Seashell Trust is home to the Royal School Manchester, a non-maintained special school, and the Royal College Manchester, an independent specialist further education college. Both school and college are residential and together cater for students from the age of 2 to 25. Students who attend our school and college are able to access on-site residential and short break facilities. A range of services are available to students, including an all-inclusive sports facility, specialist therapy, as well as staff with expertise in autism, multi-sensory impairments and behaviour management. We also offer a wide range of inclusive sport, health and leisure activities for the community including our students and staff.

With a team of 540 staff, two-thirds are full time and a further 150 volunteers, the charity’s workforce is large and mobile. The responsibility of managing the voluntary services within the Charity falls upon Stephen Pearson, Volunteer Coordinator.

The following case study explores how TeamKinetic has supported Steve and Seashell Trust in its volunteer management, improving the recruitment and retention of volunteers.

Firstly, please can you explain your role at Seashell Trust?

As volunteer coordinator, I am responsible for overseeing all of our voluntary services, from the recruitment, compliance checks and safety requirements for opportunities. I also work within the organisation to identify and develop opportunities for our volunteers, making sure the departments can support, develop and manage volunteers.

My role involves community engagement, sport and recreation, family support and outreach work, throughout all of these we try to encourage involvement from other organisations. I also look to manage our corporate voluntary services, as find many businesses and large organisations allow their staff two to three days of volunteering a year.

Why did you start looking for volunteer management software / How did you come across TeamKinetic?

Previously, we depended greatly on the use of excel spreadsheet as our database. This caused us challenges when trying to sharing or accessing with other users, such as when we wanted to produce reports.

We needed more functionality that came with a purpose-built software: the ability to sign up to opportunities through a website portal, to advertise opportunities online, the ability for volunteers to leave feedback.  Whilst exploring the different options available to us, we noticed with TeamKinetic software, opportunities can be shared in a network of connected organisations if opted in for. This provided volunteers with the unique opportunity to be able to join opportunities from different providers, but within the same area for example.

How have you found TeamKinetic meets your organisation needs?

Firstly, I believe the software has benefitted Seashell Trust, as everything is now available remotely through the cloud.  On the most basic level, it supports us as opportunity providers with recruiting, monitoring and reporting the activity of our volunteers. It provides our volunteers with a professional interface for them to find opportunities and interact with us an organisation.  It enables volunteers to register their interests online, access and join opportunities available, update their profiles with their DBS and CPD documentation and track the opportunities they have participated in.  These functions are only further enhanced when you consider how easy the system is to use.

TeamKinetic provides a better user interface for opportunity providers to communicate with volunteers, by providing plenty of options, from email, social media and text messaging. Combined with the feedback functionality for volunteers, the software creates a greater emphasis on communication, which helps to keep volunteers engaged.

Do you have any other comments or anything to add?

For other third sector organisations, I would highly recommend that they have a chat with the guys from TeamKinetic. The software they provide is exactly what it says on the tin, it works from an administrative point of view. You just have to point and click, the results are there. The software is colourful and visual, meaning it’s not a bore having to use and then there is plenty of support and assistance available to get the most from the software. The useful help guides and training manuals, combined with the specialist support provided by the team is really good.

As a product, I feel it is leading the market, with its regular updates, advanced functionality and the support provided. I think it really is one of those products that ‘does what it says on the tin’. We live in a digital age and if you are serious about keeping volunteers and recruiting new ones, then you have to change with the times. Something that I think TeamKinetic does.

Thank you, Stephen, for both your time and answers.

To find out more or to book a demonstration contact TeamKinetic at: 0161 914 5757

For over ten years TeamKinetic has been developing innovative technological solutions for third sector organisations. We pride ourselves on our volunteer-centric approach and intuitive design.

Volunteer Management Software that WORKS for Third Sector Organisations.