The Centre for Volunteering's research projects and reports

View The Centre for Volunteering's current and recently released research reports, toolkits and guides:

Anti-Discrimination Legislation Report (October 2011)

The NSW Government is developing a NSW Volunteering Strategy. As part of the process, the Government is considering amending the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 to better protect volunteers from discrimination. The new strategy, including any possible changes to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, will have important implications for the volunteer sector.

The Centre for Volunteering considers that the impact of the proposed anti-discrimination changes on volunteer engaging organisations will be better understood if there is access to good information about the structure of volunteer-engaging organisations. Therefore The Centre created a short survey with the aim of providing a snapshot of the structure of volunteer engaging organisations in NSW today. In order to get the most accurate picture possible and to assist the NSW Government in considering the potential impact of the proposed changes 981individuals across NSW were asked to participate and 129 responded.

Download the Anti-Discrimination Legislation Report

Skilled Diversity Project Final Report (September 2011)

The Centre for Volunteering's 'Skilled Diversity' project seeks to ensure that Highly Skilled Culturally Diverse (HSCD) volunteers are socially included and can contribute to the not-for-profit organisations that recruit them in a meaningful and rewarding way for both parties. It also provides a source of highly skilled potential employees for Australian business, with their prior learning recognised and certified as work-ready. The opportunities from this project for HSCD volunteers are to gain a better understanding of the Australian workplace culture, getting assistance in maintaining their skills by making use of their professional capability, improving their communication skills and ultimately being assisted in their transition to the paid workforce.

As part of the project 'Benefits Kit', including training and consulting was developed to assist organisations access and utilise HSCD volunteers and disseminated via face-to-face training and consulting using a collaborative environment based on the proven model of Bridges Incorporated's BNA social enterprise collaborative paradigm.

Download the Skilled Diversity Project Final Report

Skilled Diversity Project
Not-for-profit organisations are the key – helping them will help volunteers
The Centre's Skilled Diversity Project will research the factors that make utilisation of highly skilled culturally diverse volunteers by not-for-profit organisations successful (both for the volunteer and the organisation). The project was launched by the NSW Volunteering Minister, the Hon Peter Primrose; along with the Deputy Mayor and Councillors of the City of Sydney, in May 2010. Download the project flyer

Governance of NSW NFP Organisations Research Report (June 2010)
In 2008 The Centre for Volunteering (The Centre) evaluated the issue of optimal board size. This evaluation and subsequent discussions revealed a general need for a broader baseline understanding of governance in Not-for-Profit (NFP) organisations, board size being just one aspect of this. This led to the decision to conduct an expanded research project including the other aspects of board operation, such as...

The Supply and Demand of Volunteers in the Not-for-Profit sector of New South Wales Research Report (March 2010)
The Centre for Volunteering conducted an investigation into the supply and demand for volunteers in the not-for-profit (NFP) sector. The project combined a literature review, a summary of available Australian statistics, an analysis of trends and interviews with volunteer managers from four major NFP organisations. MORE

Reimbursement and Value of Volunteer Effort (March 2010)
This research report from The Centre for Volunteering's Research and Policy team examines reimbursement of volunteers for their out-of-pocket expenses as well as assessing the value of a volunteers' effort in the not-for-profit sector of NSW. Volunteer effort is represented in monetary terms as hours of work comparative to an equivalent paid employee role in a similar style of organisation. MORE

"Highly Skilled with Insufficient English" Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Volunteers Utilisation (June 2008)
This project was initiated by The Centre for Volunteering (The Centre) as a result of its research department becoming aware from various sources that the number of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people wanting to volunteer was increasing and that a substantial number of people from CALD backgrounds were found to have difficulties communicating in English. MORE

Frontier of Opportunity: Critical Success Factors of Employee Volunteering Programs for the Small-to-Medium Not-for-Profit Sector research report and Employee Volunteer Programs Toolkit and Guide (May 2008)
The Centre for Volunteering has been investigating best practice into how corporate Employee Volunteering Programs (EVPs) successfully connect with small-to-medium not-for-profit organisations. The results from this research have guided the development of a toolkit for NFP organisations wishing to set up or manage their own EVPs. MORE

Law Report: It's a bit of a minefield (April 2007)
The Centre for Volunteering is pleased to release its findings on the legal issues and needs survey conducted in 2007 with valuable support from The Law and Justice Foundation of NSW. For the first time in NSW, we have obtained information from 283 of our member organisations about the types of legal issues volunteering organisations face, the resources they currently use to deal with them and ideally the resources organisations would like to access to better help them with any type of legal issue associated with volunteering.
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT