We are a diverse and inclusive member association strengthening and creating pathways for volunteerism and civic engagement in Alberta.
Our vision
Thriving communities nurtured by caring humans across Alberta.
Our mission
To nourish wellbeing and healthy communities of belonging by cultivating conditions for volunteerism and civic engagement.
Our values
- Curiosity: With intention and humility, we understand the needs and perspectives of those we serve. We challenge dominant worldviews, evolve our language, and explore innovative approaches to our work, drawing from successful past endeavors to shape a limitless future.
- Care: We approach every interaction with care, kindness, and openness. Our commitment is to foster both individual and community wellbeing, ensuring every individual feels valued and supported. Proactively, we strive to eliminate obstacles and, if needed, intervene with compassion. Our dedication to care prompts us to engage thoughtfully, considering the holistic implications of our actions on present and future generations, both human and environmental.
- Collaboration: We partner for greater impact because we are stronger together. Co-creation with others leverages our different perspectives and strengths and enhances creativity. Collaboration strengthens relationships, weaves stronger networks, and grows mutuality.
- Authenticity: We show up in our humanness since only when we are authentic can we meaningfully connect with others. We strive to consistently bring an asset-based perspective to ourselves and all those we engage with, walking the talk of living our best selves.
- Courage: We take risks. We act boldly. We take the first step, and then the next. We leave our comfort zones to head into the unknown. We lean into difference of opinion, conflict and uncertainty, taking action to stay true to our values.
We’re committed to helping Alberta do good, together.
Land Affirmation
Volunteer Alberta’s main office is situated on Treaty 6 Territory, specifically, amiskwaciwâskahikan (ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ) as it is referred to by the Plains Cree peoples among other Indigenous names, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. Our staff, board, and our work reach across Treaties 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10, and we affirm that the land we call Alberta is the traditional and ancestral territory, as well as present-day homes of many Nations, including the Blackfoot Confederacy – Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika – the Cree, Dene, Saulteaux, Nakota Sioux, Stoney Nakoda, the Tsuu T’ina Nation, and the Métis People of Alberta, which includes the Métis Settlements and the Six Regions of the Métis Nation of Alberta. Since time immemorial, First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples have cared for these lands, and they continue to do so today. We encourage you to visit https://native-land.ca/ to learn more about the land and its Nations where you live, work, and play.
Volunteer Alberta identifies and affirms the historical and current relationships of these Nations to the land as an act of reconciliation and with the awareness that acknowledging, recognizing, or affirming these facts is a small step and not enough. Quoting Sheila Batacharya and Yuk-Lin Renita Wong, Sharing Breath (2018):
“This recognition of land theft, while important, is discursive and thus remains limited. Indeed, our determination, as [mostly] non-Indigenous inhabitants of … Turtle Island, to respect treaty relationships and acknowledge settler responsibility for the historical appropriation of Indigenous land is inescapably compromised, given that, in Canada, land can evidently be stolen and not returned provided you admit to wrongdoing, say you’re sorry, speak solemnly about the need for reconciliation, and continue to make promises that, in fact, have never materialized.”
Volunteer Alberta is committed to reflecting on, critiquing, and changing our ways of knowing, being, and doing in order to start supporting and concretely contributing to reconciliation and Indigenous Resurgence in ways we have not yet done.
The Volunteer Alberta Team
August 2023
Our strategic priorities for 2024-2026:
From regenerative agriculture, we are learning “It’s all about the soil!” Increasingly, we see our work as cultivating the conditions for Albertans to thrive, individually and collectively. Three key guiding elements help us discern where we can have the most impact.
We are Connectors
Volunteer Alberta convenes networks and collaborates across sectors to nourish relationships and advance collective work. We do this by:
- Bridging relationships and linking people, organizations and institutions that should know about each other to uplift their work.
- Facilitating partnerships that advance volunteerism and civic engagement.
- Convening conversations that cross silos and organizational boundaries to support strategic dreaming and imagining what’s possible in the sector.
- In the spirit of connection and relationshipping, reaching out with intention to include diverse perspectives and connect them into key conversations.
- Listening deeply to our members to help us discern what new or renewed conversations will help with their challenges and opportunities.
We are Collaborators
Volunteer Alberta works alongside member organizations and other partners to unleash collective insight, capability, and agency. We accomplish this by:
- Convening conversations that matter and offering programs to nourish capabilities–supporting organizations to navigate the here and now, and also what’s emerging and next.
- Co-designing and co-generating initiatives that further volunteering and civic engagement
- with members and partners.
- Contributing our networks, systems support, and communications capability to the initiatives of partners and members that align with our mission.
- Collaborating with and leveraging existing civic engagement initiatives.
We are Change Makers
Volunteer Alberta upholds and uplifts the value of volunteering and civic engagement in the structures and systems of the wider society to enable thriving communities. We accomplish this by:
- Collaborating with our members and partners to support research, pilots and experiments that can inform future shifts in policy and systems.
- Working with our partners and members to identify high-leverage initiatives for growing conditions for volunteering and civic engagement.
- Conducting experiments in governance, systems, routines and roles and widely sharing what we are (un)learning.
- Advocating both for public policy shifts and also small tweaks that cultivate conditions for volunteering and civic engagement to enable positive change to happen at both the macro and micro levels.
- Building awareness and shared understanding of the value and impact of volunteering and civic engagement.
Volunteer Alberta endeavours to shine light on promising ways forward for initiatives, organizations and institutions supporting volunteers and civic engagement. Three key concepts help us to be bold and brave:
We are Dream Hosts
- Inspired by our own experiences of Strategic Dreaming, we support our members and partners to envision positive futures that galvanize and focus work for positive change. We seek to contribute to the “futures literacy” of the sector, helping us lift our gaze to what is possible, to dream big and to honour our collective agency.
We are Seekers
- Through social research and design, decolonization of our practices, tracking developments in other jurisdictions, and other forays into the unknown, we listen for ways of doing and being that are seeking to emerge in support of communities of belonging and wellbeing through volunteering and civic engagement.
We are Incubators
- We support the prototypes, pilots, experiments and novel initiatives, and new ways of convening that are so important for finding positive ways forward in our rapidly changing contexts. “The path is made by walking,” and we welcome members and partners sharing ideas we might help incubate.
Our history
Volunteer Alberta (The Association of Volunteer Centres and Volunteer Engaging Organizations) has been a leader and voice in the nonprofit sector since 1990. Working with rural and urban communities across the province, we have grown and transformed to accommodate the ever-changing needs of the sector.
Today, we continue to represent the diverse voices of our sector. We champion and celebrate volunteer centres, volunteer-engaging organizations, volunteerism, and civic engagement in Alberta. We’re looked to for expert advice, guidance, programs, services, and resources to enhance the sector’s work.
