Framework for Local Volunteering - Consultant
Habitat
Project Title: Framework for Local Volunteering at Habitat for Humanity
Location: Remote
Application Closes: 2 May 2025
Duration: Five (5) Months
Background:
In the new 50 for 50 Strategic Plan, Habitat is committed to building more homes, transforming the housing sector to expand access, and mobilizing volunteers to take action for housing.
As part of this plan, Habitat is dedicated to expanding and deepening local volunteering. The goal is to mobilize 3 million volunteers and foster deeper engagement on housing issues over the next three years.
To achieve this, Habitat’s Volunteer and Institutional Engagement (VIE) Division is leading efforts to build a strong framework for local volunteering with a focus outside of the US. This includes the development of key resources such as a framework for engaging local volunteers, toolkit, and training to support robust local volunteering across the network.
The team wants to develop foundational resources and training to guide Habitat’s country offices outside of the US. These resources and trainings should help national organizations better integrate volunteering into their strategic planning and provide the foundation of strong volunteer management in support of volunteering for development.
Position Summary:
Reporting to the Program Manager who will serve as the project lead with strategic support and oversight from the Director of Next Generation Volunteering Department, the consultant will conduct desk research that includes:
- Mapping internal and external resources on local volunteering,
- Facilitating design and development of a local volunteering toolkit to address critical gaps and key challenges in local volunteering
- Develop a comprehensive training module to reinforce key concepts from the toolkit.
The successful candidate will be able to utilize expertise in volunteering for development to develop a practical resource and training to support the Habitat network globally. This role will partner with regional offices in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and with national organizations to ensure the toolkit is relevant and useful to the Habitat network outside of the US.
Scope of Work and Deliverables:
Deliverable 1: A Local Volunteering Toolkit for Habitat for Humanity (May-September)
* Co-design with regional offices to gather feedback to ensure clarity, relevance, and usability of the local volunteering toolkit.
* Develop a toolkit to guide non-U.S. Habitat entities and organizations on their local volunteer engagement and ensure alignment with Habitat’s 50 for 50 Strategic Plan, regional frameworks and other organizational priorities and core programming.
- Utilize and recontextualize existing network resources in developing the toolkit.
- Toolkit structure should include three (3) parts: basic instructional information, checklists, templates, and forms, and tips and promising practices from the field both internal and external.
- Potential chapters could include developing a local volunteering strategy, preparing for volunteer engagement, volunteer recruitment, volunteer onboarding, training and supervising volunteers, volunteer journey, monitoring and evaluating volunteer programs and projects, and volunteer duty of care (safeguarding and safety and security).
* Collect promising practices, templates, forms, and tips from the network to be included in the toolkit.
* Map out resources on local volunteering from similar structured peer organizations and tap existing communities of practice to highlight strong and impactful case studies and examples.
* Based on the insights, examples and co-analysis with relevant stakeholders, propose a framework for Habitat’s local volunteering and define the enabling environment required for increased program impact.
* Collaborate on developing a Spanish translation options for the toolkit.
Deliverable 2: Local Volunteering Framework Training Suite (July-September)
* Develop a one-day foundational training based on the toolkit to provide national organizations core skills to effectively engage local volunteers.
* Create a training roll-out strategy and propose approaches utilizing a train-the-trainer model. This will facilitate the creation of a trainers’ pool for Habitat in the next 2 years.
* Facilitate one in-person foundational training to effectively teach the training to habitat trainers and gather feedback on training.
* Develop a 2-hour to 4-hour specialized training focused on maximizing local volunteer impact with themes and topics to be determined.
Deliverable 3: Framework Socialization Plan (September)
* Develop talking points and key messages about the framework that will be utilized to educate and inform an internal Habitat audience.
* Develop a slide deck and one hour meeting agenda that will be used to socialize the framework with internal Habitat audience to educate and build buy-in.
* Work with Habitat’s global communications team to ensure language, appearance and tone of above deliverables are consistent with Habitat’s brand guidelines.
Timeline and Requirements:
The consultancy will commence as soon as possible and will be for a period of five (5) months.
Main requirements for this role include:
- Minimum 5 years of relevant experience in international development, and volunteer program development and management, involving both global South and North actors.
- Either direct or indirect experience in engaging volunteers for development and/or community development.
- Sound diplomacy and negotiation skills. The role will coordinate with staff and leaders at
global, regional and country offices.
- Proven technical expertise and experience in building development frameworks preferably in the context of local and community-based initiatives.
- Strategic and programmatic understanding of integrating volunteering into broader development programs and national strategies.
- Research and analytical skills to conduct stakeholder consultations, focus group discussions and needs assessments.
- Training design and strong facilitation skills to lead engaging and interactive training sessions both in-person and online ensuring high-participant engagement.
- Ability to synthesize complex systems and cross-cultural approaches.
- Ability to convene and facilitate important conversations and dialogues.
- Ability to navigate comfortably using virtual collaboration.
- Experience in community and people engagement.
- Experience in embedding artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities or familiarity of AI tools is a desirable skill.
Proposal Submission Procedure:
Interested parties should submit a proposal containing a Letter of Interest, updated resume, two (2) samples of similar (toolkit, training modules) or previous work developed, and a financial proposal by 5pm Eastern Standard Time, 2 May 2025, Friday. Please send questions related to this RFP, and vendor proposals to:
Evan Davies
[email protected]
Manager, Next Generation Volunteering
Location:
The consultant(s) will be home-based with the ability to meet virtually with key stakeholders and give presentations with flexibility of working hours to be compatible with the time zones of key audience.
Travel:
To be determined. Please factor in potentially one international travel to conduct a training in the budget proposal with the understanding that the plan can change.
Location: Remote
Application Closes: 2 May 2025
Duration: Five (5) Months
Background:
In the new 50 for 50 Strategic Plan, Habitat is committed to building more homes, transforming the housing sector to expand access, and mobilizing volunteers to take action for housing.
As part of this plan, Habitat is dedicated to expanding and deepening local volunteering. The goal is to mobilize 3 million volunteers and foster deeper engagement on housing issues over the next three years.
To achieve this, Habitat’s Volunteer and Institutional Engagement (VIE) Division is leading efforts to build a strong framework for local volunteering with a focus outside of the US. This includes the development of key resources such as a framework for engaging local volunteers, toolkit, and training to support robust local volunteering across the network.
The team wants to develop foundational resources and training to guide Habitat’s country offices outside of the US. These resources and trainings should help national organizations better integrate volunteering into their strategic planning and provide the foundation of strong volunteer management in support of volunteering for development.
Position Summary:
Reporting to the Program Manager who will serve as the project lead with strategic support and oversight from the Director of Next Generation Volunteering Department, the consultant will conduct desk research that includes:
- Mapping internal and external resources on local volunteering,
- Facilitating design and development of a local volunteering toolkit to address critical gaps and key challenges in local volunteering
- Develop a comprehensive training module to reinforce key concepts from the toolkit.
The successful candidate will be able to utilize expertise in volunteering for development to develop a practical resource and training to support the Habitat network globally. This role will partner with regional offices in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and with national organizations to ensure the toolkit is relevant and useful to the Habitat network outside of the US.
Scope of Work and Deliverables:
Deliverable 1: A Local Volunteering Toolkit for Habitat for Humanity (May-September)
* Co-design with regional offices to gather feedback to ensure clarity, relevance, and usability of the local volunteering toolkit.
* Develop a toolkit to guide non-U.S. Habitat entities and organizations on their local volunteer engagement and ensure alignment with Habitat’s 50 for 50 Strategic Plan, regional frameworks and other organizational priorities and core programming.
- Utilize and recontextualize existing network resources in developing the toolkit.
- Toolkit structure should include three (3) parts: basic instructional information, checklists, templates, and forms, and tips and promising practices from the field both internal and external.
- Potential chapters could include developing a local volunteering strategy, preparing for volunteer engagement, volunteer recruitment, volunteer onboarding, training and supervising volunteers, volunteer journey, monitoring and evaluating volunteer programs and projects, and volunteer duty of care (safeguarding and safety and security).
* Collect promising practices, templates, forms, and tips from the network to be included in the toolkit.
* Map out resources on local volunteering from similar structured peer organizations and tap existing communities of practice to highlight strong and impactful case studies and examples.
* Based on the insights, examples and co-analysis with relevant stakeholders, propose a framework for Habitat’s local volunteering and define the enabling environment required for increased program impact.
* Collaborate on developing a Spanish translation options for the toolkit.
Deliverable 2: Local Volunteering Framework Training Suite (July-September)
* Develop a one-day foundational training based on the toolkit to provide national organizations core skills to effectively engage local volunteers.
* Create a training roll-out strategy and propose approaches utilizing a train-the-trainer model. This will facilitate the creation of a trainers’ pool for Habitat in the next 2 years.
* Facilitate one in-person foundational training to effectively teach the training to habitat trainers and gather feedback on training.
* Develop a 2-hour to 4-hour specialized training focused on maximizing local volunteer impact with themes and topics to be determined.
Deliverable 3: Framework Socialization Plan (September)
* Develop talking points and key messages about the framework that will be utilized to educate and inform an internal Habitat audience.
* Develop a slide deck and one hour meeting agenda that will be used to socialize the framework with internal Habitat audience to educate and build buy-in.
* Work with Habitat’s global communications team to ensure language, appearance and tone of above deliverables are consistent with Habitat’s brand guidelines.
Timeline and Requirements:
The consultancy will commence as soon as possible and will be for a period of five (5) months.
Main requirements for this role include:
- Minimum 5 years of relevant experience in international development, and volunteer program development and management, involving both global South and North actors.
- Either direct or indirect experience in engaging volunteers for development and/or community development.
- Sound diplomacy and negotiation skills. The role will coordinate with staff and leaders at
global, regional and country offices.
- Proven technical expertise and experience in building development frameworks preferably in the context of local and community-based initiatives.
- Strategic and programmatic understanding of integrating volunteering into broader development programs and national strategies.
- Research and analytical skills to conduct stakeholder consultations, focus group discussions and needs assessments.
- Training design and strong facilitation skills to lead engaging and interactive training sessions both in-person and online ensuring high-participant engagement.
- Ability to synthesize complex systems and cross-cultural approaches.
- Ability to convene and facilitate important conversations and dialogues.
- Ability to navigate comfortably using virtual collaboration.
- Experience in community and people engagement.
- Experience in embedding artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities or familiarity of AI tools is a desirable skill.
Proposal Submission Procedure:
Interested parties should submit a proposal containing a Letter of Interest, updated resume, two (2) samples of similar (toolkit, training modules) or previous work developed, and a financial proposal by 5pm Eastern Standard Time, 2 May 2025, Friday. Please send questions related to this RFP, and vendor proposals to:
Evan Davies
[email protected]
Manager, Next Generation Volunteering
Location:
The consultant(s) will be home-based with the ability to meet virtually with key stakeholders and give presentations with flexibility of working hours to be compatible with the time zones of key audience.
Travel:
To be determined. Please factor in potentially one international travel to conduct a training in the budget proposal with the understanding that the plan can change.
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