The Volunteering Standards – Self-Assessment Tool for Volunteering Development Capacities for National Societies has been developed to support National Societies in strengthening their volunteering strategies, systems, and processes. The tool enables National Societies (NSs) to assess their current capacities, identify priorities, and advance volunteering development across the organization.

The development of these standards is the result of a broad and collaborative process involving National Societies in the Americas Region, volunteering focal points, and colleagues from across the IFRC network. In addition to contributions from National Societies in the Americas, the drafting and review process benefited from feedback provided by colleagues from the IFRC Secretariat in Geneva, representatives from other IFRC regions, and technical colleagues from different departments within the IFRC Americas Regional Office. Through workshops, exchanges, and successive review processes, stakeholders collectively identified the need for a practical mechanism to measure progress and guide improvements in key areas of volunteering development.

The standards complement and are aligned with existing organizational assessment and capacity-strengthening mechanisms, including OCAC, BOCA, PER, SAF, the 13 Standards on Safety, Security and Well-Being, and other relevant approaches used within the IFRC network. While these mechanisms address important institutional capacities, National Societies identified several areas of volunteering development that were not fully covered by existing tools. The Volunteering Standards were therefore developed to complement these mechanisms and address identified gaps.

National Societies recognized that volunteering development extends beyond the management of the volunteer cycle alone. While volunteer management remains essential, sustainable volunteering development also depends on broader institutional conditions and the creation of an enabling environment that supports volunteers and volunteering at all levels of the organization.