HR & VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT

A Culture Of Professional Volunteerism

Janaagraha has a core group of paid permanent staff and about 200 volunteers provide us our HR requirements at any given point in time. Volunteers are important to Janaagraha in two respects: they infuse the organization with new ideas and creativity, and play a critical part of the ethos of the organization. 'Practical Patriotism' and 'Professional Volunteerism' are drivers in Janaagraha's approach to volunteers.

Volunteerism in many countries is an integral part of student activity as well as citizen involvement. Contributing time in old-age homes, blood donation drives for the Red-Cross, providing help to clean neighborhood parks, political campaigning or internships in government institutions of volunteering is a significant allocation of people’s time, skills and energies.

In India the concept of volunteerism is still in its infancy. We have found that people are willing to give their time and energies if they find the experience rewarding and believe that their work helps make a difference. The key is in structuring the activity so that it is rewarding for the individual as well as for Janaagraha.

Janaagraha has provided unique opportunities to volunteers to enhance individual skills while contributing to their city and society. Bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and skills and exposing them to issues of governance,citizenship and democracy provides them an opportunity to be a part of an invigorating experience.

The challenges in volunteer management are different from standard human resource management. It requires dealing with a large and dynamic pool, constantly updating the volunteer data bank, matching availability and skillsets to requirements, continuing communications through the internet and defining appropriate policies for volunteer relationships.