Happy National Student Volunteer Week 2023! This is the sixth time we’ve celebrated this annual event to recognise youth volunteering, but it certainly has a different meaning this time around.
Our Journey so Far
Communiteer was launched in 2018 in response to the State of Volunteering Australia Report ‘Help Create Happiness’, whereby we saw an opportunity for technology to play a part in addressing 6 out of 7 of the key findings. We positioned ourselves as an Aggregator between community organisations and employees of corporations, initially as a specialist in skill-based volunteering and virtual volunteering, and later expanding into facilitating transactional volunteering events and co-designing volunteering programs targeting specific social causes.
At the start of COVID, we saw a critical need to support international students in accessing essential services and to enhance the employability of students across the board in what has been a turbulent job market. This gave us the opportunity to delve deeper into the student volunteering journey, and build strong relationships with many higher education institutions in order to create a more holistic student experience.
What We’ve Been up To
In the past year, we have engaged with students from 12 universities across Australia and facilitated opportunities for them to collaborate with corporate volunteers in mentoring programs and to complete skill-based volunteering opportunities.
Read some of the stories from our youth volunteering programs in 2023!
We’ve also been piloting various student volunteering programs in partnership with both state and local government agencies. On the flip side, it created opportunities for corporates to get behind youth empowerment initiatives and facilitated new ways to engage and develop their own employees – creating a sense of shared value.
Government Investment in Youth Volunteering
Off the back of this success, Communiteer was recently awarded $1 million from the Federal Government and another $600,000 from the NSW Government to run seperate student and youth volunteering programs that would both contribute to the stablisation and replenishment of our dwindling national volunteer pool, which is at the very core of Communiteer’s mission!
This is monumental news for us! Work has already begun with our recruitment drives, design of long-term student programs, and development of our technology to facilitate more accessible and meaningful youth volunteering experiences.
Get Involved
On this note, I would like to thank you for being a part of Communiteer’s journey thus far. The reason why you’ve received this email is because our paths have crossed at some point in the past 6 years and that you believed in our vision and mission.
I now want to call on you to tell us how you want to engage with us so that we can share relevant information and opportunities with you and your organisation as they become available.
Simply fill in the form below to update your contact details and topics of interest:
These next 18-months will be critical for us as we evolve from a Start-up to a Scale-up, and to create measurable social impact through the facilitation of lifelong volunteering journeys – starting with young people.
We’re going to revitalise youth volunteering, so come join us on this journey!
Kind regards,
Victor Lee, CEO of Communiteer
