ACTIVITIES
🚀 Kick-off Partners Meeting — Prague (6–9 March 2023)
The ICON consortium launched the project with a kick-off meeting in Prague, bringing together INEX-SDA (lead), CCIVS, PVN Albania, and GAIA Kosovo. Partners aligned on the project’s overall purpose: strengthening IVS organisations’ capacity in impact assessment, external communication, and community building, with the long-term goal of making international voluntary service more inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and resilient.
Over the working sessions, the team agreed the operational backbone of ICON: a shared timeline of tasks and deliverables, clear roles per work package (WP1–WP5), and a structured coordination system (regular online meetings, shared Drive, task tracking, and fast communication channels). This ensured the project could run on a “continuous improvement” loop—planning, testing, peer review, adjustment, and dissemination.
The meeting also marked the technical start of the three thematic work streams. CCIVS introduced the approach for building compatible impact measurement systems (including training and pilot testing), while INEX-SDA and GAIA outlined the pathways for developing communication and community-building strategies grounded in evidence and real organisational needs. The kick-off closed with concrete next steps: setting coordination routines, consolidating baseline indicators, and preparing the first technical milestones (questionnaire review, competence/target-group definitions, and training planning).
🧭 Mid-way Partners Meeting — Tirana (26–29 March 2024)
At the mid-way meeting in Tirana, partners reviewed progress across all work packages and moved from “setup” into deeper implementation. A major focus was operational clarity: indicators were refined (including how each organisation defines “active supporters”), reporting routines were reinforced, and partners aligned on the practical requirements for financial documentation and timesheets—ensuring the project stayed compliant and on track.
Substantively, the meeting pushed forward the first full cycle of impact measurement pilot testing (Pilot 1). Partners coordinated the finalisation of questionnaires, discussed response-rate challenges (timing, channels, motivation, survey length), and agreed on pragmatic methods to integrate impact collection into programme flow. This included concrete tactics for better participation: clearer explanations of “why,” mobile-friendly formats, personalised invitations, and using preliminary results to show volunteers the value of their input.
In parallel, partners advanced work on communication and community building: mapping current PR systems, defining personas, coordinating target-group research plans, and identifying each organisation’s capacity gaps (visual identity, engagement formats, strategy ownership, fundraising communication). The meeting also strengthened the manuals pipeline, with agreement to keep outputs modular but structurally aligned—so each manual remains usable on its own while also fitting into a coherent ICON “toolset.”
🤝 Partners Meeting — Kosovo (9–12 September 2025)
The Kosovo meeting functioned as the final major coordination checkpoint before project closure. Partners conducted a detailed work-package review, confirming what was completed, what needed acceleration, and what required consolidation into final deliverables—especially as the project moved into its most time-sensitive period (final data collection, manual finalisation, and dissemination actions).
A key outcome was the alignment on Pilot 2 impact data collection and the steps needed to process and visualise results fast enough for meaningful dissemination. Partners agreed on practical adaptations to the questionnaire (clarity, inclusivity, and trimming low-value items), set deadlines for collecting data and submitting inputs for the Impact Assessment Manual, and discussed resourcing the analysis/graphics work so results could be communicated clearly (including social media-ready outputs).
The meeting also sharpened the WP5 dissemination strategy: prioritising websites as permanent resource hubs, preparing shared English-language narrative content for adaptation into local languages, and aligning conference formats (online and national events) with available evidence and tools—even if final datasets were still being processed. The Kosovo meeting closed with a clear operational plan for the reporting period, documentation requirements, and final responsibilities—ensuring ICON’s outputs remain accessible, transferable, and usable beyond the project’s lifetime.
💻 Online Conference — “Research to Change” (16 December 2025)
The ICON Online Conference, “Research to Change: Decolonising Long-Term Volunteering through Youth-Led Impact Stories,” was held on 16 December 2025 as the project’s final dissemination and wrap-up activity. Organised online by CCIVS and the ICON partners, the event brought together IVS organisations, youth researchers, volunteers, and institutional stakeholders to present ICON’s key results and to position them within wider sector conversations on how impact is assessed and communicated in international volunteering.
The programme combined structured inputs with participatory formats, including two rounds of breakout rooms, plenary exchanges, and interactive feedback tools. Youth researchers played an active role as facilitators and contributors, reinforcing the conference’s focus on participatory learning and peer exchange. In total, 91 people registered, with an average attendance of around 35 participants across the main sessions (peaking at ~38).
Substantively, the conference highlighted the integrated logic of ICON’s three pillars: impact assessment, external communication, and community building. Discussions emphasised impact assessment as a continuous learning process (not just reporting), the need to translate data into responsible narratives through storytelling and visual tools, and the importance of sustained engagement with volunteers and communities to support long-term quality and organisational sustainability. The conference also strengthened future uptake of ICON outputs by showcasing practical manuals and tools designed to be transferable across the wider IVS movement.
