How Should We Engage Volunteers during Disease Outbreak?

The ongoing community effort to prevent community spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus could leave many social purpose entities asking, “how should we proceed from here with our volunteer partnerships?”

While the cases identified are non-residents and there have been no reports of the community spread of the disease to date, we should do all that is necessary to prevent and contain any potential outbreak.

As most social purpose entities work with vulnerable groups of service users, we have to put in place a plan in how we partner volunteers during crises such as this kind of outbreaks. While some social purpose entities may opt for the simple “binary” method of completely suspending all volunteer activities in the event of an outbreak, most other social purpose entities partner may find it difficult to do so, especially when volunteers play a critical role in rendering mission-critical service and/or in extending care to the vulnerable during such crises periods.

I have had the privilege of writing a paper on volunteer engagement during crises years ago when I was a Volunteer Partnerships professional, as my organization then faced the threats of the H1N1 and haze crises. Drawing from my experience, I have created a simple toolkit to help us develop such a volunteer engagement plan during crises.

You may download it from our e-Shop here. Download Volunteer Engagement Crisis Response Plan

I hope this will help us to better position our volunteer partnerships for impact during this period. Do also check out our other Strategic Volunteer Partnerships resources while you are there.

We sincerely pray for everyone to be safe as we collectively work for the good of our community. Stay well and healthy.

James Lim
Lead Thrive-Synergist & Founder
Emmaus Strategies LLP
30 Jan 2020 

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James Lim

James is the Lead Thrive-Synergist & Founder of Emmaus Strategies; a social enterprise that “fuels good”. It does this through Mental Well-Being programmes for individuals and organizations, as well as Strategic Volunteer Partnerships consultancy and training for non-profits.