Investment in place-based VSOs through the Victorian Volunteer Strategy  

The Victorian Government Volunteer Strategy has been developed to support and enhance volunteering. A Volunteer Strategy Taskforce has been set up to develop the strategy and provide recommendations to government on how best to support and strengthen volunteering in Victoria.  

See our blog detailing thoughts and ideas on local challenges, opportunities and ways you think we could strength the support for volunteers here. 

As a member of the Victorian Government’s Strategy Taskforce, we asked for the community to support the following proposal:  

1. Costing and appraisal of existing volunteering support infrastructure – to better understand service delivery gaps and investment options for expanding place-based volunteering supports.  

2. Recurrent funding for existing VSOs (where required due to an absence of other funding sources) to facilitate place-based service delivery.  

3. Comprehensive geographical coverage (so all Victorian communities are supported equitably). This might include expansion of existing VSOs or seed funding/partnerships to establish new VSOs such as those in Melbourne’s West growth corridors.

4. DFFH backbone and state-wide coordination for VSOs – to leverage place-based infrastructure to support the Victorian Government’s priorities (e.g. mental health prevention, pathways to employment, youth participation, COVID recovery etc etc).  

5. Medium to long-term arrangements (e.g. 5 year contracts) to reduce sector volatility and enable longer term planning.

Next read about Connecting New Migrants Through Volunteering →