The document discusses the INVEST project which aims to strengthen volunteering by providing regular training to volunteers. The project seeks to increase motivation, encourage quality volunteering, and help volunteers develop skills. It focuses on pooling resources to enhance learning opportunities for volunteers using various methods. The goal is to encourage volunteers to recognize skills gained and boost employment prospects through experiences like developing portfolios. Expected results include a booklet in mid-2013 with tools for competency analysis and statements of skills acquired by volunteers.

1. Our mission
is to strengthen volunteering interventions by training volunteers on a regular basis in order to
increase motivation for volunteering, encourage the quality and continuity of volunteer involvement
and empower volunteers themselves in their competence development.
Volunteering and learning: those are the keywords to the INVEST project !
Our overall aim is to pool a wide variety of resources and experiences within our different
organisations to enhance the learning opportunities of volunteers. Our main objective is to apply
different methods and tools for facilitating educational opportunities and share the experiments and
experiences among the partners and the wider European community involved in volunteering.
By applying a "learning by doing" approach we intend to encourage our volunteers into making
more of the voluntary work they perform, raising their awareness of the many competences and
skills they are acquiring during the process and instil a sense of fun in working on serious lifelong
learning skills which they can apply in many different contexts and their working life.
We are eager to encourage volunteers to get the most out of their volunteering experience and
thereby boost their employment prospects, besides driving their learning needs towards more
training opportunities and / or further / higher education pathways.
In order to support personal development, we will stimulate (among others) volunteers to work on
their (extended) CVs, more specifically by developing a portfolio. Portfolios provide unique
opportunities to stimulate people to reflect on experiences and achievements and get to grips with
assessing their own capabilities and increasing their quality of life, connecting this to their
ambitions.
We welcome answers to the following questions from any interested parties:
 What educational opportunities do you create for your volunteers ?
 How do you assess the (learning) needs of your volunteers ?
 Do you support portfolio development for your volunteers ?
 If so, by organising portfolio seminars or by individual or peer guidance sessions ?
 What documents, if any, do you give out to volunteers, stating the skills and competences
they have acquired ?
Expected results
Midway 2013 a booklet in the shape of a digital document will become available with a collection of
tools to perform a (learning)needs analysis and a pool of training resources, including models and
methodical guidelines how to work on competence development of volunteers and statements of
skills. A special section will be devoted to portfolios and various portfolio formats.
Contact us
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Hogeschool Rotterdam, Netherlands: J.Stofberg@hr.nl
Cibervoluntarios, Spain: yolanda.rueda@cibervoluntarios.org
University of Roehampton, United Kingdom: S.Howlett@roehampton.ac.uk
Ciessevi, Centro Servizi per il Voluntariato nella Provinzia di Milano, Italy: cannonieri@ciessevi.org
CFSA, Center for Frivilligt Socialt Arbejde, Denmark: ocm@frivillighed.dk