June 26 and 27th, 2010- Global Corporate Volunteer Council
The International Association of Volunteer Efforts’ Global Corporate Volunteer Council conducted its annual meeting the last week of June in New York. This mighty group of Employee Volunteer Program leaders came from as far as Madrid, Sao Paulo and Seoul to just down the street in Manhattan. It was so good to see many long time colleagues and meet some new faces. It was particularly interesting to meet Lula from Telephonica and learn of how she is managing a volunteer network in Spain and across Latin America. Empowerment from the use of intra-company blogs and self posting of photos and videos. Luiz from C&A in Brazil gave a very compelling presentation on the importance of measurement. And Anna from Starbucks shared her view on Impact Measurement. David Fong, Director of Singapore Cares gave an overview of what is to be an important IAVE World Conference in Singapore in January. http://www.iave.org/content/21st-iave-world-volunteer-conference-singapore-2011
That evening at the Associations of State Service Commissions Annual Meeting, a true pioneer in National Service was awarded their highest honor. Shirley Sagawa helped craft the legislation that led to the creation of AmeriCorps. She has helped shaped much of the forward thinking in regards to volunteering. She just published her latest book, The American Way to Change. I look forward to reading it and sharing the highlights with you.