When working with volunteer involving organisations, brokers should ensure that they are clear about the type of employer supported volunteering opportunities that employers are looking for:
Typically these opportunities will need to meet the employer’s business case and the need of the volunteer involving organisation and local community needs. In addition, brokers may need to ensure that opportunities are:
- challenging and can make a difference for all parties
- meet a real need for the organisation
- clear, achievable and well defined
- provide potential for large-scale team based projects, requiring concerted planning, resource and support from the VIO
- programme based individual opportunities i.e. primary school reading, community mentoring
- near/accessible to the volunteers’ place of work
- can be undertaken on the way to and from work and in lunch times
- do not involve leaving the office such as e-volunteering, buddying for work experience students
- take less than an hour on a regular weekly or fortnightly basis (can be done in the lunch hour)
- offer a range of “brain and brawn”
Employers value the broker directing them to the type of organisations they may not know about, typically those that:
- have less than five members of staff
- no dedicated volunteer managers/fundraisers
- are formed by local people i.e. tenants and residents associations, community playgroups, self-help groups etc.
- meet local community needs - BME organisations, community associations, regeneration groups
- can really benefit from volunteer support.
Brokers will need to know who they key strategic community and voluntary infrastructure groups are, so that can develop strategic partnerships with them, and access grassroots organisations that serve all the local communities in an area.
These may include:
- Local Council for Voluntary Action
- Local Grants Officer (Local Authority)
- Community Development Workers (Local Authority)
- Development Trusts Association
- Local Economic Development Officer
- Local Strategic Partnership
- Any local umbrella organisations, federations or groups of organisations – particularly BME groups, disability groups, city farms etc.
- Business in the Community programmes – Cares, Education, Business Action on Homelessness, Pro-Help
- Housing Associations (regeneration and community workers)
- Sure Start (and other locally based central government initiatives – especially those that have private sector targets to meet)
- Local Hospital Trusts (Primary Care Trusts)
- Higher Education establishments
- Local/civic events (local environment days, city pride days, carnivals and festivals, beach clean-ups, sporting events etc.)
Ways to communicate with strategic local organisations
- One-to-one meetings to introduce your programme, and ways to develop mutually beneficial support
- Invite to ESV activity taking place so that they can see activity/results first hand and talk to participants/representatives from VIO and employer
- Invite to events, seminars, award events etc.
- Develop a mailing list and send newsletters, annual reviews, ebriefings, flyers etc. detailing who has been involved, benefits, £ value of support etc.
- Invite to employer supported volunteering events so that they can talk to employers and VIOs first hand
Ways to communicate your ESV programme to VIOs
VIOs will need additional information that supplements your standard information as employer supported volunteers may be seen as a very different resource, and small organisations may be slightly apprehensive about developing links with local employers. There are a number of ways you can communicate your ESV programme to VIOs and this includes visits, via umbrella and membership organisations’ mailings and newsletters, flyers, workshops and surgeries and briefing events.
Initial visit to VIOs
The purpose of this visit is to:
- Find out more about the organisation and see it first hand
- Meet the staff/management and develop a relationship
- Review the organisation’s needs, and evaluate in relation to the volunteering that your brokerage service can support
- Explain that employer supported volunteering is a “two-way street” – about benefiting the community as well as developing the skills and abilities of volunteers, and complements current volunteering
- Explain your prgoramme’s role, structure, processes and systems – and establish what is required of the organisation in terms of support, management, time, resources
- Does the organisation have a range of opportunities that can suit employer supported volunteers?
- Assess the organisation’s capacity to support employer supported volunteers, and the range of opportunities available. Draw out the organisation’s needs and assess how these could be supported by employer supported volunteers?
What you need to know
- Type of organisation
- Aim, mission, objectives, client/user groups, how it impacts on the community
- Staffing structure, current volunteers
- Premises, physical layout, access, parking, opening hours, equipment, facilities
- Volunteer opportunities – times, dates, frequency, training, advice, support
- Named/main contact for all dealings with your programme and volunteers
- How they heard about your ESV programme
- Insurance and Health & Safety details (must have Public Liability Insurance and Employer’s Liability to cover staff and volunteers), and that they can comply with Health & Safety requirements
- Induction, volunteer supervision, training support etc.
- Their commitment to equal opportunities
What you need to cover at the meeting
- Explain what your ESV programme can and cannot do and provide a basic overview of your processes and systems
- If you make on-the-spot assessment that their volunteer need cannot be met by your programme – to explain why and make appropriate referrals
- Never over-promise!
Want to know more about how to work with communities, including guidance, checklists and templates?
Find out how you can purchase our publication Employer Supported Volunteering: a toolkit for Volunteer Centres
Volunteer Centres can download the toolkit free of charge from the members section of the VE website.
