New CharityJob Salary Report 2025
Lucy Hardy
Admin, Ops, IT & Finance
{{badgesCtrl.userFirstName}}'s badges
Helper’s Badge Level One
Level 1 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had a comment marked as Helpful
Helper’s Badge Level Two
Level 2 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had 5 comments marked as Helpful
Helper’s Badge Level Three
Level 3 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had 10 comments marked as Helpful
Helper’s Badge Level Four
Level 4 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had 20 comments marked as Helpful
Helper’s Badge Level Five
Level 5 of 5
Superstar! This badge is awarded to members who have had 30 comments marked as Helpful
Volunteer’s are some of the most important resources a charity can have. From the skills and experience to the capacity and knowledge they bring. We wanted to share with you some of the key steps in the volunteer journey, but also some considerations for the building the volunteer journey. I’ve shared with you some of my experience as a volunteer manager. Check out our thoughts and feel free to share colleagues.
Needs Assessment
- It’s important you have an understanding of the needs across the organisation. Start by asking teams the support they would ideally like from volunteers, starting with in an ideal world. This is ideally blue sky thinking and should explore all the possibilities for volunteer support.
- Example - Needs Assessment involved me consulting the national programme to understand the possibilities within the programmes, and then using wider business planning statistics to plan the needs.
Mandate Development
- At this stage you should be setting the remit of the volunteers, this should include things like their Role Description and Key Project’s or Mandates.
- At this stage I find it useful to least all of the task’s a volunteer will be completing an then identify the skills they would need to complete this. Ideally this Role Description should include information you would see in a paid role.
- In an ideal world, roles should be consonant across the organisation, this will enable everyone ti understand volunteers roles, but it will also make it easier for recruitment.
- Example - As part of the needs analysis, I identified opportunities that volunteers could be placed in. As art of the development I develop a new role of Volunteering Champion. This was a new way of engaging corporate volunteers and needed to be tested, as well as managed.
Recruitment and Selection
- Consider how volunteers will apply, what information will you need, how will it be promoted, and what barriers are their to engaging volunteers. How will volunteers make an application, How will they be interviewed and how will you make a choice about which volunteers to engage.
- Example - I’ve considered how the recruitment is spread, and completed a diversity assessment to understand barriers faced by marginalised groups. This required me to adapt the process and increase applications.
Training
- Consider the training required to complete the role. Think about how the the volunteer will engage with the organisation, how will they meet safeguarding requirements, how will they understand what they will do and how are they supported.
- The stage you should assume the volunteer knows nothing about the organisation or role. Start everyone from the same place and test learning along the way.
- Consider how you can use technology to deliver this, and how you would ensure complying with Covid Restrictions.
- Example - I developed a youtube video to help train employee volunteers, and help reduce the amount of time needed by staff to training volunteers.
Support and Supervision
- Consideration should be made about who will support volunteers, how they will be supported, the way they receive feedback and how will the performance of volunteers with be managed.
- You should also consider how you will communicate with volunteers and how will you keep them up to date with the organisations.
- Example - Volunteer’s were managed by a member of staff, who had the final in the management of the volunteer.
Monitoring and Evaluation
- Consider how you will test if the volunteer’s role right, how will you manage success and how will monitor the organisation.
- What KPI’s will you have in place for managing volunteers and how these will be monitored and managed.
- Example - Using a process map I was able to understand the time commitments for various parts of the process, and developed KPI’s based on the capacity of the various staff members.
Engagement and Recognition
- Remember that the simplest thing you can do for a volunteer is say a personal Thank You. Think about how you might say this, from thank you cards to awards for length of service. Consider the person say thank you, and how they say it.
- Consider the recognition of volunteers from awards and events, to picnic’s and meals. You can say thank you in any number of ways.
- Example - I set up a awards system, which recognised the organisations offering the most hours volunteering.
No responses yet. Be the first to reply!
{{ctrlComment.postTotalComments}} responses
Load more responses