Skip to main content
Create an account for suggestions personalised to you and your organisation
Guides
1 minute read

Building Inclusive Bridges: A Guide to Facilitating Inclusive Referrals

Meeting National Standards and Strategy Seal Meeting National Standards and Strategy What's this?

This guide supports organisations to facilitate inclusive volunteering by improving referral practices and reducing barriers to participation. It explores inclusive approaches to first contact, matching volunteers to roles, managing expectations and maintaining ongoing support.

The resource provides practical tools and tips to help volunteer involving organisations work more inclusively with people who may experience barriers to volunteering, including people with disability.

Benefits for volunteer managers

  • strengthens inclusive referral and recruitment practices
  • helps remove barriers to participation for volunteers with diverse needs
  • supports better matching and expectation setting for volunteers
  • encourages inclusive organisational culture and practices.

How to apply this resource

This guide is most useful when reviewing recruitment and referral processes, building inclusive volunteering pathways, or strengthening organisational approaches to inclusion and accessibility.

Downloads and sources

More about the author

VolunteeringACT is the peak body for volunteering and community information in the Canberra Region, as well as being a service provider of programs for people experiencing disadvantage and isolation, people with disability, and people needing support for mental wellness.

Contribute to the Gateway

Leave feedback

Was this resource useful?

Make a Suggestion

If you find a great resource that isn't in the directory or want to provide feedback on the Volunteering Gateway, drop us a line!

More like this

Weblinks

Volunteering and the Australian curriculum

A collection of lessons and units of work to help teachers and organisations support young people’s involvement in volunteering.
1 minute read
Volunteering Australia
Youth or Student
Guides

National Standards for Volunteer Involvement

The National Standards for Volunteer Involvement are a best practice framework to guide volunteer involvement in Australia. They are an essential resource for Volunteer Managers.
1 minute read
Volunteering Australia
General
Videos or Webinars

Sport Volunteering Webinar Series

Free volunteer recruitment, management and retention tips in our webinar series for Australian sporting organisations.
1 minute read
Australian Sports Commission
Youth or Student, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) +2 more
Be Collective
Tech

Be Collective

A volunteer management & community engagement platform. Be Collective is all about empowering volunteering and the organisations supporting volunteering to build stronger, more sustainable networks for doing good.
Volunteer database Recruitment Rostering / scheduling Onboarding / training Volunteer performance/recognition Communication / engagement Task management Compliance Reporting Resource management Social media Event management Donations
Volaby
Tech

Volaby

Volaby is an end-to-end volunteer and people management platform, enabling organisations to do more with less! Built from the collective voice of our volunteer managers using the platform, Volaby helps you automate and simplify the volunteer and manager experience to save time and scale impact.
Volunteer database Recruitment Rostering / scheduling Onboarding / training Volunteer performance/recognition Communication / engagement Task management Compliance Reporting Resource management Event management
Better Impact
Tech

Better Impact

Better Impact offers a comprehensive software solution for volunteer program management, to simplify administrative tasks and enhance volunteer engagement across every stage of the volunteer lifecycle.
Volunteer database Recruitment Rostering / scheduling Onboarding / training Volunteer performance/recognition Communication / engagement Compliance Reporting Social media Donations
scheduled

Panel Discussion: The Value of a Diverse Volunteer Workforce

Develop a deeper understanding of diversity and how it relates to inclusion.
The Centre for Volunteering
–
Free
scheduled

Cairns Satellite Event - Queensland Volunteering Conference

Volunteering Queensland and FNQ Volunteers Inc invite regional communities to connect with the 2026 Queensland Volunteering Conference. This affordable two-day event ($38) offers local learning, networking and collaboration opportunities.
Volunteering Queensland
–
A$38.00
scheduled

Managing Volunteers in Grassroots Settings: The Basics 2 hours

Designed for grassroots organisations, this workshop introduces the fundamentals of managing volunteers across the volunteer lifecycle.
Volunteering Victoria
–
Free