Bridging the skills gap

By Erin Williams

Ballarat Cares is on track to establish the first corporate volunteering model in regional Australia.
Leading United Kingdom volunteering expert John Davies met with Ballarat Cares’ corporate members last week to provide an insight into the establishment of volunteering programs that make use of employees’ professional skills.

Mr Davies is program director of iT4Communities, a leading IT sector volunteer program in the UK.

He said Ballarat Cares had developed a model that was well designed for regional towns.

But he said getting professionals into small organisations was a big problem.

“We hope the two sides understand each other. It’s about bridging that gap,” Mr Davies said.

Ballarat Cares was formed in November last year to match corporate volunteers with community projects that address areas of social need in the region.

Ballarat Cares executive director Bronwen Clark said the organisation aimed to put IT professionals into charitable organisations to help them operate better.

She said Ballarat needed a corporate volunteering model because its culture was changing.

“Businesses really want to be involved in the community,” Ms Clark said.

“It’s all about businesses connecting to the wellbeing of the community. It’s about finding a new way and making good use of goodwill in the community.” Ms Clark said the model would be operating in August but Ballarat Cares needed to increase its corporate members. Ballarat Cares held its inaugural meeting on March 14. For more information about Ballarat Cares, phone the organisation’s executive director Bronwen Clark on 5331 6777.

[This article is from the Ballarat Courier, Saturday June 28, 2008.]