We're a part of your community

Accès Bénévolat is a volunteer centre that has been promoting inclusive volunteering and mutual aid in the heart of Montreal’s east end for almost 40 years. Today we work in active partnership with a network of over 300 social and humanitarian agencies and more than 1,000 volunteers annually.

As a non-profit community organization, Accès Bénévolat is managed by a board of directors composed mainly of people who use its services or live in the community it serves. We are funded primarily by Centraide of Greater Montreal and the Montreal Health and Social Services Agency.

Our logo shows a hand supporting a group of people in motion who have come together to form a sphere. It evokes our agency’s unifying role in building community spirit, as well as the support we provide to community-based agencies by deploying volunteers and offering resource management advice. Our logo also suggests the valuable help that volunteers give to people in need.

The hand reaching for the sky symbolizes the strength, influence and deployment capacity of the group of volunteers. From its central location, Accès Bénévolat promotes volunteering throughout east-end Montreal for the benefit of all residents, regardless of language, colour or creed.

Accès Bénévolat is a sub-regional community agency. We serve primarily communities on Montreal Island within the territory extending from St. Lawrence Boulevard all the way to the eastern tip of the island, excluding Rivière-des-Prairies and Montreal North. This territory is home to 43% of the population of the City of Montreal.

Our Mission: To promote volunteering!

The mission of Accès Bénévolat is to promote volunteering in east-end Montreal while supporting social and humanitarian agencies through the deployment of volunteer resources. This mission has four main components:

1. Volunteer and community service: Identifying community needs, recruiting volunteers, and providing information and advocacy on volunteering in collaborating with community partners. This component also includes promoting, mobilizing and recognizing volunteer action;
    
2. Support for volunteers: Welcoming volunteers, referring them to the right agency, and following up on them to foster their positive and lasting involvement;
    
3. Services to community agencies: Providing member agencies with needs analysis; volunteer recruitment, selection and referral; and volunteer management consultation services to ensure that all volunteer-agency matches will be productive.
    
4. Direct volunteer services to individuals: Volunteers working in various fields offer direct services to individuals according to community needs. Accès Bénévolat provides low-income adults in loss of autonomy with volunteer accompaniment to medical appointments at the request of the CLSCs and community agencies in its territory.