We’ve recently released TeamKinetic version 2.09 and you may have noticed a few new features. We’ve added new emailing and expenses features in our latest update.
New Email Features
The video above lays out all the new features.
When creating bulk emails you can now select any number of opportunities to be included in the email. You have the option of including the events that week and if you want to show the volunteer’s statistics across the top. These are all displayed in exactly the same way as within the newsletter so its now possible to send a newsletter type email to any of your volunteers, for any of your opportunities, whenever you like!
We have also rearranged and refactored the preview and draft buttons so you can now send a preview email to your email instantly and save a draft copy without leaving the page. We also now update the saved draft each time you hit the save draft button, rather than creating a new draft.
New Expenses Feature
The video above lays out information needed when adding/processing an Expense.
This is an Enterprise only feature. Administrators will have to switch this module on and off via the Super Admin Menu → Options → Opportunities → ‘Use the in app managed expenses module’.
Opportunities can now either be marked as ‘Managed Expenses’ and/or ‘Expenses Paid’.
Expenses Paid simply means that volunteers will be reimbursed. In this case, you should add details about what expenses are paid and if there’s a cap on the amount. This is useful for providers to specify that their opportunity pays expenses. Managed Expenses means that volunteers will be able upload expense claims which can then be managed by administrators. Managed expenses are always also marked as expenses paid.
If enabled, volunteers can select applicable opportunities from their dashboard, upload a receipt, an explanation of what the expense is for, and the amount they are claiming. Admins will get an alert when a new claim is submitted by a volunteer and can manage them all from a simple interface. The admin can view the receipt, adjust the claim amount, and update the claim status. A full history of changes and notes is maintained and viewable underneath the main claim.
Any issues?
New updates can create small problems elsewhere in the site (despite rigorous testing!) If you run into any issues on your site, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. You can either use the live chat feature, or raise a support ticket.
As an act that is entirely selfless, rewarding volunteers may seem like an impossible task – surely the work is rewarding enough? While, yes, the work is rewarding. It doesn’t keep a volunteer motivated to keep volunteering for you. So how do we reward charity retail volunteers?
In this blog we’ll go through a variety of ways, because not every volunteer will respond to the same methods.
First, why do they volunteer?
Understanding the reasoning behind your volunteer’s commitment can help you tailor recognition and rewards to them personally. Here are some common reasons:
Because they care about the cause/have been personally impacted by the organisation.
As a good way to fill their time.
To join friends and family who volunteer.
Because it’s a good networking opportunity.
Because it contributes to something wider – e.g. the Duke of Edinburgh award.
So how do we reward charity retail volunteers?
This is where it starts to feel complicated: formal vs informal, intrinsic vs extrinsic, physical v digital, etc. But don’t worry! We’ll lay it all out for you so you just have to worry about picking the right method for your volunteers.
Formal v Informal Rewards
Formal rewards are usually regarded as those you plan ahead of time. This could include things like award ceremonies, volunteer of the month awards, and certificates.
In contrast, informal rewards are the smaller things you would use on a day-to-day basis. Instead, it focuses on improving the experience for volunteers. You might reward volunteers in this way through bringing them refreshments while they work, having conversations about how their experience could be improved. A great benefit of informal rewards is their low cost and significant ongoing impact.
Intrinsic v Extrinsic Motivation
Volunteering can be personally rewarding to many people and this good feeling is often a big motivator. Intrinsic motivation is all about helping your volunteers continually feel good about the work they’re doing and the difference they’re making, rather than working towards one particular reward. It follows the same premise as informal rewards – you want to reward volunteers by continually improving the state of your volunteer programme.
On the other hand, extrinsic motivation involves volunteering because of outside factors, such as receiving a reward. This isn’t always a negative thing, as mentioned above, people often volunteer as part of something else. For example, a student may volunteer in a charity shop in order to fulfil one of the requirements of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.
There’s always potential to retain this kind of volunteer through intrinsic motivation. If they become motivated by the way volunteering makes them feel, rather than fulfilling a requirement, they’ll be more likely to keep volunteering for you.
Physical v Digital
Now we know about the different types of motivation and rewards, we can start thinking how to deliver them. Those of you who are not yet fully engaging with digital may feel more comfortable delivering purely physical rewards (such as thank you cards and teas/coffee). One Welsh charity even decided to help the local community beyond their existing efforts. The Gellideg Foundation Group gave their volunteers gift cards to small local businesses as a reward, helping boost the local economy and keep local shops open!
However, there are a whole host more options available to you via digital means. And you never have to stick to purely digital or physical rewards – there’s room for both to be used effectively.
How can I reward volunteers with TeamKinetic?
TeamKinetic can facilitate a range of options when it comes to rewarding your hard-working volunteers.
First of all, after every opportunity, volunteers and opportunity providers are asked to leave feedback. This feedback serves as a way to praise the volunteer but can also be used to improve internally. If any volunteers have issues, these will be sent to you and you can deal with them. Giving volunteers a great place to work is a great step to help them feel appreciated.
Furthermore, the system offers HourTrades. These are rewards for reaching a certain number of volunteering hours logged. This can be set to anything you desire, offering a wide range of incentives to your charity retail volunteers.
We also have Opportunity and Achievement Badges. Opportunity badges can identify opportunities that will contribute to an award, such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Achievement Badges are awarded over time – the more hours a volunteer logs, the better badge they receive! These are saved digitally but for an added touch you could create physical badges to match!
Try it for yourself
You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website, giving you access to everything the system has to offer for 30 days.
If you want to find out more about the system, or have any questions you can use the chat feature on our website, email us, phone us on 0161 914 5757, or find us on social media:
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
If your organisation has an established volunteer programme, you’ll have your volunteers up and running with good quality opportunities, but now it’s time to evaluate. Maybe you’re already analysing your volunteer programme, but is it enough?
Analysing your volunteer programme can provide key insight into the impact of your programme. This could include how you’ve improved the lives of people in the local community and key demographics of your volunteers. So let’s dive right in…
The Fundamentals
Let’s start with your goals. Do you have them and are you achieving them?
Simple reporting tools can help you recognise whether you’re hitting these goals. If you are, it can inform how you go about setting new goals. If not, it’ll give you an idea of how to adjust your operations in order to achieve them. And if you’re yet to set any goals, key KPIs can help you draw some up.
What are KPIs?
Key Performance Indicators: a set of quantifiable measurements used to gauge a company’s overall long-term performance. This could include things like:
The monetary value of services rendered by volunteer support
Number of people in the community served by volunteers
So Why Is It Important?
Analysing your volunteer programme is a pathway to discovering a whole host of things.
Volunteer retention rate can suggest the happiness of your volunteers or quality of your opportunities. If volunteers aren’t happy and don’t have access to good opportunities, they won’t keep coming back. You can read more on how to fix this issue in our ‘How to Increase Volunteer Retention (and keep it!)‘ blog. Just remember: a happy volunteer is a loyal volunteer!
Furthermore, volunteer demographics can be compared to demographics in your area to see whether your programme is attracting an expected variety of people. If not, why not? For example, demographics showing a very high proportion of white volunteers in a very ethnically diverse area could suggest there are barriers to people in your community who want to volunteer. Our recent post ‘Is Your Pool of Volunteers Diverse and Inclusive?‘ provides valuable tips on how to improve this within your own organisation.
However, data isn’t just about spotting areas for improvement. It could also be used to identify those who are going above and beyond for your organisation. With tools like hour logging and feedback, you can see which volunteers are giving their time the most and receiving praise for their work.
How can I get started?
There’s a good chance you’re already managing your volunteers digitally, but are you using volunteer management software? Software can put everything in one place for you, allowing you to manage, communicate, and analyse your volunteers in a few clicks. You can read more about implementing volunteer management software in this blog.
While it’s possible to analyse your volunteers using spreadsheets and other software, it’s definitely much easier to have everything in one place. Instantly have everything you need to manage your volunteers all in one place, leaving you more time to focus on the important stuff.
Why not try TeamKinetic?
You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. This includes features such as volunteer-owned profiles, the ability to log hours completed, and reporting tools. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers and start analysing your volunteer programme!
Organisations should be diverse and inclusive to the communities they serve, and your volunteers should mirror that. So, how do organisations achieve this? A recent agenda consulting survey gives us some more detail into how volunteering organisations value diversity.
Agenda Consulting undertook a survey as part of their ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the UK Third Sector’ report. The report looks to understand people’s views and experiences of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within the organisations they work with. The survey covers 8 sectors: Gender, Gender different to that originally assigned at birth; Ethnicity, Disability, Religion, Sexual Orientation and Age.
Agenda Consulting Survey:
The overall view from survey results states the average positivity for DEI is 72%, with neutrality being 21%. The average negativity is 7%. What is most surprising is that the highest level of negativity is regarding age: at 12% negativity overall.
It’s clear that while there are mostly positive results, there’s still work to be done: 67% of respondents feel the leadership groups display their commitment to DEI. However, just 48% of people feel their organisation is committed to promoting the representation of diverse groups. By recruiting and retaining a workforce that is diverse, you can work towards building stronger perceptions.
Sector Results:
The results show for gender little difference between men’s and women’s perception, yet statistics from Agenda’s People Count, show that gender balance shifts as we move through levels of seniority. There may be an imbalance in results. 76% of the survey sample are female, fitting with Volunteers Count of 70% of all volunteers being female. For more information, we have a blog post which dives into the reasons why women volunteer more than men.
For those whose gender is different to that originally assigned at birth: results suggest there needs to be education within the sector. Only 50% believe that, regardless of gender reassignment, people are treated equally. By increasing the education or knowledge of volunteers surrounding DEI, it becomes an organisation-wide initiative, instead of being held to within one department.
There is a strong perception that there is equal treatment regarding ethnicity, with 73% of people feeling like everyone is treated equally irrespective of race/ ethnicity: but 10% disagree. Perceptions of equal treatment are considerably lower for those respondents from an ethnic minority. More awareness is needed throughout organisations: and this should be done by the very people who it directly affects. We’ve looked deeper into the socio-economic status surrounding volunteers and whether volunteering is too white and wealthy…
Disability, Religion, Sexual Orientation and Age:
The results from disability-related questions show that 67% feel people are treated equally, with 24% neutral and 9% feel negatively. This use of ‘neutral’ suggests that volunteers don’t have enough insight. This is possibly due to the fact that just 4% of volunteers are disabled (according to Volunteers Count). If we remove those barriers, we open volunteering up to a wider community with fresh ideas and skills, representing wider society as a whole.
74% feel that people are treated equally despite a person’s religious beliefs, with 22% of people feeling neutral and 4% opposing the statement. There are several groups who are the least positive. Agenda’s report outlines those who identify in another way and ethnic minorities as standouts for those who aren’t as positive. It can be suggested that this is down to wider societal stereotypes, which are translating into the volunteering sector.
Overall, only 1% of those who identify as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) felt they weren’t treated equally due to their sexual orientation, whereas 84% of people did. During the survey, it was LGB groups who thought less positively about the statements being asked of them. This possibly suggests that they are more aware than others about the inequalities minorities face.
As mentioned above, it is age that has the greatest discrepancy when it comes to being treated equally. Out of the 3% of under 25s who took part in the survey, only 59% felt positively, with 18% negative. As age increases, the negativity does too. This suggests a divide within organisations among age groups on whether certain groups of people are treated equally.
So Why Should We Increase the Diversity of Volunteer Programmes?
Harvard Business Review confirms that when a team member shares the ethnicity of their client, the entire team is 152% more likely to fully understand the client. This ability is crucial for volunteer programmes. By increasing the diversity of your organisation you receive new ideas and approaches to your work; with new volunteers, you gain people from different educational backgrounds with different soft skills, like communication.
All of this helps your organisation, but it also helps those you volunteer for: your volunteers can be role models. Those who can see themselves within volunteers can inspire and increase their aspirations. They may also want to volunteer in some capacity too! Organisations should be looking towards becoming inclusive for all, for a stronger future.
So How Do We Increase the Diversity of Volunteer programmes?
There are a number of strategies to ensure your volunteer programme can become inclusive for all. Starting with your language. Switching up your language to attract certain groups of people can help you gain a wider audience.
Start to build relationships! Building up relationships with communities means you can speak freely and they can too! It’s important to identify those communities you want to engage with: it’s important you’re authentic.
The policies that your organisation has may need rewriting. What you have written down versus the culture surrounding your volunteer programme can be drastically different.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are so important for volunteer programmes who want to move forward. It’s simple, organisations must be inclusive for all. Your pool of volunteers should mirror the community you work in. With a diverse pool of volunteers, you have an opportunity. Team bonding exercises can bring people together.
AVM’s Making an Inclusive and Accessible Recruitment and Onboarding Experience
Save the Date! Wednesday the 27th April, 9:30am- 12:30pm, AVM are hosting an event helping you to create an inclusive and accessible recruitment and onboarding experience! Straight from AVM, at this event you will…
Hear ideas on how you could adapt your recruitment and onboarding process to be more inclusive
Learn how organisations have overcome some of the barriers to inclusive recruitment
Reasonable adjustments that can be made to ensure your recruitment process is accessible to all
How to attract a diverse range of volunteers and what you might need to consider
Have an opportunity to plan your next steps, in small groups with your peers
Learn more about the event and how you get your tickets here!
Manage Your Volunteers:
We now know how important diversity and inclusion are to volunteer organisations and volunteer management. An efficient and effective management system is needed to help you help your volunteers and the community. TeamKinetic can help you recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers…
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
On Thursday, we were lucky enough to be one of the speakers during the Charity Retail Associations People Management Group. We popped on a train, and arrived in London ready and eager to finally see other people in the flesh! We’d like to thank the Charity Retail Association for inviting us to speak about how digital can help volunteer management. As a volunteer management system company, we felt we could really help attendees who may be thinking of heading to the digital side.
We’ve collected four key takeaways from the day’s events…
One: Recruitment is one of the biggest challenges at present.
Recruitment became the focus for many throughout the day, every organisation has had trouble with recruiting both volunteers and paid staff. Many organisations are struggling to find van drivers for collections and drop offs. With the Christmas period around the corner, this demand is only going to increase. The question becomes, what changes can we make to attract more staff, more volunteers, more drivers?
During the group discussion, we thought about the ‘fixes’ within staff recruitment that may be needed. These fixes included allowing staff to start straight away. With a focus on van drivers, getting them up and running as quickly as possible will help ease the pressure of collections and pick ups – can we speed this process up?
We also spoke about raising the profile of organisations – get yourself out there! In the next few years, there’s a very high chance that at least 60% of the high street will be charity shops. So why are they second choice employers? There is an understanding that a charity role is charity, when in reality it isn’t. We should be looking at job roles, as jobs, it’s something commercial and should be treated as such!
The first of two talks over the course of the day was Retail Trust’s Joe Ryan. Joe spoke about the ‘Retail Industry Against Domestic Abuse’ (RIADA) campaign running in partnership with Dunelm and the Domestic Abuse Alliance. The charity is supporting employees of retail both in the workplace and at home: and in recent weeks have had a focus on domestic abuse.
Retail Trust’s aim is to work together with the charity retail sector to become a unified voice to offer support to victims. They have a management guide, and policy template, free to access on their website- here.The expectation is for all organisations to create and decide on a policy and start to implement this within the workplace.
Three: Is Digital The Way Forward?
Our talk focused around what impact digital technologies have on volunteer management. We’re aware we may have thrown quite a lot of information at attendees in such a small time, so here’s the most important information for you now…
At TeamKinetic, we strive to make volunteering easier for everyone. We believe digital is the way forward. For those who may not have a volunteer management platform, we suggest using a Moscow format:
Mo: Must Have.
S: Should have.
Co: Could have.
W: Won’t have.
Through Moscow, you should be able to define the features and benefits you want out of a volunteer system, and those that you don’t! You’ll then be able to access your options, and find the best for you.
Once you have your system, using digital can help you recruit more volunteers than before through quick and easy sign ups. Retain your current volunteers by increasing the communication between organisation and volunteer. And realise the potential of your volunteers through live reports and feedback. If you’d like to dive deeper into a system that can help you do all of this, start a FREE trial with TeamKinetic, here!
Our Conclusions:
Digital technologies/systems will change how you’ve worked. You should be able to support more volunteers, become more creative and have deeper insight into your programme.
Whatever product you use must be suitable for both digital and non-digital participation.
Finally, good volunteer management tools need good volunteer managers.
We hope this whistle stop tour of our session can help anyone looking into volunteer management systems. If you’d like to know more about anything we’ve covered- head over to our blog page, where there’s in-depth posts about utilising your digital space.
Four: Post-COVID Stamina.
Our final key takeaway is something we haven’t really heard before: ‘post-COVID stamina.’ Post-COVID stamina, we believe, can affect everyone.
Obviously, those who have contracted COVID have to take time to recover, and stamina has to be built back up. We also believe those who haven’t had covid can also experience this. The pandemic and repeated lockdowns has meant that many people were able to regenerate themselves and their motivations; but two years later, that motivation could have diminished. We’ve even felt it sometimes around the office!
This post-COVID stamina means that, in our case, volunteers are more susceptible to becoming unwell and it can be tough to balance your own health and helping volunteer/help run a business. It may take time, but stamina will pick up, we will get stronger, and back on track in the ways we want.
Conclusions and Thank Yous…
We hope these takeaways and snippets into the Charity Retail Association’s People Management Group, starts off conversations within your organisation (and between organisations too) on how we can start to positively move forward and, as always, if you find yourself wanting to explore a volunteer management system, why not start a FREE trial with TeamKinetic today…
On one last note, we’d again like to thank the CRA for allowing us to talk about what we’re passionate about. An insightful day, with welcoming attendees across the retail sector- we hope that others enjoyed the day as much as we did.
Willowbrook Hospice provides care for patients with life limiting diseases living in St Helens, Knowsley and the surrounding areas. They rely on their fundraising methods and their dedicated volunteers. After realising they needed a volunteer management system, they came across us, TeamKinetic.
Why TeamKinetic?
For Willowbrook hospice, their previous system was archaic- there was no way to engage with their volunteers. We know the importance of interacting with volunteers we have already, so this was a concern for Willowbrook. They needed a system that allowed for this interaction. Willowbrook also wanted a web-based programme which would allow everyone to access the site from anywhere.
Benefits of using TeamKinetic:
One of the biggest benefits for Willowbrook, as mentioned above, is the ability to access the system anywhere. It’s critical for volunteer managers in each of Willowbrook’s nine shops to have access to the system. This way each shop manager can see who’s coming in to volunteer, and has all the information they need in one place.
In Willowbrook’s case, their current contact details for volunteers was through paper, which we all know isn’t the most effective. With TeamKinetic’s data protection and GDPR compliance, Willowbrook Hospice are able to see necessary contact information on volunteers profiles. If there is an emergency, managers know exactly where to go to find an email address or a phone number.
Having this information at hand means that they’re able to be more present in volunteers’ lives, through emails and messages. Since using our system, Willowbrook’s volunteers have noticed the change- they feel as if they’re more involved with the Hospice due to the update emails they receive. Willowbrook has learnt the importance of communication and engagement between themselves and volunteers along with the importance of volunteers talking with each other too.
Willowbrook Hospice’s communication:
For Willowbrook, they’ve created a befriending team between their volunteers. They’ve brought their volunteers together to support each other- especially through-out the pandemic. TeamKinetic hosts a private notes function, so Willowbrook can update when they’ve spoken to a volunteer.
All this communication has meant that volunteers feel more involved than ever with the happenings around Willowbrook Hospice and their nine shops. By involving volunteer managers and volunteers, it becomes much more likely that they will spread Willowbrook out into the world further. You’ll be attracting new volunteers whilst building and retaining the volunteers you already have. In Bev Neilson’s (a volunteer manager at Willowbrook) words, “if you want efficient communication, then you’re going to get it with TeamKinetic, definitely”.
Willowbrook also outlined the quick response rates you can get with the TeamKinetic system;
“We’ve had small events that have come up now and again. We had an event that came up where we could sell things in a local Garden Centre. It’s something we had to implement quite quickly because it was over Christmas. So, I created it on TeamKinetic and had it emailed out to all the volunteers. I would say within the hour, we filled up all the slots for two weeks worth of people volunteering for it. I think that raised over £2,000; without TeamKinetic that would never have happened.”
The ease of creating an opportunity online, and advertising it out to volunteers meant that they’re unexpected fundraising occasion was a success! Our advertising options aren’t limited to just emails, you can automatically send out a post on social media when you’ve created an opportunity, or bulk text your volunteers to let them know!
Willowbrook Hospice advice:
You’ve heard a lot from us, so here’s Willowbrook’s advice for those looking to manage their volunteers more efficiently;
“I think having this system in place helps because everything is in one place. Before it all felt a bit jumbled, we were going from system to system to try and run everything, and engage volunteers while still trying to keep in touch with them. Whereas now, we’ve got one system that we can use and as it’s web-based, like I said before, we can access it anywhere.”
What’s Next For Willowbrook Hospice?
What is happening for Willowbrook at the moment? They’ve recently celebrated World Hospice and Palliative Care Day on the 9th October. Willowbrook have decided to incorporate a Reaching Out Focus into their 2019-2022 Strategy and Organisational Work in line with this year’s theme: ‘Leave no-one behind- equity in access to palliative care.’ There objectives are as follows:
All the members of the community we serve are aware of our services, have equal access and feel comfortable to do so.
To see more people from across the communities we serve.
Thank you to Bev Neilson and Willowbrook Hospice for letting us in behind the curtain!
Find out more:
TeamKinetic helps to build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, increase impact and improve insight. Our goal is to make volunteering easy for everyone no matter what. But, don’t take our word for it, why not check out our customer reviews.
For more information on how we can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers, visit our website or contact us on 0161 914 5757.
Over the past 20 months we have seen organisations transform and adapt in order to continue helping those they serve. One way they have adapted is through micro-volunteering. We’ll be covering just what micro-volunteering is and how you can really get the best out of it!
What is micro-volunteering?
Micro-volunteering consists of people taking small amounts of time out of their day to volunteer; we’re looking at up to 30 minutes on a particular task, maximum. These tasks can be broken down into small parts, in which one volunteer can complete just one component. It’s convenient and low commitment actions appeal a lot to potential volunteers who may only have limited free time. Micro-volunteering takes numerous small contributions and accumulates them together to make a difference.
While the majority of micro-volunteering takes place online, through signing petitions and sharing/retweeting to spread awareness- it doesn’t have to be. You could be taking part in a run, sorting through recycling or baking for an event.
Micro-volunteering is good for organisations and it doesn’t take away from traditional volunteering. Volunteering long-term, micro-volunteers aren’t who you should be looking at. They cannot be deemed as reliable. So, if your organisation is looking at micro-volunteering, make sure that your opportunities fit the micro-volunteering mould; don’t change a traditional opportunity for the sake of it- you’ll find more often than not, it simply won’t work.
Plan Correctly…
If your organisation is thinking of using micro-volunteering, they have the chance to save themselves time and money, if planned correctly.
Start Planning. What’s the opportunity? Who’s going to manage this within the organisation?
Get Advertising. Use various websites and social media to promote your micro-volunteering opportunity.
Quick Management. Find your volunteers, get them started and confirm they know what it is they’ll be doing (there still needs to be some management even if the opportunity is small).
Recognise and Reward. Send volunteers some feedback on their completed opportunity and tell them about their impact.
The Pandemic Effect on Micro-volunteering…
As organisations rethought their volunteer programmes throughout the pandemic, micro-volunteering and the digital opportunities it provided was the gateway organisations needed to carry on. Organisation’s now face whether they keep micro-volunteering up now we return back to ‘normality’.
At AVM’s annual conference, it was mentioned that micro-volunteering should have as little bureaucracy as possible. These aren’t the volunteers you so much rely on, but they can massively make an impact within your organisation. Relationships with micro-volunteers are different from your traditional ones (mainly because you can have hundreds of micro-volunteers, so personal relationships will be hard to maintain!)
Benefits and Considerations
As we’ve hinted at, micro-volunteering does have some benefits for organisations. Currently the biggest barrier to volunteering is time. The world we live in now is fast paced, and people find that they don’t have enough time to get everything done; micro-volunteering is perfect. The flexibility of smaller tasks is appealing to many, but remember, new volunteers may be worried that they have to pledge a long-term commitment of some sort. With micro-volunteering they don’t have to.
Micro-volunteering opens you up to have a wider range of skills at your disposal (so to speak.) As volunteers are only engaged for a small amount of time, you might find that you have a group of volunteers with the same skill. Opportunities can now be split and completed quickly and efficiently: it’s a win-win. Your organisation will be getting the help it’s looking for, while volunteers haven’t lost too much of their free time.
A challenge with volunteers from an organisation’s perspective is making sure that you reach the micro-volunteering demand, especially because you’re dealing with quick opportunities. Along with this you’ll also need some sort of support for these volunteers. While they aren’t directly linked to your organisation, they’ll still need some support and direction from you. To do this, having a support tool kit you can send to your micro-volunteers with all the information they might need will set them on their way and means you can focus on other aspects of your organisation.
While your relationship with micro-volunteers is different from your traditional volunteers, you should still collect feedback (from them and from you!) As we know, micro-volunteering can be set at an arm’s length, especially for those opportunities completed online so volunteers may never know the impact they’ve made within an organisation – so make sure to let them know!
How do you know whether your organisation can use micro-volunteering?
Despite what the title says, not every organisation will work well with micro-volunteers (sadly). If you’re struggling to figure out whether your organisation would benefit, we might be able to help. Micro-volunteering is good for organisations that:
Have the potential to attract a large pool of diverse volunteers; especially those who may not have a lot of time on their hands.
Have a strong path for potential micro-volunteers to transfer into a traditional volunteer role (this may be letting micro-volunteers know where they can register their interest etc.)
Have ideas around building motivation for micro-volunteers to keep them interested in the progression of your organisation, whether it be to volunteer or just to keep in touch.
Offer new micro-volunteering opportunities to existing volunteers. This is really important now that we’re coming out of the pandemic, because volunteers’ perceptions and safety concerns have changed.
Hopefully those bullet points can give you some insight into whether, or how your organisation can start to introduce micro-volunteering into its daily process. It’s clear to see how this kind of volunteering has become popular in recent times, especially as the past 18 months have transitioned onto online platforms. If you’re thinking that micro-volunteering is something you should be adapting into your company, you might need a good volunteer management system…
Need a good volunteer management system? Look no further.
TeamKinetic helps to build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, increase impact and improve insight. Our goal is to make volunteering easy for everyone no matter what. But, don’t take our word for it, why not check out our customer reviews.
For more information on how we can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers, visit our website or contact us on 0161 914 5757.
Having a strong pool of volunteers is absolutely crucial for charities; and technology can be the solution to effectively recruit new volunteers. We’ve seen recently just how much technology has connected us, bringing people together – exactly what charities are looking for.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) have recommended that charity organisations move to digital outputs in order to become as accommodating for potential volunteers as possible. We want to cut through current barriers stopping people from volunteering.
Managing volunteers on a digital platform builds a community, and improves communication, not just between organisations and volunteers, but between volunteers themselves too! You’ll find that everyone will be more focused on your organisation’s cause.
Richard Cooper, Director of Programmes at the Technology expresses that one of the biggest issues in charities is the lack of understanding on how technology can help. Well, we can help with that!
Why Technology/Digital?
So, why digital? You can find the right volunteers for you. With constantly changing volunteer pools, digitally advertising your opportunities gives you new options. When you promote your opportunities, you’re able to tailor your language to the volunteers you’re looking for. If you already have a good volunteer pool, you can use them as a reference… How would you promote them? What tone would you use?
By having a digital sign up/application process, you have all the information you need on a volunteer’s profile, in one centralised system. By registering online, volunteers can instantly gain access to your opportunities, and start volunteering as soon as possible!
If your charity has an onboarding or training process that volunteers have to complete, you can transfer this onto volunteer management systems too. Your processes are now streamlined and you can attract more people than ever; a digital initiative by Age UK a has amassed a 50% increase in their sign up conversions.
Perfect your Two-way Communication:
You might think that it’s all well and good having volunteers sign up, but for charities human connection and having that relationship between one another is crucial. So how do we achieve that online?
Communication between a volunteer and organisation should always go two ways: it’ll help you keep attracting and retaining volunteers. With digital systems, that communication is always open. You can build a relationship through email, chat box, or even SMS text all from one place.
This not only shows your support but can also be used to recognise volunteers. For example, within TeamKinetic’s system you can leave feedback (on both a volunteer and organisation side) thanking the volunteer in question for completing the opportunity. The Charity Retail Association (CRA) has expressed how showing appreciation can really motivate a volunteer – and we agree!
Digital systems also offer new ways to recognise and reward your volunteers too! To come back to TeamKinetic, you can create custom achievement badges such as ‘volunteer of the month’ or enable ‘HourTrades.’ HourTrades are vouchers that volunteers can swap their logged hours for. This gives them a reward (the reward is up to you!)
Has the Pandemic moved technology forward?
It doesn’t seem a surprise that the pandemic has thrown volunteering into a more digital design. Using digital platforms throughout the pandemic to work and volunteer have doubled compared to pre-pandemic rates (82%). This has meant that volunteering through the pandemic was able to continue, with new digital systems improving service accessibility by 45%. Technology has been able to improve the ease of access towards volunteering over the past 18 months, and if we look more into the future, digital platforms are here to stay.
One of the concerns surrounding moving to digital, is the lack of skills paid staff had. Yet over the past 18 months to 2 years, there’s been an increase of 73% of required staff increasing their level of digital skills. It seems the pandemic has only increased the rate at which charities are moving online and taking a more technology based approach. This is reminiscent of the work towards Volunteer Passporting, which we wrote a blog all about too!
The processes of time-consuming and complex processes are a thing of the past, streamlining your volunteer management digitally offers a comprehensive service, for your managers and your volunteers.
Want To Know More?
Here at TeamKinetic we can get you set up quickly and efficiently, so you can start to recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers…
Start a free trial with TeamKinetic here. Or alternatively email chris@teamkinetic.co.uk or call on 0160 914 5757.
Now that life is returning to normal – or as normal as it can be – you might be wondering the best practice when it comes to volunteer retention.
Over lockdown you might have lost volunteers. Research suggests the number of volunteers in charity shops fell by 20% as a result of the pandemic. These people might have moved into full-time work, they might not feel comfortable coming back due to health/personal reasons, or maybe they just no longer have time to give anymore.
But don’t worry! There are many ways to recruit new volunteers and make sure you retain them too.
Here are our top tips when it comes to solving the issue of poor volunteer retention rates.
Keep Volunteers Happy
A happy volunteer is a motivated and loyal volunteer. But what makes them happy? Well that’s a hard question to answer. Everyone is different but the key fundamentals should give you a good start:
Good Communication
If you consider volunteers to be essential to your organisation, remember to check in with them regularly. Their opinions matter and can help you improve your volunteer programme, leading to increased recruitment and better retention rates. Many might communicate with volunteers through things like WhatsApp and Facebook groups, but have you considered alternatives? Any good volunteer management system will allow you to communicate with your volunteers in a range of ways all through one medium. For example; emails, SMS Texting, Social Media sharing, and opportunity chat rooms are all possible in TeamKinetic.
Be Flexible
These options are available when creating an opportunity on the TeamKinetic system
If you’re experiencing a lot of absences from your volunteers, maybe it’s a sign of unhappiness and/or stress. Giving them flexibility (i.e. multiple shift times & dates and/or an option to work from home) could be a way to improve this. Giving volunteers a range of ways to help out can make them feel valued. You’re not just trying to fill a position – you actually appreciate the work they’re doing for you. Which brings us to our next point…
Show Appreciation
Even though they’re giving their time for free, it’s still nice to be acknowledged every so often. Showing appreciation doesn’t just stop at sending them a thank you card, it can also involve how they’re treated on the job. Ensure volunteers feel valued in their positions, give them good quality training materials and empower them.
Access to Good Quality Opportunities
An example of an opportunity on the TeamKinetic system
Firstly, make sure all information about your opportunities (and ways to apply) is easy to access for your prospective volunteers. Making opportunities easy to find means that you’re increasing the amount of people you could reach. This could in-turn increase the quantity and diversity of people who want to volunteer for you.
Secondly, making the opportunities you’re offering of a good quality. Giving volunteers good work means they’ll actively want to keep giving you their time and you’ll both get much more out of the whole experience. However, not only do your opportunities have to be worthwhile, but the way you describe them does too. Provide as much information as possible, including all the key details (times, dates, location, etc.) as well as highlighting the skills they can develop.
Upgrading Your Volunteer Management Solution
Perhaps you’ve read these tips and want to use them, but implementing them may seem like a mammoth task. Well, have you thought about volunteer management software? It may seem like an extra expense you don’t need, but the tools you’ll receive access to will improve your volunteer programme and save you massive amounts of time!
With features that fulfil everything mentioned in this article, why not give it a try? You can start a free trial with TeamKinetic now. Once you’re up and running with a trial site, we’ll contact you to ask if you’d like a demo with Chris. This will give you a personalised, in-depth look at the system and all its capabilities.
With no obligation to pay anything until you’re sure our system is right for you it seems like a no-brainer.
Now we’re heading back to ‘normal’, should you still be working with online volunteers? YES! By recruiting online volunteers from quite literally anywhere you’re expanding your reach. When it comes to volunteering: the bigger your reach, the better! Virtual volunteering slots here perfectly.
In today’s blog post, we’re outlining the ways you can make sure your virtual opportunities stand out from the rest.
Making Your Opportunity Stand Out
Your Opportunity Title. When creating your opportunity, make sure your title is compelling and attractive. A volunteer is more likely to join an opportunity that instantly excites them, so having a strong title is key. It’s also worth mentioning somewhere in the title that the opportunity is remote.
Opportunity Description. Simply, don’t post the full list of details. Searching volunteers are likely to be leading with emotion – and a long description of there duties isn’t going to entice them. We suggest giving snippets of their duties but focus on explaining the impact they’ll be making.
Jargon. For a number of volunteers, this is their first time volunteering. Any specific language or acronyms should be left out. It’s most likely going to confuse potential volunteers, so keeping it as simple as possible will get more interest from new volunteers.
Calls To Action. Give potential volunteers the ‘next steps’ for joining an opportunity. Your opportunity should always have contact details too, for any other questions or support they might require.
Image Use. The use of imagery taps into volunteers’ emotions. Using the right image can trigger mirror neurons in the brain, so the volunteer feels the emotions portrayed in an image. Your images can also show that your organisation is inclusive to all. It’s important that your imagery is right, and sends the right signals to those browsing.
Checking Your Posting. Once your post is complete, make sure to double check it. Go through and check that all the information is correct as well as looking out for any spelling/grammatical errors. It’s also worth, once posted, looking at the opportunity through a potential volunteer’s eyes – do they have everything they need to join?
Are You Screening Your Volunteers?
Now that you’ve perfected your opportunity listing, and you have a set of virtual volunteers, the screening process can begin! What should you be considering when it comes to your volunteering screening process?
At the outset, you need to find out where your volunteer will be working. Are they going to be in a pace that’s quiet and private, or will they be in a busy environment? The key thing is that they are able to volunteer effectively in the place they’ve set up.
To ensure your volunteer is working effectively, are their any supplies or training required? Ensure that your volunteer has completed their training steps, and can access everything they need to start volunteering; this check makes sure there can be a smooth process into the opportunity, because there’s no stop/starting as a volunteer doesn’t have access to something important.
Volunteers will be interacting with a number of different people – let them know the basic information on how they should interact. This can help build up a volunteer’s confidence, so they interact with the organisation and those it helps more.
Make sure that you’re frequently staying in touch with those who virtually volunteer, over email, chat or video call. You can touch base weekly or monthly, building up a relationship that keeps them returning to volunteer. Establishing this relationship is important, volunteers want to feel seen and heard, like they aren’t just on the outskirts of the organisation.
Volunteer Motivations
You can also match volunteers with other opportunities you think they might be interested in. One way you can do this is through understanding your volunteers motives. VolunteerPro teaches a lot about a set of motivations a volunteer is likely to have, and how they can be applied by volunteer managers. Their motivations are:
Values: Where in which volunteers take something meaningful from the hours they spend volunteering.
Careers: Opportunities open doors for volunteers to advance in their careers or network with likeminded people from their industry.
Social: Volunteers can find themselves in emotional and supportive environments which they can also benefit from.
Enhancement: Volunteering gives leadership development to volunteers and changes their perception of power to some extent.
Volunteers that are open and motivated are most likely to have more than one goal in mind, rather than running on one single purpose. For some, they might not yet realise what those goals or motivations are, but they want to help in any capacity.
Think it’s time to invest in volunteer management software?
You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers!
