuse volunteers for their own reasons.

Before starting to work, the volunteers need to take part in a training or orientation session, recommended to be at least three days, independent of the length of the stay. Volunteers must know their responsibilities, their limits, the expectations, but they also need at least a basic understanding of the local habits and rules to avoid intercultural misunderstandings.

While being in the project, volunteers must have a mentor or at least an associated person they can refer to when having problems, questions or doubts. Having a contact person will help to avoid problems or misunderstandings and facilitate the success of the stay.

It should be carefully monitored how many volunteers are working in the project at the same time. By having a significant number of regular staff, the long-term impacts can be achieved much easier and the volunteer is running less of a danger to replace a regular employee. Volunteers are usually unqualified staff that are supporting the project but are not essential for the project’s success. The very same applies to projects receiving underaged volunteers. In this case, an even higher quota of regular staff is required.

Most countries volunteers go to do not have a comparable health and emergency system as the western countries have. Responsible agencies must have an emergency plan or system at hand that covers big but also individual emergencies

During the stay, regular evaluation meetings should be held to make sure that no conflicts or problems hinder the work during the volunteer stay. Before leaving, the volunteer and the mentor should evaluate the complete stay together to help the volunteer reflect on the lessons learned and to optimize the situation for following volunteers. Volunteers should also be thinking of how to support the project after returning home. Feedback should also be given to the agency to improve the mating process.

For a common understanding of the volunteer work, it is important to have clear rules and regulations to avoid misunderstandings and problems. Volunteers must know how many hours per day they are expected to work when to show up etc. Projects rely on the presence and the motivation of the volunteers and the unexpected absence of volunteers can cause major problems. Preferably the contract is signed between the three parties: The project, the agency, and the volunteer.

Volunteers can expect the agencies and projects to be transparent about the use and the spending of the application fees. Many agencies offering volunteering projects are registered as NGO or non-profit enterprises. Still, in many cases, the biggest share of the fees does not benefit the local projects but only the agency. The bigger the sum going to the project, the more likely it is that the agency is trying to support the project and not only selling a volunteer experience to the customers.

In most countries, NGO and non-profits must meet special reporting requirements regarding their financial situation and they must be able to respond to applicant’s questions.

The intention of volunteer agencies can often be interpreted by their marketing and communications. Among professional development agencies, there is a common understanding that beneficiaries should always be shown in a dignified situation, even in sales and marketing. Images showing crying or starving children are very appealing to the heart of the viewer, but they disrespect the person shown, who are usually not even aware that they are part of a media campaign. Ethical standards in marketing can be a good hint to identify a quality offer.

Projects must be driven by local needs and not the volunteers’ interest.

Volunteers can be a key to successful development cooperation and to achieve the project aim. But often, there are alternatives to volunteers. In some cases, for example, long-term volunteers or professional development workers can create a bigger impact. Be aware, that receiving volunteers cannot be a goal of itself since it will not change the local situation. Only the volunteers’ workforce might be able to do so.

Projects receiving volunteers have to follow a defined goal such as improving living conditions for their target groups, improving ecological standards or others. Projects should be designed following the logic of impact and outcomes. The development community is trying not to reproduce colonial history but to enable locals to take care of the problems themselves to avoid long-term global dependencies. It may be the case that the project goals are defined long-term, but anyhow project progress and development should be monitored and evaluated. A project is always defined to have an end.

As already mentioned above, the matching between skills and expectations is absolutely crucial for the volunteer’s success. Sometimes it is obvious – if you hate snakes but your placement is a snake breeding farm, it is most likely that it will become a perfect experience neither for you nor for the snakes. In other cases, it becomes a little more difficult. Although most volunteers received a high-quality education in school or college, this does not necessarily qualify them to be a good teacher as they might be lacking pedagogical skills.

It might seem easy to teach a bunch of 10-year-olds some basics of the English language, but only trained teachers can guarantee the creation of long-term knowledge. If you imagine to be taught by a random other pupil and not by your trained teacher, you can maybe get an idea of the quality gap possible in teaching. In the worst cases, the presence of volunteers can lead to the fact that no professional will be contracted. This way the volunteer program destroys local jobs and makes it even more difficult to create wealth and development. Volunteer projects may not have a negative impact on the local labor market.

The task of a volunteer should be clearly defined and measurable. This way it becomes clear, that volunteers are there to work, not only to party or to take pictures with cute children.  When it comes to certain responsibilities and organizational rules and regulations such as working time, holiday, or hierarchy volunteers should be treated equally to other employees in the project without receiving a special role due to their origin.

The volunteer, on the other hand, has a clear idea of what is expected and needed to get his job done. When a volunteer leaves, the task should be handed over to the successor so that the efforts won’t get lost. The work of the volunteer should be evaluated together with the project and the volunteer to see if there are lessons to be learned and if there are means to the volunteers’ experience and outcomes. Projects and agencies must assess the presence of volunteers on a regular basis to find out if the volunteers help to achieve to project aims or not.

Volunteers are often received for income generation, not for the work they are willing to do. Generally, this should not be seen as a bad thing, because the money “gained” with the presence of the volunteer can be used to achieve the project goals. Anyhow, we believe that it is very important to communicate the role of the volunteer and the expectations towards the volunteer clearly.