I’m reaching out with a request for your professional expertise to help MAVA understand how changes we’ve seen in the past 18 months have affected today’s volunteerism, and our shared work of volunteer engagement. Please complete our 2021 Shifting Environment Survey to tell us about YOUR experiences – what’s happening with your communities, organizations, and volunteers, as we adjust to altered expectations and new realities. 

In the last year, surveys of nonprofits have evaluated the impact of many issues - the COVID-19 pandemic, economic upheavals, reckoning with racial injustice; you may have even responded to a few. MAVA’s Shifting Environment surveys assess the volunteerism landscape across our state and beyond to help us map the evolution of past trends, track emerging developments, and capture innovations in volunteer engagement. Feedback from leaders of volunteers resulted in our groundbreaking 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2018 reports, Status of Minnesota's Volunteer Programs in a Shifting Environment. Findings from these studies helped MAVA tailor our training services, in-depth research, and resource development to provide timely, relevant tools to the field.

Now more than ever, your voice is critically needed. We want to hear from people working with volunteers in all types of settings, and every level of experience; we also invite responses from multiple staff members at the same organization to help us better understand our changes at the program level. Please fill out the survey only once, although you may receive an invitation from several sources. It should take about 15 - 20 minutes to complete – an investment of your time that we greatly appreciate. 

To show our gratitude, survey respondents can enter a drawing for a $25 discount on a 2021 MAVA training or event. Drawings will take place weekly until the survey closes on October 1st – the sooner you complete the survey, the more chances you have to win!

Preliminary results will be available by the end of 2021 at www.mavanetwork.org; a full report, including recommendations for harnessing trends uncovered through the survey, will be published in early 2022. You can also help MAVA produce its most informative, useful and timely findings yet by forwarding this link - 2021 Shifting Environment Survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MAVATrends2021) - to colleagues at your organization or others - and by filling out the 2021 survey today.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us!