Our Speakers
Veronica Deally
Volunteering has always been more than just a cause for Veronica Deally. Veronica recognized
that the people behind the volunteer work had great stories that led them to their volunteer
cause. She worked tirelessly as a Program Coordinator at the University Health Network
building a program that held both great importance to the patients it served, and the volunteers
who gave so much of their dedication to. She later transitioned into a Project Coordinator role
that allowed her to really showcase the volunteers, their efforts, and told the stories of their
successes through storytelling in annual reports and monthly infographics.
Veronica is an active member of the Toronto Association for Volunteer Administrators and held
various roles as a volunteer on the Executive Committee including President and Past-President
in 2019/2020. She was recognized by the Professional Association of Volunteer Leaders –
Ontario (PAVR-O) where she received the Young Leaders Award in 2014. Veronica was also
featured at the Points of Light Conference in 2019 for showing how volunteer engagement
professionals can catalyze impact for change through her creation of UHN’s corporate Patient
Pillow program. In 2017, Veronica was touched by autism when her son was diagnosed with
being on the autism spectrum and it lit a passion in her to become an active volunteer and
advocate for Autism Speaks Canada, where she organized and led the 2021 Walk on Wheels
Car Parade for Etobicoke and raised over $16,000 for the organization. She also trains security
guards at her hospital on how to best approach individuals with a developmental disability and
created the Autism Friendly initiative at her hospital.
Today, she continues storytelling the
stories of her volunteers, her volunteer work, and her passion for showing that everyone has a
story worthy to tell.
Adam Shilling
Adam currently serves as the CEO of the Buckeye Valley Family YMCA. Within this role, he provides leadership to a YMCA Association with 3 health and wellness facilities, 13 off-site program locations, 300 employees. The YMCA annually serves more than 22,000 individuals from across Licking and Muskingum county and receives more than 30,000 volunteer hours of service each year.
Prior to his role as the CEO, Adam led helped lead YMCA Operations in Grand Rapids Michigan. He has also worked YMCA’s national headquarters in Chicago, where he was responsible for measuring the impact that YMCAs had in communities, developing a mixed-methods approach to needs assessments, and helping YMCAs develop strategic plans . His career with the YMCA started in Pittsburgh, PA, where he was born and raised. Adam attended the University of Pittsburgh for his undergraduate studies and Springfield College for his master’s degree.
Adam and his wife Julie have two young children who are very active across a variety of sports. Adam is an avid golfer, a sport that consumes much of his free time during the warm summer months. When he’s not golfing or spending time with his family, Adam and his wife can be found within the many antique markets across Ohio. They have two antique market locations where they resell the many treasures they find during their journies!
Tony Goodrow
Tony Goodrow is the founder and CEO of Better Impact, a software company that has been helping leaders of volunteer since 2001 and now works with over 3,000 organizations around the world. He has spoken at volunteer sector conferences on five continents, and on a variety of topics such as technology trends in the volunteer sector, new perspectives in data collection, creating a culture that inspires success, and the happiness effect.
Erin Spink, MA (Leadership)
Erin Spink’s interest in volunteers started at the age of six when she pronounced that while it was wrong to eat animals, hamburgers at McDonald’s came from “volunteer cows” and therefore an exception could be made. She completed a Certificate with Distinction in Volunteer Program Management, followed by an M.A. (Leadership) where she submitted the first-ever academic research quantifying the concept of “volunteer engagement”. Spink’s thought-leadership work has been published around the world, including the CCVA accreditation textbook. She continues to author informative, cutting-edge research that advances the profession through her consulting firm – spinktank- which offers workshops, free resources and online courses, and its research arm CARVE (Centre for Advanced Research in Volunteer Engagement). Erin had the honour of serving on the PAVRO Board for five years, including two as President. For the last several years, Erin has volunteered as a member of the Engage (formerly e-Volunteerism) Journal, leading the Training Designs section and now co-editor for the Ethics column.
She has also co-authored the Points of View articles with Rob Jackson. Erin was recognized in 2017 with the Linda Buchanan Outstanding Leader of Volunteers award and in 2020 with the VMPC Exemplary Leader Award (First Place) for her contributions to the profession. After 20 years working in Volunteer Engagement, she has changed her mind and no longer believes in eating volunteers.
Faiza Venzant, Facilitator:
From a young age, Faiza Venzant’s parents instilled a strong sense of volunteerism in herself and her two older brothers. They, as immigrants to Canada from Uganda in the early 70s made a successful transition into Canadian life with the help of many generous volunteers. A volunteer herself from a very young age, she has been an advocate for volunteer engagement and excellence in volunteer management for the last 22 years. As a facilitator for the Community Action Poverty Simulation, Faiza is passionate about equity and access amongst volunteers and leaders of volunteers. ‘
Faiza is the Executive Director with the Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration and active member and volunteer with Association for Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE.) She has been certified in volunteer administration since 2016.
In 2018, Faiza published her first children’s book entitled, My Mamma Wants to Eat Me Up! As a mother of two young boys, she has not actually eaten any of her children.