Funding volunteering activities in Mongolia

Summary

The program has funded three initiatives addressing different volunteering infrastructure needs in Mongolia to better understand how funding could be used as a mechanism for supporting volunteerism.

• Funding the English translation of volunteers.mn in partnership with National Mongolian Volunteering Organisation (NMVO), a project initially developed through the Exploring Volunteering for Development innovation workstream.
• Co-funding ‘All for YOUth, YOUth for All,’ a four-year project led by Caritas, in partnership with the Mongolian Youth Council and Centre for Citizenship Education. One of the four goals of the project is to promote volunteerism among youth and connect volunteers to volunteer-seeking organisations.
• Commissioning research into volunteering in Mongolia and sharing insights with key government and non-governemnt stakeholders. 

Our approach

In line with our broader workstream approach of 'working with the willing' during the initial discovery phases of the Global Volunteering Accelerator, we drew on existing relationships with NMVO and Caritas and identified opportunities for support, working with them to scope initiatives and monitoring their progress.

In December 2022, NMVO launched the English-language translated version of volunteers.mn; and throughout the same year, the ‘All for YOUth, YOUth for All,’ delivered the following outcomes:

• engaged volunteers in the project activities and promoting volunteerism
• advocated for key recommendations to be reflected in policy documents
• offered networking and exhibition opportunities for volunteer involving civil society organizations (CSO)
• supported NGOs to adopt and use volunteer management guidelines and tools.

‘All for YOUth, YOUth for All’ made improvements to the user experience of a volunteer website aimed at young people, which is awaiting launch. Australian volunteer, Zach Conn, supported Caritas on the implementation of some components of this project. You can watch Zach talk about his experience as a volunteer in this Facebook video from the ‘I Volunteer, Do You?’ event, which was funded through this project.

The program also commissioned a local researcher who surveyed 52 organisations in Mongolia and conducted in-depth interviews capturing data on the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors affecting volunteering in Mongolia. This research was shared with volunteering organisations at a workshop attended by government and non-government organisations where participants shared insights and identified future priorities for volunteering in Mongolia. Learn more about the stakeholder workshop.