“I met so many wonderful people and feel I’m part of something meaningful and world changing”
euforians spoke. 31 of our members answered (fully or partly) the annual evaluation for members questionnaire. And their answers will make you smile. The questionnaire focussed on four main areas: our volunteers’ satisfaction regarding their overall experience as a euforia member, their learnings and personal development through volunteering with euforia, their involvement in strategic questions, and communication.
Looking at the results, the first striking figure tells us quite something on the level of engagement of our community: for nearly 70% of our volunteers euforia occupies a significant place in their lives. What’s more, euforians are really happy with their engagement, as shown by a 84% satisfaction rate. 80% of volunteers feel their engagement and commitment is recognised, and 75% are proud at how we live euforia values on a daily basis and at how their euforia experience contributes to fully unleashing their potential. Finally, 90% consider themselves free to decide on their engagement and 80% see their euforia volunteering supporting their wellbeing.
At euforia we consider personal development as a crucial component of the volunteering experience we offer. Therefore we asked our volunteers how happy they are with the skills they developed through organising one of our events (imp!act and STEP into action) and/or training and coaching our volunteers as part of the eTP (euforia Training Programme). euforians are simply staggered by how much they’ve learnt in terms of teamwork and project management; they’ve also developed sound facilitation skills and say that through euforia they’ve grown more aware of what contributes to their well-being – and it’d be hard to question how important this is in our fast-paced and ever-changing society.
As euforia aims to be a volunteer-driven organisation, we asked our euforic community how they would like to be involved in strategic questions. It emerged quite clearly that volunteers feel little involved in strategic issues. However they’d be willing to enhance their engagement through participating in temporary task-forces and workshops tackling specific issues, and during a one-day annual or biannual gathering in which euforians bring up issues to tackle with other euforians. They also value being updated on the progress on euforia’s annual objectives and on what the community is working on.
Euforians like how we spread euforic news, especially our engagement opportunities newsletter exclusive to our members, and the general newsletter. Though, writing belongs to the past – more visuals and videos would bring our communication to the next level.
Finally, ideas are plentiful as to how to get euforia even closer to be the one organisation everyone should get engaged with. Here are some of them: an online competence centre in which euforians outline their expertise, so that we know where to get help and can support each other best; social gatherings that bring our beautiful community together; and becoming aware of the contribution we’re making to changing the world for the better.
As talking is good, but walking the talk is better, we’re currently thinking at how to integrate euforians’ feedback and comments so as to boost our volunteers’ experience to the next level. Do you want to get involved to enhance our volunteer’s experience? Get in touch with massimiliano@euforia.ch.