As one of the Digital in Volunteering partners, I’ve been described as a Luddite more than once.
Usually, it’s because I’ve not immediately jumped on board the latest bit of kit or I’ve asked whether technology is really solving the problem we think it is. It’s rarely intended as a compliment.
But the more I think about it, the more comfortable I am getting with the label.
The original Luddites weren’t simply against technology. They were asking questions about how it was being used, who benefited from it, and what might be lost along the way. As volunteer managers, I think those are questions we should still be asking.
As we mark International Volunteer Managers Day and reflect on this year’s theme of legacy and leadership, I’ve found myself thinking about the people who shaped my own approach to volunteer management. None of them are memorable to me because of the systems they introduced or the processes they designed. What I remember is how they worked with people.
They knew when to follow a process and when to use their judgement. They listened. They built relationships. They understood that volunteering is wonderfully human and often a bit messy.
Technology has transformed our profession, and in many ways for the better. We can reach more people, reduce administration and make volunteering more accessible. I use AI myself and can see enormous potential in it.
But I do sometimes worry when I hear phrases like, “The system won’t allow it.” As in, “we can’t add in this step of a volunteer journey because the platform doesn’t support it”.
At that point, it’s worth asking whether the technology is supporting our decisions or starting to make them for us.
I don’t believe AI will replace volunteer managers. If anything, I think it makes the human parts of our role even more important. A system can identify patterns, but it can’t build trust. An AI tool can draft a message, but it can’t make someone feel welcomed, valued or understood.
Those things still happen between people.
Maybe that’s why I’ve become more interested in decision literacy than digital literacy. Of course we need to understand technology, but we also need the confidence to question it. To ask whether a process reflects our values, whether the data tells the whole story, and whether the most efficient solution is actually the best one.
When people remember our legacy as volunteer managers, I don’t think they’ll remember the platforms we used. They’ll remember whether someone took the time to listen, encourage them and help them find a meaningful place to belong.
So perhaps I am reclaiming my inner Luddite.
Not because I’m against technology, but because I believe volunteering will always be, at its heart, about people.
And that’s a legacy worth protecting.
Find out more about International Volunteer Managers Day via their website.
Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s monthly Newsletter.
This roundup is designed to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on at TeamKinetic, our partners, and across the third sector in general. So grab a brew and tuck into all the latest news.
We hope you find value in this TeamTalk. As always, we really appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave a comment, shoot over an email, or message via social media.
If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk, and we’ll get you on the list!
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We were very proud to sponsor the Aspiring Heads of Volunteering programme, developed by Dr Helen Timbrell and Charlotte Witteridge. As part of our sponsorship, we were able to offer one lucky recipient a free place on the programme.
Our winner was Pippa Vidal Davies, Volunteering Manager at Culture Leicestershire (Leicestershire County Council). She’s been kind enough to supply us with her reflections after each session, you can read her Aspiring Heads of Volunteering programme diary below…
(Use the ← arrow →keys on the book to navigate!)
Using a screen reader or just prefer plain text? You can read the text-only version of her reflections on the next page of this blog by clicking here.
Final Reflections Q&A (Monday 5th October)
Pippa also joined us for a final reflections call where we asked her a few questions about the overall programme, here are the highlights from our chat…
How did the Aspiring Heads of Volunteeringprogramme align with your expectations going in? Was there anything that surprised you from the experience?
Charlotte and Helen hold so much expertise themselves, so anything that’s got their name on it, you’d know that it’s going to be good. The thing is, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good!
The fact that there were fidget toys available on the table for you, or the fact that they had postcards when it’s very difficult to describe how you’re feeling, you could just go to a postcard. They’d just considered every single little aspect of the course, which made it really, really wonderful.
What was your single biggest “aha!” moment?
There’s been quite a few! I think the biggest “aha!” moment was just that investment in reflection. Reflection does not come to me easily.
My previous roles have always been very operational and hands on. I went from [being] a volunteer coordinator, to now managing a team of volunteer coordinators.
I do think my preconception of a role in a managerial position, in a leadership position, is that you need to be an expert in your field and be shown to be an expert throughout by doing things and holding all the knowledge. But that “aha!” moment, that reflection, that investment in yourself of going “actually, let me think about this before I go straight into doing”.
In what ways has the programme shifted your perspective of what it means to be a head of volunteering as opposed to a volunteer manager/coordinator?
One came quite early on in terms of the breadth of the head of volunteering role. It’s no longer head of volunteering by itself. You can be an expert within volunteering. But that’s not the only thing that has been expected of you. It’s ‘Head of Volunteering and Marketing’, ‘Head of Volunteering and People’, ‘Head of Volunteering Communities’.
So it’s making sure that, if it is something I want to explore in future, I need to focus on other skills away from volunteering. Or skills that I can transfer over to volunteering, rather than just become a subject expert within volunteering.
It’s just made me realise how much in my infancy I am. It’s not from lack of confidence in myself, it’s just appreciating that I’m at the very start of a leadership position and wanting to build up through there. It doesn’t feel unattainable. I just appreciate all the things that you need to accomplish before you are even confident to apply for a head of volunteering role.
A key part of being a head of volunteering is shifting from the daily operations to the strategic and strategic vision. What do you think you got out the programme that best equipped you to do that?
Quite a few actually, there were so many frameworks! They talked about T shaped leadership, so making sure that it’s both operational and strategic.
They also gave us a leadership reflection wheel, so you can score yourself in terms of the skills that you’ve got and then know which areas that you need to focus on yourself. And then I kind of merged two models together that were incredibly useful – a stakeholder map alongside their circle of influence.
It made me realise some of the areas that I was putting the most amount of resources in terms of time, in terms of attention and brain space, were areas that I couldn’t control or influence. And in terms of the stakeholder group, sat very low versus all of the stakeholders. So that was incredibly powerful.
How confident do you feel now about advocating for volunteering at an executive or board level?
Oh, well, actually really confident. That’s where I would have said I’ve seen the most improvement.
Previously, I might have shied away from difficult conversations with my line manager or from my senior leadership team. So it’s given me a lot of visibility within the senior leadership team and also within regional networks.
Did the programme change how you approach stakeholder management and cross departmental buy in? If so, how?
Yes. I did it alongside my line manager, so it was touched upon with the Johari Window Model. It basically acknowledges that people only know what you tell them. It’s making sure that you appreciate what information you’re keeping about yourself and what you’re open to share. It’s pushed me towards being more open and more vulnerable about what I require and what I need.
By being able to be quite self aware with my line manager and also having more confidence in being open and vulnerable with them in terms of who I am and what I need, I was able to do that stakeholder mapping alongside her. So that’s framed my mind my way of working much better.
And she’s also been made aware of, you know, there are a lot of pressures towards focusing on areas that I don’t have much control over. So “how can I best support Pippa to address that?”.
What’s the first change or new initiative you plan to implement in your current role based on what you’ve learned?
The action learning sets!
You can designate some time within a group of people whereby each of you presents a challenge. As a group you decide what challenge you want to focus on, and then the presenter has got the ability to expand on that challenge whilst the rest of the group ask open questions to allow that person who’s presenting to come to the solutions that best suit them.
I think it’s a mindset that I’m most excited about. The fact that you don’t go in into problem solving mode or advice mode, you’re actually empowering the person to come to the solution.
What do you anticipate being the biggest challenge in applying the learning to your organisation?
Historical workings. So being able to overcome the “Oh, but we’ve always done it this way”. The bureaucracy and red tape within council settings specifically, that means that things have been done a certain way for decades and being able to have that culture change shift without exhausting yourself.
Where do you feel you may still have some skills gaps? And what ongoing support/resources do you think you might want/need from the alumni programme to become a head of volunteering?
So, actually, the first session [on the AHOV Alumni Programme] that Helen and Charlotte announced, in terms of what to do if you’re supposed to be motivating people that you don’t directly manage. That is definitely an area that I was very excited when Helen and Charlotte announced that. Because I think that’s a challenge that particularly applies to myself. So it’ll be good to hear the tips and tricks with that.
How will you measure the success of the new strategies that you’re going to implement?
The development plan. That was one of the things that they encouraged us from day one, is being able to have a development plan for oneself. And I think I just need to hold myself accountable.
They also made us do an exercise around values. So the Values Institute in terms of what values we’ve got, and practical ways that I can continue staying true to my values, or reflecting on how my values are being met week-by-week. I think that that’s definitely another tool that I’ll be using.
Out of the way the programme was structured, what did you get the most out of?
I think the face-to-face of having the start and the finish allowed to build relationships that, if we didn’t have that face-to-face at the start, it might have been a little bit harder, especially with the icebreakers that we had.
I think the pre-coursework was really well chosen and one that would directly was relevant to what Helen and Charlotte were presenting on the day. All the case studies and the pre-work that they gave us, I would say. And the fact that they gave us time to do it was the best bit.
If you had to summarise the experience overall, what would be your closing statement about it?
So it’s that reminder to invest in yourself, in your learning, in the networks that you have. Well, that can be made available to you through being part of this. And just the reminder that. You need to put that time and that effort to realise who you are as a leader, who you want to be as a leader and what you need to put in place to make sure that that happens.
The next steps for me really are just that commitment to doing that, using the alumni programme as a way to be held accountable through it, and the development plan.
And just… anybody should do it- Everybody should do it!
Want to find out more about the Aspiring Heads of Volunteering™ Programme?
Applications for the 2027 programme are open from Oct 12 – Nov 6 – visit their website via this link to find out more information and apply.
Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s monthly Newsletter.
This roundup is designed to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on at TeamKinetic, our partners, and across the third sector in general. So grab a brew and tuck into all the latest news.
We hope you find value in this TeamTalk. As always, we really appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave a comment, shoot over an email, or message via social media.
If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk, and we’ll get you on the list!
To read our roundup of stories we think you need to know about, click to go to the next page below, or choose a story from the list:
Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s monthly Newsletter.
This roundup is designed to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on at TeamKinetic, our partners, and across the third sector in general. So grab a brew and tuck into all the latest news.
We hope you find value in this TeamTalk. As always, we really appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave a comment, shoot over an email, or message via social media.
If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk, and we’ll get you on the list!
To read our roundup of stories we think you need to know about, click to go to the next page below, or choose a story from the list:
Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s monthly Newsletter.
This roundup is designed to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on at TeamKinetic, our partners, and across the third sector in general. So grab a brew and tuck into all the latest news.
We hope you find value in this TeamTalk. As always, we really appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave a comment, shoot over an email, or message via social media.
If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk, and we’ll get you on the list!
To read our roundup of stories we think you need to know about, click to go to the next page below, or choose a story from the list:
In April, we released a fantastic new update to the TeamKinetic volunteer management system that included three features we’re really excited about: Flows, Multi-Location Opportunities, and volunteer Find a Friend.
We’ve already covered the first two in other content, now it’s time for us to shine a light on the feature that we think will really boost community amongst your volunteers…
What is ‘Find a Friend’ in TeamKinetic?
Find a Friend does what it says on the tin – it allows volunteers to see other volunteers who have signed up to an opportunity. And now you’re probably thinking: “Hold on, what if I don’t want to share those details? What if my volunteers don’t want to share their details?”
Well don’t worry! There are plenty of settings to restrict this in a way that works for you, whether you turn it off completely or limit what is seen, and your volunteers have to opt-in too. You can also toggle sharing in every individual opportunity, so its very flexible.
Ultimately, Find a Friend aims to boost your volunteering community and build stronger bonds between your volunteers.
What are the restrictions?
If you’re a Super Admin user, you can head on over to Settings – Options – Opportunities and scroll all the way to the bottom. There, you’ll see a set of options around this feature, and you can control it to fit your organisation.
You can choose:
whether it’s on at all and showing the volunteer photo and name
whether to enable messaging between volunteers
whether to share volunteers’ mobile numbers
when volunteers can see this information
Once the overall setting has been turned on, the usage is decided on an opportunity-by-opportunity basis. When creating an opportunity, you can choose whether it is switched on or off.
By default, all volunteers are opted out of allowing their details to be shared. When a volunteer joins an opportunity that has this feature enabled, they’ll receive an email asking them to opt in.
Volunteers can update their choice at any time from their dashboard in the Notifications and Permissions section.
Why use Find a Friend?
Using this feature can encourage group volunteering and foster a greater sense of community amongst your volunteers.
Many people new to volunteering may want to volunteer alongside their friends to begin with. This enables them to find out which sessions their friends are on and book onto the same sessions.
Alternatively, a volunteer may make friends while volunteering for you and want to stay connected with these friends, continuing to volunteer alongside them.
We understand that not everyone will want to share data, and that some organisations will want to share more data than others. That’s why we’ve developed a variety of settings in relation to the Find a Friend feature.
However, if you think there’s still room for improvement, please let us know. This is a new feature after all, and we’re always looking for ways to keep developing TeamKinetic! You can send feedback directly to our development team via Support Tickets. Or you can send an email to any of the team, or pop into the live chat to let us know your thoughts.
We’re also hosting a masterclass all about the volunteer Find a Friend feature for all TeamKinetic users. You can book onto that now for free via Help & Support → Masterclasses & Training.
We are delighted to announce that nominations are now open for the HVG Volunteer Leader of the Year Award, proudly supported by TeamKinetic.
Press release shared on behalf of the Heritage Volunteering Group.
The annual award celebrates the achievements of those who have made a difference and recognises innovative and outstanding examples of volunteering leadership and management within the heritage sector.
Last year’s winner, Michelle Armstrong at the Auckland Project, said on receiving the award:
“To be nominated was an award in itself, especially alongside such inspiring people from organisations across our community. Receiving Volunteer Leader of the Year 2025 was beyond expectation and truly humbling. I’m thrilled that not only my work, but that of all volunteer leads at The Auckland Project, was recognised.”
Whether paid or unpaid, Volunteer Coordinator, Supervisor or Manager, if you know someone who has made a real difference to their volunteers, community or their organisation then we want to know about it. This year, the winner will receive a £100 gift card including an hour’s consultation with Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd and the runner-up will receive a £25 gift card.
The winner will be announced at our annual conference, Heritage Volunteering 2026: From Passion to Purpose, which is taking place online on 24-25 November. This year’s theme explores what effective volunteer engagement looks like today and how we deepen the impact volunteers make. It will feature a range of keynote speakers, workshops, and panel discussions. Tickets are on sale now at an early bird price of £30.
Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s monthly Newsletter.
This roundup is designed to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on at TeamKinetic, our partners, and across the third sector in general. So grab a brew and tuck into all the latest news.
We hope you find value in this TeamTalk. As always, we really appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave a comment, shoot over an email, or message via social media.
If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk, and we’ll get you on the list!
To read our roundup of stories we think you need to know about, click to go to the next page below, or choose a story from the list:
Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s monthly Newsletter. In between keeping tabs on local elections and enjoying the end of the football season, we’ve still been busy at work on the system and in the wider sector. Not to mention… Happy Volunteers Week! We hope you’re recognising all your lovely volunteers this week!
This roundup is designed to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on at TeamKinetic, our partners, and across the third sector in general. So grab a brew and tuck into all the latest news.
We hope you find value in this TeamTalk. As always, we really appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave a comment, shoot over an email, or message via social media.
If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk, and we’ll get you on the list!
To read our roundup of stories we think you need to know about, click to go to the next page below, or choose a story from the list:
