From Helpers to Co‑Creators: Building Volunteer Programs Through an Asset‑Based Lens
Volunteer programs are often designed around organizational needs—filling shifts, covering roles, and meeting capacity gaps. But what if we reimagined volunteering through the lens of Asset‑Based Community Development (ABCD)—seeing volunteers not just as helpers, but as individuals bringing skills, relationships, and lived experience that strengthen the entire café community?
This workshop explores how community cafés can align their volunteer programs with ABCD principles to build more sustainable, engaged, and community‑rooted models of service. Rather than focusing solely on what cafés lack, participants will examine how to identify and mobilize the assets already present within their volunteer base and broader community.
We will begin by grounding participants in the core principles of ABCD and discussing how they apply specifically within the community café context. From there, the session will move into practical application: exploring how volunteer recruitment, training, roles, and retention strategies can shift when designed around strengths, ownership, and mutual benefit.
Participants will also engage in conversation about sustainability—how asset‑based volunteer programs can reduce burnout, deepen participation, and create pathways for volunteers to grow into leadership roles. Through peer sharing, cafés will reflect on how they are currently engaging volunteers and where opportunities exist to move from transactional volunteering to relational, community‑driven engagement.
Participants will:
Understand key principles of Asset‑Based Community Development and how they apply to community cafés
Reframe volunteer programs from need‑based to asset‑based models
Explore strategies for identifying and activating the gifts, skills, and networks of volunteers
Discuss approaches for increasing volunteer ownership, retention, and long‑term sustainability
Share challenges and successes with peers and leave with practical ideas to strengthen their volunteer programs
This workshop is ideal for café leaders, volunteer coordinators, and board members who want to build volunteer programs that are not only effective—but deeply aligned with dignity, belonging, and shared community power.
FACILITATOR: Julie Williams, One World Everybody Eats
LOCATION:
First Presbyterian Church
650 2nd Ave North
Fargo, ND 58102