CSA WEBINAR: Wide Angle Lens of Volunteer Engagement with UMN Extension
Channel: Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences
Date: 11/07/2019

Citizen science programs ask volunteers to help with a variety of tasks, including monitoring, reporting, analysis, and even outreach. But do you struggle to make the most of volunteer potential? This session will introduce a model that describes the full life cycle of a volunteer’s experience across their volunteering career, putting training in the context of other essential program components. This model is easily adaptable to any volunteer program that involves initial training prior to service, such as is commonly required in citizen science.

Presenters (from CSA member organization, University of Minnesota Extension) will use anecdotes, stories, case studies and scenarios to provide real world examples of the theories presented, and participants will be invited to share their own experiences and ideas. By zooming out the focus to a wide-angle view of a volunteer’s experience, the research-based model grounded in real examples provide useful guidance for a work plan for improving volunteer engagement. This interactive webinar highlight the many points in the cycle at which you can support volunteers so that they can be successful and sustain their volunteer service.

Presenters: Andrea Lorek Strauss, Amy Rager, Britt Forsberg, University of Minnesota Extension