Increasing Volunteer Impact
As we start the new year, we wanted to share with you some of our top tips for increasing the impact of volunteers. We want to share with you some of the ways we can help your organisation to deliver more, but also the ways you can improve volunteer experience.
Top Tip One - Square Pegs in Square Holes
Make sure your volunteers have clear role descriptions which not only set out their roles, but also the skills they need to hold these roles. Whilst you can use volunteering to develop an individuals skills, it’s important to ensure that volunteers have the right roles both for the organisation and individual. This will ensure you get the best out of your volunteers, but also make it easier to manage volunteers.
Just because you have a gap in your needs, try not to fill it with the first person you find, but fill it with the most appropriate person.
Top Tip Two - Remember to Say Thank You
Make sure when your managing a volunteer, you say thank you as often as possible.
Make sure you have an internal framework to recognise volunteers - A great example is The Scouts. Take a Look.
Make sure you consider external recognition awards for example your local council, or volunteer centre may have awards frameworks, and for those extra special volunteers there is the honers list.
Don;t forget to use special events to recognise volunteers, a great example is the Commonwealth Baton Bearers. .Take a look.
Top Tip Three - Planning is Essential
From Policies and Procedures to Roles and Responsibilities, it’s vital that volunteering is planned and thought through. Charities can get loads of expressions of interest in volunteer, and it’s that there is a clear process for managing these both in terms of structures but also roles.
Ensure there is a clear management process and structure in place for volunteers, Make sure volunteers know their key point of contact, even when working remotely.
Have a clear process for managing Ad-hoc volunteer roles, this may be for temporary project work, or for more specific roles. You could also use this process for those volunteers who might have specialise skills.
How We Can Help -
Consultancy
We can work with you to conduct a detailed review of how you engage with volunteers. From looking at your policies and procedures, through to looking at more detailed roles and responsibilities. We want to help you explore how you can make best use of your volunteers to not only benefits them, but also benefit your service users.
We can work with you to conduct volunteer engagement reviews which will help you understand how you can improve the experience for volunteers, which should intern help you keep your volunteers for longer.
Training
We can retraining sessions which help your staff understand the volunteer life cycle, and help them to begin to implement this within your charity.
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