Friday Facts: whos reimbursing Volunteers?

In the Global Volunteer Management Survey, agencies were asked what benefits they provided for their volunteers. The total number of volunteers covered by the survey was 1,103,163 from 23 countries.

The results are listed below.

A few interesting points:

• the biggest was  reimbursement of travel or phone expenses (55.5%)- this means almost half of volunteers do not get one of those benefits
• parking (54.3%) came next
• free meals or drinks were provided to almost half of all volunteers
• 3.5 per cent of agencies pay their volunteers a regular cash allowance
• clothing on the job is  important with  43 per cent of volunteers being allowed to wear casual clothes and 19% getting a uniform
• 27 per cent of the volunteers are funded to do training or development
• a small number get additional benefits like club memberships, childcare and massages

Over a fifth of respondents chose the other category and saw the following as benefits:

• Social Events (2 per cent). One repondent noted that the agency provided socila events as a benefit but volunteers were expecetd to pay for them!
• References (1 per cent)
• insurance coverage which 1 per cent of agencies saw as a benefit (not an essential!)
• one Uk agency said they were not allowed to give benefits
• one said "Just being a part of our organization!" 
• one per cent said things like:  "self fulfilment", "Personal growth opportunities while supporting a cause they believe in"

What do you offer your volunteers - and why?

A blog post about Insurance?

A blog post about insurance is not very exciting but I feel compelled to share this.

But after the multiple Christchurch earthquakes, New Zealand is having hard time getting companies to provide insurance.

After paying out billions,  insurance and reinsurance companies are saying: "no more".

So Christchurch now has no insurance coverage for about 2 billion dollars of its 4.2 billion dollar property portfolio.

This means (heaven forbid) any more nasty earth movements puts the city in an awful situation. I guess the NZ government would stump up for the costs if forced but "acting Prime Minister Bill English said the Government will do what it can to help out, but "it's not the Government's intention to replace insurance companies."


One more tough situation for Christchurch.

Liquefaction at AMI Stadium

Finally, a bizarre story:
AMI Stadium is the main sports arena in Christchurch. Massively damaged in the quakes, it is unusable and now uninsurable.  The turf in the Stadium was not insured by its owners, the Council owned Venues company. AMI who had the naming rights for the stadium is one of New Zealand's major insurers. Surely an insurance company sponsor  should have checked what they were sponsoring was insured?