About the National Standards for Volunteer Involvement

The National Standards for Volunteer Involvement (National Standards) are a best practice framework to guide volunteer involvement. They are an essential resource for all organisations and groups that engage volunteers. The National Standards were refreshed in 2024 to ensure that they reflected the contemporary environment and to ensure that they support volunteering to thrive into the future.

The National Standards highlight eight key areas for effective volunteer involvement. They are designed to:

Allow flexibility in implementation, recognising that volunteering takes place in highly diverse settings and modes, which for example includes growth in virtual and micro-volunteering.
Demonstrate best practice in structured organisations and programs or as a guide to more organic or informal community-based groups aspiring to best practice without creating barriers, curtailing flexibility and creativity.
Support diversity and inclusion in all types of organisations and groups.

Organisations and groups can use the National Standards in several ways:

As a general guide to improving practice.
As guidelines or a checklist to help identify opportunities for making improvements.
As a framework to assist in planning and establishing a new volunteering program.
As an audit tool that provides a snapshot of organisational performance.
As a baseline from which progress in making improvements can be monitored and measured.

The standards are intended to be flexible enough to apply to organisations and groups of different sizes, with varying levels of resources, in both urban and rural settings, led by employees or by volunteers.

More Information

Guidance, tools and resources to support the implementation of the National Standards are available on the National Standards page of the Volunteering Australia website.