Report for Forum Members: A New Dawn: Strategic Pathways for the Future of Volunteering in Development Report for Forum Members

A New Dawn: Strategic Pathways for the Future of Volunteering in Development is a report for Forum member organisations based Forum’s Collective Strategy Process. This process included 31 conversations with Forum members and 10 external stakeholders between May and August 2022.

A New Dawn takes as its starting point the challenges and opportunities that volunteer-involving organisations have experienced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other phenomena, including an ever-strengthening global movement for climate justice, greater recognition of the need for localisation, changes in how people volunteer and what organisations and communities need, and much more.

It sets out a strategy for volunteering in development for the next three to five years, for Forum members and the wider sector, and offers possible pathways to help organisations prioritise and effectively navigate the post-COVID environment.

The report has five chapters –

  1. Responding to and Learning from the Pandemic
  2. Addressing Decolonisation
  3. Tackling Wider Trends
  4. Evolving Approaches to Volunteering Programming
  5. Developing Forum as a Network

This paper was written by  Nick Ockenden, an independent research, evaluation and strategy consultant specialising in international volunteering who led Forum’s Collective Strategy Process (www.nickockenden.com).

Forum has also published a companion piece to this paper, a Framing Paper for IVCO 2022, which was also written by Nick Ockenden based on the Collective Strategy Process to frame and inform conversations at the IVCO 2022 Conference.

The Report is available in English, French and Spanish:

Download PDF

Join a movement of global citizens working for a world where no one is left behind.

Become a Member