Author: Chris Martin Page 1 of 13

Developing A Business Case For TeamKinetic Volunteer Management System (VMS)

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On 21st March 2024

In News & Views

We know that there are a wide range of things to consider when you are looking to invest in technology. This short article will help you develop your business case for TeamKinetic to decision-makers.

Compliance

It’s not the most exciting topic. However, it’s one of the most significant risk factors for your senior management team to consider. In this context, we are specifically thinking about compliance with the laws of the land.

So, what are we talking about when we think about managing volunteers? Below are a couple of the big ones.

  • General Data Protection Regulation – 2016
  • Health and Safety at Work Act – 1974
  • Equality Act – 2010

You can read more about each of these and how they impact volunteers, here.

TeamKinetic is built with compliance in mind. If you are working from spreadsheets or more rudimentary systems, this may be challenging. Consider the following questions:

  • Can you guarantee the appropriate collection and storage of sensitive data?
  • How easy is it for you to manage a subject access request?
  • Has every volunteer consented to your terms and conditions?
  • Do you have a record of any training or induction a volunteer has undertaken?
  • How easy is it to check for individuals whose training may have lapsed?
  • Do you have reliable data on your volunteer workforce from an equality and inclusion standpoint?
  • How many of your volunteers identify as disabled or with other protected characteristics?

These are all examples of compliance risks, and this burden only continues to grow. However, these are all easily solved using TeamKinetic. TeamKinetic provides the infrastructure to capture and store data in accordance with best practices and legal requirements.

Security

A sub-set of the compliance risk area, cyber security is a challenge for all organisations. The Software as a Service approach means you get the benefit of our expertise and knowledge in this space.

With our work with the Cyber Security Unit at Salford University, our Cyber Essentials certification, and as we work towards ISO 27001 compliance, you can be sure that TeamKinetic is operating at or above the industry standard. Our approach to risk is managed via our Risk Register and our published policies, giving our customers total peace of mind.

Spreadsheets, web forms and old databases might work, but they are fought with risk. A solution like TeamKinetic undergoes regular penetration testing, policy evaluation and review and work in accordance with OWASP best practice in coding and development.

Digital and Online

As the world becomes more digital, the expectations for volunteer engagement continue to rise. Your services and how individuals engage with them are being compared to everything else available online. A failure to keep up will result in organisations being left behind, especially by more digitally savvy individuals.

Currently, smartphone adoption rates in the UK sit at 91.5%, but that is expected to rise to 96.8% by 2028.

Consumer behaviour post-COVID has seen a significant shift, McKinsey published a paper in 2020 on this very topic. McKinsey’s crucial finding was that we “covered a decade of adoption in days” as a result of COVID and people have adopted digital in all aspects of their daily lives. Not only have people adopted digital, the digital world continues to move forward at a pace. The challenge for all organisations is keeping up with these digital trends.

TeamKinetic is a SaaS product or ‘Software as a Service’. This approach enables our customers to choose the best-in-class solution, off the shelf, to solve their volunteer management challenges. SaaS reduces the need for expensive infrastructure or technical expertise and it is built to meet the highest accessibility and inclusion standards. In TeamKinetic’s case, our product is constantly being improved and updated based on customer and user feedback.

We take advantage of the internet; it’s always on, available everywhere you have a network signal, on any internet-enabled device.

TeamKinetic is built to connect with other services via tools such as APIs, Webhooks, and Zapier. These are fancy ways of saying that TeamKinetic works with your other programs and applications that you might have integrated.

TeamKinetic is a professional application that provides your volunteers with a high-quality online experience.

Volunteering Trends

The current data on volunteering numbers does not make for easy reading for volunteer managers. Time Well Spent from NCVO is stark; volunteering is trending down across the board. We have seen increases in Virtual and Micro volunteering and healthy growth in the number of young people who volunteer, which suggests a more general change in volunteer attitudes and preferences.

This data suggests that organisations need more flexibility in their offer as volunteers want to choose what they do, how long they commit, and where they volunteer. For your average volunteer manager, that is a significant challenge.

Volunteer managers need a system that enables them to offer volunteers more agency and control in the form of self-service; they need methods to empower their volunteer audience to do more things for themselves. TeamKinetic provides volunteers with the ability to self-serve, self-manage and self-report. This frees up valuable volunteer manager time to ensure those needing extra support can still access it.

Quality of the Experience

As an organisation, you compete for people’s time against a world of family, entertainment and challenges including the cost of living. In that context, it’s incredible that anyone ever volunteers.

You are also responsible for creating a positive volunteer experience. The role or task a volunteer completes is an intrinsic part of this experience, but the systems you have in place to enable this are vital components too.

Your systems should never create new challenges that prevent volunteers from participating. They can’t be difficult to use or offer limited accessibility for certain users.

Enable simple rewards and recognition of volunteers’ hard work. Gather feedback from your volunteers and the volunteer opportunity providers to identify excellent practices and those who may be struggling. As a result, you can let your volunteers know the difference they are making.

Time

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.

Stephen Covey

I’m yet to meet a volunteer manager who got into the job to spend more time doing computer admin! Yet admin responsibilities often squeeze your ability to actually work with volunteers. Collecting feedback and data, recording hours and outcomes, reporting to the board, and communicating with all your other stakeholders. It never ends!

Moving from spreadsheets or inadequate products can radically alter how you can do your job, how many volunteers you can support and, ultimately, the impact you can make.

TeamKinetic can provide real-time reporting, emails and structured onboarding; all of which give you and your volunteer managers more time. If we can give you more time to do the stuff that truly matters, what is that worth?

Cost

After everything we have covered above, it would be simple to say that you cannot afford not to use TeamKinetic. However, TeamKinetic is realistic about the pressures and demands on budgets and that organisations are constantly challenged to do more with less.

We started TeamKinetic to try and do the maximum amount of good, to offer something a little different to what else is available in the market, and that is strongly reflected in our pricing.

The number of volunteers who can register and use TeamKinetic is unlimited, and it will never impact your price.

We offer four product tiers designed to suit every type of organisation. Each is clearly defined with no nasty surprises or hidden costs.

We strongly believe that our cost does not truly represent our value. We are active supporters and partners with the Association of Volunteer Managers, the Sports Volunteering Research Network and the Institute of Volunteering Research. Investing with TeamKinetic is investing in the voluntary sector and we have more partnerships to announce.

Our FREE community product is available so that all organisations can benefit from TeamKinetic.

We want to build a stronger community of volunteer managers through our partnerships, monthly masterclass sessions, peer-to-peer chat space, and yearly conferences. We have developed a network of wonderful people who share many of our values and beliefs about volunteers’ fantastic impact on the world.

This list is by no means exhaustive! With that in mind, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you have convinced your managers to invest in volunteer management. Drop me an email at chris@teamkinetic.co.uk.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Top Tips for Managing Event Volunteers

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On 5th April 2023

In News & Views

There’s no doubt about it that without volunteers many events would, quite simply, not be able to function. Just look back to your last event and think about how many of your team consisted of volunteers, what difference did they make? A big one I’m sure…

Ensuring your volunteers are engaged, informed and pumped for the event is crucial for making sure they show up, and for getting the most out of them on the day. Get this right, and as a force, they can be one of your most valuable assets.

To help you get started (as often that’s the hardest part) we’ve pulled together our “top tips for managing event volunteers”. Take ten minutes to read through them, and in no time you’ll be winning over a loyal tribe of people as passionate as you are about making your event a success.

TOP TIPS FOR MANAGING EVENT VOLUNTEERS

    1.   Recruit your volunteers early

    2.   Communicate before, during and after the event 

    3.   Match their talents with responsibilities

    4.   Prepare for no-shows 

    5.   Avoid “boring” briefs – get them pumped

    6.   Value them and their time

    7.   Share your success

Birds-eye-view of group of event volunteers with hands in together

 

 1. Recruit your volunteers early and win their loyalty

When planning your event, ensuring every element is covered can be a daunting task. And when you need to recruit a hundred or so people that you’re not paying to be there, you may just find yourself breathing deeply…but no fear, a little organisation in advance can help you be way ahead of the game.

Recruiting your volunteers early is crucial. It’ll give you time to build loyalty so they are invested and ready to get involved, and do the job at hand – all with a smile!

Here’s how you can attract the kind of people you want to be your volunteers:

  • Be the energy you want to attract in everything you post during the recruitment process. That way you’ll attract people that fit the mould.
  • In your recruitment content, using testimonials from previous volunteers can be really powerful.
  • Harness the power of Social media – spread your message through groups and pages that relate to what you’re about.
  • Build a community for your volunteers through social channels. It will make them feel a big part of it the event. Plus it’s a great way to keep in touch with the tribe making recruitment a breeze next time.
  • Encourage current volunteers to get their friends involved.
  • Promote benefits from helping at your event. Whether that’s free tickets, some freebies or the chance to meet some famous faces.
  • Make sure your opportunities look great and sound exciting.

2. Communicate, communicate and communicate some more

Communication is key, and I’m not just talking about the day. If you want to win your volunteer’s loyalty, you need to keep them informed before, during and after the event.

You’ll need to provide information prior to the event on the logistics, when and where to arrive etc. But don’t forget, these people have most likely chosen your event to volunteer for because they have a genuine interest in what it’s all about.  

To get them really engaged, keep them up-to-date on how the planning is going, what the event’s going to look like and even things like how many sign-ups or attendees you have so far. The more they feel involved early on, the more they’ll feel a sense of responsibility for making the event a success.

Throughout the event, use TeamKinetic as your direct communication channel between you and your volunteers. This will enable them to fulfil their role effectively and will also make your job a lot easier – it’s like having eyes and ears everywhere. Handy right?!

It’s super important you follow up with your volunteers post-event. Thanking them for their time is a top priority, but make sure to include updates on what you’ve got coming up next. It’s a perfect way to keep them engaged with your organisation.

You’ve done all that amazing work to recruit them, make your life easier next time by keeping in touch so you can call on them again. They’re part of your tribe now – keep it that way!

hands in the air at event with the word 'community' lit up


3. Give your volunteers responsibilities that match their talents

With all those volunteers you’ve got on board you’re going to have a seriously broad skillset at your disposal – make sure you use it. 

Now you’ve got your awesome lines of communication set up and an incredibly engaged group of people, you can collaborate directly with them to identify the right people for the right roles.

Some will be happy to be placed anywhere, but if there’s an opportunity to let people put themselves forward for specific roles, then do it. They’re human after all, and we’re all more likely to commit to something we actually want to do.

It’s also key to ensure you define their roles early so they can be fully prepared for the event. 

Try our tools to help assign roles and schedule volunteer slots.

 

4. Prepare for no-shows

No matter how meticulously you organise and how coveted your volunteer slots are, you have to face the fact you’re still going to end up with no-shows. There are lots of things you can do to try and prevent this, particularly through your comms prior to the event. But no matter how diligent you are, there will be some missing faces on the event day.

TeamKinetic allows volunteers to tell you they can’t make it, and as the event gets closer you can add additional on-screen messaging to really drive home the importance of attending.

Plan for this in advance by booking in “floaters” – volunteers with good general skills who can fill any required role. We suggest a buffer of an additional 15% of your volunteer force. Even if every single volunteer shows up (one can dream) you’ll still be able to find jobs for those spare super skilled floaters.

5. No ‘boring’ briefs allowed – get your info across AND get your volunteers pumped!!

Remember; your vibe attracts your tribe – you want energy, you want enthusiasm and you want switched-on volunteers to help you run your event. Get the important stuff across in your brief, but encourage them to have fun too.

The important bits might sound like this:

– The expectations of the day

– Any equipment required

– Get them to download Blerter where they can find the outline of the day and can communicate with you

– Answer any questions they may have

– Sign-ups  

Get this stuff across as succinctly as possible, you don’t want to waste precious time or have your volunteers switching off before they’ve even begun. But remember, your briefing time is also an opportunity to get your volunteers pumped up. They turned up (high-five) so they’re ready to make it happen and muck in where needed. The more energy they have, the more they’re going to put into it – harness that.

6. Value them and their time

We’ve already determined you couldn’t run your event without your volunteers, and they’re a lot more likely to keep giving you their time if they feel appreciated. For the little time, it takes to say a “thank you” every now and again, you get a lot in return so make sure you do.

Keep in mind a few other things you can do to acknowledge you value them and their time:

  • Be organised and communicate instructions clearly and succinctly
  • Load them up with swag, freebies and event sponsor goodies
  • Give them access to the event outside of their volunteer hours, so they can enjoy what they helped create
  • Organise social events or a special volunteer-only workshop where volunteers can get behind the scenes, meet the stars, build rapport with each other, or learn new skills
  • After the event, ask for their feedback – it shows you care about their experience too. Plus they’re an engaged bunch of people who saw every aspect of how your event was delivered (very useful for your post-event reviews)

A poster that says 'Give thanks' held up in frame by woman in a field

7. Share your success

You’ll be communicating with your volunteers post-event to send them your gratitude. This is also a great time and place to share with them the overall success of the event. Most of your volunteers will have a vested interest in what your event is all about so they’ll be keen to know how it went. Plus, they are a huge part of delivering it on the day and deserve to share in its success.

Share pictures, stories, and stats about the day – and don’t forget to call out your incredible tribe of volunteers, encouraging them to come back next time!

TeamTalk: Season 2 Episode 1 – Exploring the Vision for Volunteering

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On 27th September 2022

In News & Views, Sport, TeamTalk Podcast

Exploring the Vision for Volunteering with Jenny Betteridge, Gethyn Williams and James Allen. Introducing my new Co-Host Imogen Greatbatch.

Welcome to our latest season of the TeamTalk podcast. In this season, we will be talking to thought leaders, customers and stakeholders from the world of sport and physical exercise as we take a deeper dive into volunteering and the volunteer managers who make it happen.

A New Co-Host

I’m so happy to welcome my new co-host Imo Greatbatch. She is currently the Head of Volunteering at England Netball. Imo and I go back quite a way, and when she suggested that she might be interested in offering her knowledge and insight to this project, I was only too happy to make some room around the mic. 

Our Guests

This first episode in this latest series sees us chatting to Jenny Betteridge, Strategic Lead for Volunteering at Sport England. A national public-funded organisation with a mission to enable everyone to benefit from sport and activity. Jenny has most recently been working on the Vision for Volunteering which was launched very recently at the Volunteer Expo.

Jenny is joined by Gethyn Williams and James Allen who undertook the market engagement that made the Vision possible, In this episode, we discuss how this work was conducted, what its ambitions are and what it is hoped it leads to for the future of volunteering.

Gethyn is a Volunteering strategist and non-profit specialist with twenty years of experience across the UK charity sector and central government. He’s worked extensively in volunteering, youth, sport, disability and environment sectors, He’s also held senior strategic and operational roles in policy and comms, business and workforce development, infrastructure and membership services, community development and charity governance.

James is the Director of Counsel a consultancy working with various clients across sport and physical activity. They serve private and voluntary sectors in a range of areas including public affairs, communications, research and governance.

We find out a little more about how each of our guests came to the world of volunteering. Then we get right into what the vision is, what it means and how you can get involved as it evolves over the coming months and years.  

As Jenny says, The Vision for Volunteering is not the end product, but just the start of what might be possible.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to other episodes of our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

Other useful links and resources:

https://www.visionforvolunteering.org.uk/

https://www.sportengland.org/blogs/volunteering-fund-what-weve-learned-and-what-next

https://www.counselltd.com/

How Willowbrook Hospice Transformed Their Volunteer Management…

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On 27th January 2022

In Case Study, Hospice

The majority of work we refer to in Willowbrook Hospice’s case study is based on figures and interviews from the year 2020. This data has then influenced the extra research conducted in the hospice sector.

It is also worth noting that these figures are taken from the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic and with fewer people volunteering, the activity on the system we’ve recorded has been limited.

Before TeamKinetic

We’ve previously spoke to Willowbrook Hospice’s volunteer manager, Bev, about how they managed volunteers before TeamKinetic and what it was that made Willowbrook decide to look into a volunteer management system.
Before TeamKinetic, they were managing volunteers through an access database described by Bev as an “archaic system”- with no way of contacting volunteers. With the access database, they’re was no opportunity for interaction and Bev realised that they needed something that would better manage their volunteers.

They realised they needed something web-based that can be accessed from anywhere. The system previously in use was linked to the NHS SHK system, it couldn’t be accessed at any time or place. Willowbrook decided they needed something shop managers could also use; this when they decided to start looking for a volunteer management system and came across TeamKinetic.

Moving to TeamKinetic and Implementation

Willowbrook Hospice chose TeamKinetic after seeing how local we are, watching a number of videos on our YouTube channel and speaking with our Director of Sales, Chris.

At TeamKinetic, we are constantly changing and adapting to suit our customers needs. This was another factor that “sold” us to Willowbrook – they knew if they ever suggest anything, we will take it on board and look into adapting the system to include this. 

Regarding implementation, Bev openly mentioned that they needed “lots of planning”, but Steve, our Implementation Consultant, helped with all their planning needs. Willowbrook has numerous shops and with the way they manage their volunteers, it helped them to have a staged way of implementing the system.

They started with one shop first, and shop by shop they managed to get all their volunteers on board. Bev even mention that COVID-19 helped them in some ways; having shops closed gave them the time to fully roll out the system to the volunteers. Joining TeamKinetic also allowed them to have a “data cleanse” – speaking to volunteers who didn’t want to volunteer anymore. With a new system, Willowbrook now know that the volunteers they have registered are the ones who are active and want to volunteer.

COVID-19

COVID-19 affected everyone, including Willowbrook Hospice. While we’ve has multiple lockdowns, the Hospice’s nine shops have been closed during those times . The pandemic also meant that the fundraising team at Willowbrook had to come up with ways to ensure they came up with COVID-19 safe fundraising events. So, having TeamKinetic really helped them with managing their volunteers during COVID-19 safe events. This is what Bev had to say about using TeamKinetic for one of these events:

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 and the garden centre had told us that if we wanted a stall to sell our Christmas cards and other things then we could. So within half an hour, I had 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.

Bev Neilson, volunteer manager at willowbrook hospice

As well as events, from a communication point they were able to stay in contact with volunteers throughout every stage of the pandemic; something that was very important to them. Before TeamKinetic, staying in touch with volunteers was “virtually impossible” and would have involved bulk emails which never worked because the NHS system was too slow for them. Now, they can email and text volunteers from one system with a click of a button.

In addition to this, having the TeamKinetic system available to them during the pandemic allowed them to set up a ‘befriending system’ between the volunteers. From this, they have been able to keep volunteers in touch with each other, solely from the private notes function on the TeamKinetic system.

Willowbrook’s Volunteering by Index of Mulitple Deprivation Rank (IMDR) For All Volunteers Registered Since 2020

This graph shows the number of Willowbrook Hospice volunteers by decile. That is the number of volunteers with a home postcode that is ranked using IMDR.

1 = bottom-ranked postcode area in bottom 10% ranked area of England

10 = top-ranked postcode area in the top 10% ranked area of England

These figures are interesting to see as volunteering is typically viewed as a traditionally middle-class activity. A report by NCVO supports this, as their statistics show 48 per cent of those who volunteered in the last 12 months have a degree compared to 20 per cent who have no qualifications. Some 42 per cent of unemployed people have never volunteered, compared to 21 per cent of those who work part-time.

This is of course also impacted by the fact that Greater Manchester has more postcode areas that fall into the bottom 50% according to the IMDR rank. Despite this factor, I believe it is captivating that despite these statistics, Manchester shows that poverty is not a defining factor in their willingness to volunteer.

When looking at this graph, it shows that Willowbrook has been able to recruit and retain volunteers from all different postcode ranks in England. Showing their inclusivity in welcoming all volunteers into their volunteering programme. 

Age

As evidence shows, volunteering is often found to be a pursuit of older individuals. This typically comes from them having more spare time to volunteer than others. Although Willowbrook’s figures around age profiles accurately represents this statement, their figures also show the rising ability to recruit younger volunteers. This comes from the use of TeamKinetic as their volunteer management system. We are able reduce barriers into volunteering, especially for younger volunteers who are digitally engaged through TeamKinetic. We also allow for a quicker and easier recruitment process, something that is favoured in young people volunteering.

Gender

Stereotypically, data from the voluntary sector normally suggests a divide of 60% female volunteers and 40% male volunteers. Linking to this, evidence and research online also suggests a gender split in hospice volunteering with far more female volunteers over male volunteers is common.


Therefore, these figures from Willowbrook are not surprising with over 3/4 of volunteers being female. Despite this, Willowbrook Hospice does demonstrate inclusivity in volunteers with a range of female, male, transgender, and non-binary volunteers getting involved in hospice volunteering. This shows the TeamKinetic system is successful in ensuring anybody can register to be a volunteer as however they identify, allowing further inclusivity in the voluntary sector.

Opportunity Data

Volunteers recorded 16,007 hours of volunteering in the system from 2020. These hours took place over 49 opportunities.

The top 8 most popular opportunities regarding the number of hours undertaken by volunteers are:

1 Retail
2 Admin
3 Fundraising Events
4 Teaching Roles
5 Reception
6 Gardening
7 Catering 
8 Driver

As you can see above, the top 8 most popular opportunities is a very diverse range. This shows that since Willowbrook has been using TeamKinetic they have been able to recuit volunteers onto a wide variety of volunteering opportunities. Since Willowbrook Hospice rasies a lot of their funds from their charity shops, it is not a shock to see retail at the most popoular choice. Alongside this, one off fundrasing events are always popular amongst the volunteering community.

Support

To conclude, when on our Enterprise Plan you get telephone support from 9:00 am-5:30 pm, online chat support, support tickets you can raise in the system, YouTube ‘How To’ videos, and Facebook groups and livestreams. From this, we asked Bev from Willowbrook Hospice, who is on the Enterprise Plan, how she found the support she has received from TeamKinetic. Here’s what she had to say:

So from the beginning, and I will say, the support has been absolutely fantastic. If I ever send an email or put a support ticket because I need something, the efficiency is fantastic and I think that it’s that personal touch we get from TeamKinetic. I think if we’d have gone to one of the bigger companies, we wouldn’t have got that.

With TeamKinetic, you never feel like any questions stupid,
because I have asked some really silly questions in the past, but actually they’ve come back and easily explained everything to me.

I also think the help videos have been really good. We’ve sent those through to shop managers for them to watch. And I think that’s helped them train them, so I would definitely say support has been absolutely fantastic and I can’t fault that at all.

BEV NEILSON, VOLUNTEER MANAGER AT WILLOWBROOK HOSPICE

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

Why I’m over the moon to be partnering with the Association of Volunteer Managers

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On 29th September 2021

In News & Views

A message from our Sales Director, Chris Martin, on what it means to be partnering with AVM.  

This month has seen the culmination of a conversation that started 5 years ago, and I’m absolutely delighted to finally announce that TeamKinetic will be the very first corporate partner of the Association of Volunteer Managers.  

Since starting TeamKinetic, I have been working away sharing the gospel of digital volunteer management. Having come from a sports and events background I was unaware of the richness and diversity of the wider volunteering world. I knew it existed, but I didn’t really appreciate the depth and breadth of it. 

As I became more enlightened about volunteering outside of my comfort zone, I was lucky enough to stumble upon the work of the Association of Volunteer Managers and their learning and development days.  

The first thing I felt when attending this event was the warmth of the welcome, and despite some of the volunteers and staff having changed over the years, the openness and welcoming atmosphere hasn’t changed one bit. It was a revelation to see this organisation run by volunteers doing what they were for the greater good of the sector. I think as early as that first session back in 2015 I was already thinking about how I could get involved.

It goes without saying that there is so much more than a warm welcome and a lovely group of people, the AVM’s work is essential and over the following 5 years we at TeamKinetic have been really proud to support their events where we could, but I always felt there was potential to do more.

Being the first at anything comes with its own set of challenges and this was no different.  As an organisation, the board at AVM needed to develop its own understanding of how a partnership might work and what it might like to offer a potential partner. They also wanted to make sure that any organisation they worked with share their values and beliefs about volunteer management. Over the last 5 years it’s been a real pleasure getting to know some of the people who make AVM what it is, working on the occasional project and talking about how we might support each other’s work. So although we are now announcing our official partnership, it feels like we have been unofficial partners for quite a while.  

So, here we are, the very first corporate partner and we are so excited to get started.  

It’s my hope that as TeamKinetic we can bring some real value to the AVM. TeamKinetic’s mission is to make volunteering easier and we want to share with you our experience and knowledge about digital transformation and how to use digital tools to manage your volunteers.

We also believe that every organisation, no matter how big or small can access and afford these digital tools without any fear of cost or growth. We appreciate not everyone will want to use TeamKinetic but I think what we have to say will have the potential to positively impact your work.

Over the next 12 months, we will be working with the team at AVM to develop some accessible resources and materials that you might find useful if you are thinking about how you might use digital. We will be exploring what type of member offers and benefits you might like from us to make it easy and affordable for you to look at digital volunteer management and most importantly we hope to get to know you all a little bit better.

We are sure this is just the start of a long and mutually beneficial partnership with the fantastic team at AVM and if you have any questions or suggestions of the type of content we can create for you then please do get in touch with me and let me know. 

I really look forward to seeing you all at the conference this year, please do say hello if you spot me.  

Chris Martin. 
Sales Director. 
Chris@teamkinetic.co.uk

How To Spend Your Underspend

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On 18th August 2021

In TeamKinetic Features

You might find at this point of the year, there’s an excess budget underspend you need to decide what to do with. You might be wondering, what should I do with it? Should I spend it? Save it? Invest it? Well, we are here to inspire you with different ways you can use your underspend to make the most out of your TeamKinetic system and to invest back into your volunteers…

1) Purchase SMS Text Messages

The perfect way to communicate with your volunteers, alongside emails of course, is text messaging. One of our volunteer managers, Claire from Halton & St Helens, even said ‘between texts and emails, we can have more of an impact in communicating straight away with volunteers’.

In fact, we even did a full blog on the benefits of using SMS text messages, but, to summarise:

  • Quicker and more efficient communication 
  • A easy way to identify volunteers
  • A way to recruit any volunteers if a volunteer drops out at the last second
  • A proactive way to get feedback from volunteers
  • A way to send nice ‘thank you’ messages to your volunteers to show your appreciation for their hard work
  • An easy way to cancel an event if disaster strikes ( e.g the unpredictable UK weather)

And to make it even easier for you, you can watch a video on how to buy SMS text messages through our system following the hyperlink here. 

2) Training

You can always save your money and keep your eyes peeled for some TeamKinetic training. We have recently started extra training showing you how to set up and customise your site and how to use your TeamKinetic site to manage your volunteers. This training is perfect for any admin as a refresher, or for new admins who need to learn the ropes!

3) Upgrade Your Plan

Whether you are on the Free plan or the Advanced Plan, there is still a bigger and better plan for you!

The Advanced plan offers you 1 Admin user, your own sub-domain, support tickets answered in 24 hours, online workbooks teaching admins the core features, the use of the TeamKinetic IOS and Android native app, 100 MB document hub storage and more.

The Advanced + plan offers up to 3 Admin users, implementation support of 2.5 hours, telephone support, online training, your own sub-domain, support tickets answered in 24 hours, pre-recorded training materials, the use of the TeamKinetic app, 1GB document hub storage and more.

The Enterprize plan, our biggest plan, offers unlimited admins (1 admin user included), detailed consultancy and fully supported implementation manager,  telephone support, support chat, online training, your own custom URL, access to the TeamKinetic app, access to the TeamKinetic customer steering group, access to live online training events, unlimited document hub storage, community tasks and many more.

To find out more about upgrading your plan, email chris@teamkinetic.co.uk.

What Are You Waiting For?

You have so many options of how you can spend your underspend, what are you waiting for? Are you going to upgrade your plan? Purchase extra training? Or Purchase some handy SMS texts? Something else? Whichever you choose, you will be spending your money wisely and investing in your volunteers. That sounds like a win to me!

Can Local Authorities afford to not have Volunteer Management Software?

By

On 11th August 2021

In Local Authority

Local authorities undeniably manage many volunteers, am I right?

Well, statistics show that approximately 71% of people volunteered at least once in 2019 and many of these people volunteer through their local government or organisations closely linked.  

To make it even harder for those who manage and track volunteers in the public sector, these volunteers fall into many different roles in very separate parts of your organisation. Volunteers pop up in libraries, galleries, museums, parks, neighbourhoods, adult social care, sports development, environment, public health, community engagement and more. To say it’s a complicated picture is to massively understate the difficulties we know you face. 

Some of the questions we know you get asked: 

  • Is it even possible to safely support and govern volunteers across the whole organisation? 
  • How do you report on volunteering as a council? 
  • What’s it worth to us as an organisation, what’s the business case?  

Those in charge of managing services for the council and those managing volunteers in those services undoubtedly have a lot on their hands. But if the pandemic has highlighted anything over the past 18 months, it’s the essential role volunteers can play. We have seen massive public support to volunteer during these unprecedented times. In fact, the volumes of people who wanted to volunteer were overwhelming for many organisations as they did not have the infrastructure in place to cope with such an influx of new volunteers.

On top of all these complications, Local Government needs to work hand in hand with local voluntary sector partners to ensure a coherent approach to volunteering across their communities. This is a dynamic and complicated problem and we think our volunteer management software would certainly help. 

What We Can Offer You…

1. Your Own Customisable Application

Yes, you read that right, with us you get to create a fully customisable, and accessible application to suit your organisation’s needs, check out the example below. You can develop an identifiable brand around your amazing volunteers and the work they do. You can set standards and rules as to what opportunities are seen via your site. You can track activity by volunteer, group, venue, by the department or service area. You can use some of our advanced mapping tools to track where volunteers are making a difference and what impact they are making at a ward-by-ward level. We provide you with the tools to empower your communities to thrive.

2. Easily Create New Opportunities 

Our software enables you to create your volunteer opportunities in minutes. Not only can you create singular opportunities, but you can also calendar schedule your opportunities on a weekly or monthly basis.  

It is also easier for volunteers to sign up for opportunities. With TeamKinetic available as both a native app and as a responsive design, it allows volunteers to easily access all opportunities from whichever device they choose. They can also easily filter their opportunities based upon what they are interested in i.e. museum volunteering.

We also provide ‘how-to’ videos to make it even easier for you!

That is why our software also provides you with customisable Key Performance Indicators on your volunteers. This reporting enables you to tell the story of your volunteers achievements and impact, and it lets you make informed decisions about where and who to invest in and what type of return you will get on that investment.

These reports include all the vital information you need, including:

  • Pie charts on ethnicity, employment status, gender, and age of volunteers.
  • The geographical spread of volunteers and opportunities.
  • Web usage.
  • Number of hours logged.
  • Volunteer registrations (on a day to day basis.)
  • The number of opportunities available. 

From this, you can understand more about who volunteers most under different areas (i.e. museums, parks, libraries etc). This allows you to understand which area of volunteering is more popular to certain ages, genders and more…

 

4. Efficiently Communicate With Your Volunteers

With us, communication with volunteers has never been easier. No longer do you have to spend your time fumbling through spreadsheets and documents to find your volunteer contact information. You can now email or text all (or just one) of your volunteers with one click. And, to make it even better, you can send text messages scheduled for a certain time, potentially to remind volunteers about their opportunities and improve attendance.

5. Offer Rewards And Incentives

You can encourage and engage your volunteers like never before, all from using TeamKinetic. You have to option to reward volunteers with achievement badges, hour trades, and award badges; all of which are fully customisable. You can also create your very own achievement badges for your volunteers too. You can then provide volunteers with feedback, and the volunteers can give feedback on the opportunities.

So, What Are You Waiting For?

For as little as £19 a month you can have all of this and more. Perfect for managing all your volunteers in libraries, galleries, museums, parks, and everywhere else! 

Book your demo tour today by emailing chris@teamkinetic.co.uk or start your free trial here.

As simple as that. 

The Whitworth Gallery, in partnership with TeamKinetic

By

On 4th August 2021

In Case Study, Heritage & Culture, News & Views

At the start of 2020, The Whitworth made the leap to take on TeamKinetic as their volunteer management software provider. They made this change just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning working from home gave them the perfect opportunity to understand and implement the system.

The Whitworth Gallery is described as historic, contemporary, academic, and playful. Founded in 1889, the first English gallery in a park has been transformed by a £15 million development in 2015. As part of their volunteer programme, volunteers are able to contribute across the gallery. This includes supporting artists, textile care, art gardening, digitising their collection, cataloguing their library, assisting in the delivery of workshops, and much more.

Fiona Cariss, volunteer manager at The Whitworth says,

“We chose TeamKinetic as they’re a local organisation to our gallery and already supply the volunteer system for Manchester City Councils Volunteering opportunities.

The Whitworth is in partnership with Manchester Art Gallery, along with Manchester Museum too, so it means in the future we could look at sharing our volunteers and opportunities across the partnership through the system.

In a way the past 18 months has been a perfect time to implement the new system with TeamKinetic, as we’ve managed to test it with our volunteers whilst everyone has been at home-  it helped us reach out further to our locality making it easier for them to register their interest and hear about the volunteering opportunities straight away. The data and reporting aspects of the system has and will definitely help in combining everything we need when we’re evaluating the programme and reporting back to various funders.

So far all our volunteers have found it easy to register and it’s a very usable system, in which you get a lot of support from TeamKinetic too. The Whitworth Volunteer Programme is looking forward to working with TeamKinetic further in the future when we have more volunteering opportunities coming up.”

Find Out More…

If you’d like to volunteer with the Whitworth, you can check out their opportunities here.

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

Celebrities That Do Great Charity Work…Part Two

By

On 28th July 2021

In Charity, News & Views

In our last ‘Celebrities That Do Good Charity Work‘ blog, we only mentioned a few celebrities that do charitable work. But there were (and are) so many more we wanted to let you know about. So here you have it, a part two showcasing celebrities that use their time and money towards charitable causes. And maybe, this might encourage you to take up some volunteering opportunities…. 

Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher also donated $4 million to Ellen Degeneres’ Wildlife Fund.
  • Alongside Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher founded Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children. The charity works mainly to address the role of technology in the sexual exploitation of children. So far the organisation has helped to identify over 20,000 children in danger since 2014.
    Furthermore, their Spotlight feature (a data-analytics program) has assisted the authorities, reducing agents’ investigation time by over 55% in 2020. 
  • Ashton also helped in the set up of The Native Fund. The foundation is committed to raising funds and organising volunteer efforts to assist the people and communities of Iowa in times of need.
  • In April 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Kutcher and his wife Mila Kunis started making their own wine for charity! It’s called ‘Quarantine Pinot Noir’ and 100% of the profits go towards charities providing Covid-19 relief.

Taylor Swift

Swift donated $4 million to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville for the education centre – their biggest ever donation!

Taylor Swift is known for her deeply personal lyrical storytelling, but between all that love and heartache she finds time to give to causes that mean a lot to her personally and to her fans. 

  • In 2007, she launched a campaign called Delete Online Predators to fight internet crime against children.
  • She held a “Speak Now Help Now” benefit concert in 2011 for victims of tornadoes in the United States Southeast region. The concert raised more than $750,000. 
  • During Kesha’s much publicised legal battle with producer DJ Luke, she supported her fellow artist by giving $250,000 to help pay her legal fees. After this, she faced her own legal battle against David Mueller for sexual harassment in 2017. She won the case for a statement $1 and vowed to help organisations that aid victims of sexual harassment/assault. She has done so, making “generous” donations to both the Joyful Heart Foundation (for survivors of sexual assault) and RAINN (an anti-sexual assault organization).
  • She also gives back to her fans directly, supporting them in a number of ways. For example, she donated $50,000 to a fan battling cancer on GoFundMe, helping pay her medical bills.

Jackie Chan

Many of us know Jackie Chan for his work as an actor, as a stuntman, a producer, film director, or even for his martial arts. But we can now add ‘big charity giver’ to his list of achievements…

  • In 1988, he founded the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation. A foundation that aides Hong Kong’s residents by offering scholarships, medical services, and assisting in natural disasters and illnesses. 
  • Then in 2002, he founded The Dragon Heart Foundation. This foundation is driven to fulfil the needs of the less fortunate populations in China.
  • Jackie Chan has also stated that he plans to leave his estimated $370 million fortune to charity, rather than his son, Jaycee.

Feel inspired?

Are you feeling more inspired thanks to our quick rundown of charitable superstars? Check out our website as a starting point to see the clients we work with, and what new volunteering opportunities they have available for you today.

Becoming a TeamKinetic Enterprise Customer

By

On 7th April 2021

In TeamKinetic Features, Volunteer Management

Welcome to the family!  Its great that you are about to join hundreds of other organisations that use TeamKinetic to manage their volunteers.  We have put together this short blog that tells you what happens next and how to get ready to launch your site.

Once we have your contract signed we can have you up and running in no time, this blog outlines the steps to get your site ready and the pit falls to avoid.

Trial Site

If you already have a trial site up and running, you can get started playing around and getting to know the TeamKinetic service right away.  We have a simple to follow “Getting Started” lesson program for you to follow.  Just click here and follow the 10 quick and easy lessons.  If you get stuck just drop us a support ticket or a chat message direct from your help menu.

If you don’t have a trial or demo site set up yet, just let your TeamKinetic contact know and they will have that sorted out for you in no time.  This will help you get acclimatised to the product and give you a good idea of how you might like to use the service.

We’d love your feedback on our Getting Started lessons, so if there is something we can do to make it easier for you please let us know.

Getting set up on our implementation management system.

To help make your implementation go super smooth we use a service that ensures you know what you have to do and what we have to do.  This system provides you with detailed information on how you undertake each task and lets you record what you have done, when you are ready to pass things back to us and if yo have any questions you can ask them really easily.

As soon as the contract is signed we will invite the key members of your project team to join us on the task list and you can get going right away with your tasks, getting your site ready to go live.

Choosing A URL

As an enterprise customer, you get to choose where your TeamKinetic powered website will live or what URL you want to use.  There are a few options available to you.  It has a tendancy to get a little technical here so my apologies in advance.  The options are:

  1. You can set up your TeamKinetic powered site as a “Sub-Domain” of your existing website.  That means you can have something like https://volunteer.YourOrgNamehere.org
  2. You can have a new domain that no one else has yet.  To choose a new domain use a service such as NameCheap.com and see what’s available.  

What ever you choose, your TeamKinetic implementation advisor will help you with the technical aspects of getting your trail site moved onto your new URL.  You wont lose anything you have done up to this point if you don’t want to, or we can always delete the data and let you start again, its completely up to you.

Setting up the ‘Look and Feel’ of your TeamKinetic site

You can start this process as soon as you have your trail or demo site set up, it is actually part of the 10 steps mentioned above in the ‘trial site’ section of this blog. 

All settings and changes to the look and feel of your site will be copied over when your site is moved to its final website address.

To make changes to the look and feel of your site, first click on the cog in the top right of your screen which will display the super admin menu.  

(NB. If you can’t see it, you may not be a Super Admin, don’t worry drop us a quick message and we will get you sorted!)

This menu is where you find all the settings for your site and its where you go if you want to change the colours, fonts, messages and images on your site.   

From here you can change all aspects of the site as you require.  Some of the more advanced options can require a little technical ability, but we are here to support you through the process.  There is lots of detailed help to support you and we are always at the end of the phone or available on live chat if you get stuck.  

You can read the help documents for customising your website at the top right of the screen as shown below.

All this is covered in your training and implementation support but if you want to get started there is nothing stopping you.

Getting your site working the way you want it!

TeamKinetic offers so many options and choices to make sure you can manage your volunteers in the way that works for you and them.  Many of these options you only really need to think about once.  

Again, in the Super Admin menu you have choices that cover Profile, Set Up and Options.  If you want to start to have a play around with these then feel free. 

We have this (really long, sorry!) video that walks you through each option and what impact they might have on how you choose to use TeamKinetic.  Break it into manageable chunks and start to make your way through the menus until you have the setting you think will work for you.  Again, we will go through all this with you in your training, but there is nothing to stop you having a play around as you get to know what TeamKinetic can do.

The default settings are fine for a lot of our customers so don’t worry too much about investigating them all straight away.

Training

As soon as your contract is signed we will be looking to get your training booked.  This is normally delivered online over two half day sessions, though there is lots of flexibility and all this can be adjusted to meet your needs. 

We want you to get the most out of these sessions, so if you have followed the instruction in this blog and had a play around you will come to that first session with lots of questions that we can help you with. 

If you are a little nervous, please don’t worry.  No matter what your technical ability we will have you up and running in no time. 

Go Live!

Once you have got your site set up as you want, and you have started the process of adding your opportunities to the site, you are almost ready to tell the world about your new system.

Our implementation team will work with you on a plan to make all this happen and will provide advice on how to link up your TeamKinetic powered portal with your existing web site.

We are often asked how long this takes, and its a tricky one to answer, as it really depends upon how quickly you are able to get through the set up tasks and how many providers and opportunities you need to add.  We have had customers up and running in less than a week and others who have taken 3 or 4 months.  The key consideration is that you are comfortable with the system and how it works and that it has lot of interesting opportunities for your volunteers to look at.  

Remember, we are with you every step of the way, its really difficult to break TeamKinetic so don’t be worried or sacred about having a play around and good luck on your first step in taking your volunteer management to the next level. We look forward to working with you.

Before we go

Keep up to date with everything TeamKinetic by following us on the following social media channels where you will find useful content, support and access to offers and discounts you will not want to miss.

YouTube for great interviews and how to videos.

https://www.youtube.com/TeamKinetic

LinkedIn to read our latest blogs and thoughts (TeamKinetic) https://www.linkedin.com/company/15082852/admin/

Twitter for the inspirational quotes and funnies (@TeamKineticUK) https://twitter.com/TeamKineticUK

Facebook to talk with our other volunteer managers and to join our master class sessions. (TeamKinetic) https://www.facebook.com/TeamKineticUK/

We want you to help us grow this community.

See you all soon

Chris and the Team

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