On the occasion of the European Year of Voluntary Activities 2011, Fundación Luis Vives has issued some guidelines to help NGOs to deal with volunteers in an effective way and keep them involved in the organisation’s work.

The book provides a theoretical framework on how to support the participation of volunteers and on suggests a series of practical tools for a better management of their activities.

The studies shows that the reasons why people abandon voluntary activities are depersonalization, emotional overload, lack of training or problems to relate with the beneficiaries of the activities. A few suggestions focusing on volunteers’ role in the organisation have been thus identified: encourage volunteers’ motivation, deepen their commitment, coordinate their work with the work of the employees of the organisation as well as develop a permanent training identifying volunteers’ needs.

The publication is available on Fundación Luis Vives website.