I love volunteering, I absolutely think everyone should volunteer in some capacity. It builds our own skills, gives us an enormous sense of self-worth and achievement and most importantly, helps a charity or good cause take a step further to an objective or overall mission. Or at least it should.

In 2014/15 14.2m people in the UK formally volunteered at least once a month (27%) and on average gave 11.6 hours of their time a month. Throughout the 2014/15 period 42% of adults formally volunteered  at some point. On top of this, volunteering in the UK is worth an estimated £3.9bn per year! (NCVO UK Civil Society Almanac).

There is an enormous appetite for volunteering in the UK and our charities are literally saving billions by engaging eager participants for us, which is amazing. But what we need to make sure that what we are offering supporters is meaningful. There is so much more to volunteering than just painting a wall. And yes, this is old platitude does have its place in the volunteering offer, but if we want to hang on to our volunteer and perhaps even encourage them to support our charities in other ways in the future, we need to offer volunteering opportunities that set their hearts alight.

Let me practice what I peach. I volunteer for a small football charity called Football Beyond Borders (Football fans and those interested in social development alike should check them out). As part of my role as a volunteer I get to help their Head of Community and Comms streamline fundraising ideas, act as sounding board and help him to navigate this crazy world we call fundraising! On top of this I get to be proactive in fundraising for them (The usual community fundraiser stuff – a bake sale during my roads garden sale and a bucket collector at a big screen for Euro 2016). I get so much out of my time volunteering; I can put my own skills and knowledge to the best by passing them on to someone else and it gives me incentive to stay on top of the latest sector trends so I know what I’m talking about in this mentoring role (I do this for my day job too, fyi). This relationship is so win/win and also means I’m encourage to do some of the less fun but all together necessary stuff. If they asked me to help blow up footballs for one of their summer schools, I’d probably say yes!

And this could be an interesting model for Corporate Volunteering. Did you know that regular employer-backed volunteering remains rare, at only 2.7% taking part once a month and 7.4% taking part once a year? From the research (also from NCVO) it seems that that the problem isn’t staff not wanting to take up volunteering schemes that their work places offer, but that the work places simply aren’t offering them. To be honest, I can see why this might be the case; if we’re not offering meaningful volunteering opportunities that can really offer personal and professional worthwhile benefit, why on earth would work places give staff that time away from the office, draining resources and productivity? Answer – they wouldn’t. It’s a shame, because research has shown that when work places do offer volunteering the sign up rates are incredibly high (as much as 99% in some cases). As a Corporate Partnerships manager I know that companies are unlikely to offer their staff time away from their desks unless they are going to get something in return – this could be improvements on practical skills, interpersonal skills or for staff retention, so if we don’t offer that, they won’t either and it’s such a shame for us to not mobilise the wealth of talent and experience in the British workforce.  

So, here’s a bit of food for thought. If we really want to make the most of volunteering in our organisations then we have to go beyond what has been accepted in the past and we have to offer real, dynamic opportunities first and painting the wall as second, because our volunteers really are priceless.