Future Skills for the Third Sector Erasmus Project

Project Title

Future Skills for the Third Sector

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

The Future Skills for the Third Sector (FUTUR3) project’s goal was to help third-sector employers (associations, NGOs, foundations etc.), employees and educational institutions training professionals in the field to understand and identify future skills needs in the field and to prepare for them. We focused particularly on volunteering professionals, such as volunteer managers.

The project set off from an understanding that the growing importance of the third sector as an employer has been evident throughout Europe, and that societal developments have increased professionalisation. Third-sector employees’ educational and employment backgrounds are diverse and differences between EU Member States vast. Moreover, calls for professionalisation have not in all cases been met by professional development opportunities or codified standards that display the level of professionalism required of personnel.

Through its future-oriented outlook and by engaging a wide range stakeholders, the FUTUR3 project worked to increase understanding on its issues both at a European level by organising a benchmarking process and the local and individual level by developing a peer learning model for volunteer managers. We also envisioned that this knowledge would help European third-sector organisations to cooperate on volunteering issues, and aimed to raise awareness.

To achieve these goals, the project organised the following activities:
– A scenario model to understand the future landscape of the sector. Under the model the future is shaped by digitalisation, growing inequalities, loose communities, the status quo, or their combination.
-A benchmarking process to collect information about the educational and professional paths and future skills needs of volunteer managers in 10 countries. We published a two-part report with theoretical insights, a survey with almost 500 third-sector employees, expert interviews and best practice cases. On basis of the results, we made recommendations on digitalisation, managing people, migration, diversity and training collaboration for future success.
-A peer learning model tested locally by over 100 volunteer managers. The model is based on design thinking and aimed to give third-sector professionals tools to address future skills needs. Published in 10 languages, the model used the benchmarking results, and was improved according to participant feedback.
-For awareness-raising, we organised e.g. social media action days, webinars, and streamed our final seminar live.

As a result, according to our evaluation we managed to help third sector organisations and educational institutions in creating better understanding of professional development needs for HR management and curricular reform, as the products received a high satisfaction rate. Participating employees felt that the peer learning model helped them engage with future issues, and there was evidence that it helped increase cooperation between organisations on the local level. In the long term, the information will help the sector understand country-specific similarities and differences, which will be beneficial for collaboration.

Our awareness-raising activities resulted in invitation for presentations, also at parliamentary level. Stakeholders have seen the results as highly useful, and the partnership will continue to mainstream the results and develop them further in a follow-up project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 201622 Eur

Project Coordinator

Opintotoiminnan Keskusliitto ry & Country: FI

Project Partners

• ENGELSIZ TOPLUM OLUSTURMA DERNEGI
• KERIGMA – INSTITUTO DE INOVACAO E DESENVOLVIMENTO SOCIAL DE BARCELOS
• ASPEKT-MANAGEMENT I MEZHDUKULTURNI OTNOSHENIYA
• Eco Communities
• Asociatia Centrul European pentru Integrare Socioprofesionala ACTA
• Foundation for Society
• Tudás Alapítvány