So, five years after its founding, JVN embarked on a strategic organizational review, commissioning three focus groups, which I was privileged to facilitate over the summer. We were trying to gauge the views of JVN’s main ‘customers’, the volunteers and the charities, about how the organisation has been doing in its short lifetime.
Below are the main points of feedback raised by the focus groups’ participants:
- JVN is seen as independent, trustworthy and cross-communal.
- JVN is seen as an established and necessary part of the Jewish community.
- People are proud of the way JVN puts Jewish values into action.
- People particularly appreciate JVN’s services in matching people to volunteering opportunities.
- JVN’s current website, which aims to match volunteers with opportunities, needs to be revamped and updated to help JVN provide the best possible service to volunteers.
- JVN’s role in training trustees and volunteer managers and in promoting Jewish volunteering is seen as indispensable.
- There is not enough awareness of JVN and its contributions within the Jewish community.
- Jewish charities appreciate the way in which JVN has helped them to network and coordinate their activities over the last five years.
- Smaller organisations find JVN’s volunteer-matching and training invaluable; they simply do not have the resources to do these jobs themselves.
Here are a just few comments JVN received from the focus groups:
- “It’s the best kind of shidduch-making – based on knowledge of both parties.”
- “I did feel very supported … it [JVN] gave me new thoughts about what volunteering could offer and what it would bring me as well.”
- “JVN has helped to train our staff in how to engage and retain volunteers from year to year.”
- “We wouldn’t be able to service the community without an external organisation providing the volunteers.”
It is widely expected that JVN will expand its existing services and develop new ones in coming years. JVN’s Trustees, in consultation with staff, are currently considering the practical implications of these findings, the positive and the critical. In response to the findings, work is already underway on a new website, scheduled to be running from early 2014, and there is an on-going full programme of training sessions for volunteers and charities (click here to see full list of session).
I would like to express my thanks to all those who volunteered their time to help JVN review its progress!
Margaret Harris is Emeritus Professor of Voluntary Sector Organisation, Aston University; Visiting Professor at Birkbeck University of London; and Senior Research Adviser to IVAR, the Institute for Voluntary Action Research. Margaret has written numerous chapters and articles on the voluntary sector and is the author of the book 'Organizing God's Work: Challenges for Churches and Synagogues'. She currently holds a place on JVN’s Advisory Board.
If you would like to read the full report please click on the link here
