What's In A Name?
What's in a name? Well, it turns out a whole lot! For those familiar with our journey you will know much of the story. For those new to the journey with us here is a statement from our Board of Directors. Simply, we are retiring a name that's been in use for 9 years and continuing to focus on VolunteerConnector which really reflects for us . . . Who We Are!
Message from Board of Directors
Growing our services in the digital space over the last few years is uncharted territory for our organization. But the team was able to navigate this successfully because, as they know too well, we’ve evolved before and it just made us stronger and more sustainable.
Since our inception in 1955, the volunteer needs of our community have driven these changes, and VolunteerConnecter was another evolution to reflect what the staff fortunately anticipated as a growing demand coming our way, which was: a digitized volunteer centre. And now the Volunteer Centre of Calgary is effectively serving a much wider geographical range in 2022 than it ever has before.
It was only a few years ago, we were serving Calgary and region with a few outlier clients in other parts of Alberta. In just this short amount of time, we saw a significant increase in the percentage of Albertan clients outside of Calgary, and soon after, we saw a dramatic increase of users and clients across the nation.
With no other digital tool like ours, the VolunteerConnector has grown over the last four years from serving over 400 organizations in a year to over 4000 this past year; which translated to serving about 30,000 volunteers per year to 500,000 this past year!
A huge part of this growth success is because we also went from having zero regional partners to 37 across the nation!!! Each of which are working hard to empower volunteers in their communities through the VolunteerConnector.
The pandemic over the last two years, and the BC floods over the last year, demonstrated for us how effective our digital tool is in a time of crisis. And in times of crisis, we learned quickly: we don't have the opportunity to explain what Propellus does for those who don't know us – we only have time to connect the need with the help, and the help with the need. Learning from our users in these instances taught us that the digital tool’s name – VolunteerConnector – was easy for them to spread the word. Wanna help? Go to VolunteerConnector.org Need help? Go to VolunteerConnector.org It was quickly adopted as a resource for communities to share, Emergency Operating Centres to utilize, and disaster relief teams to recruit.
The clarity in the name VolunteerConnector taught us that it really connects with individuals in it’s literal meaning, and we want to continue to foster a community of belonging as we recruit and engage with volunteers seeking purposeful work. As well, it really connects with grassroots organizations – anything from small impact efforts to major societal movements that depend on fellow citizens showing up, and volunteering their time and voice.
So effectively, and organically, VolunteerConnector has become the beacon that this organization proudly shines its mission through.
With such monumental outcomes from the great work done by the staff, funders and our regional partners, and with volunteers at the center of every decision we make, I’m excited to share with you that the board made a motion at our last meeting and it passed unanimously: Volunteer Centre of Calgary, operating as Propellus, will now be known as Volunteer Centre of Calgary, operating as VolunteerConnector.
Congratulations to the hard working team behind the scenes who worked together to achieve this great success. We are all excited for the continued growth ahead.
- VolunteerConnector Board of Directors -