The TeamKinetic 2023 Conference will take place on Wednesday the 27th September. We’ll be bringing together voices from across the third sector. All discussing the latest hot topics from the world of volunteer management. This year, our theme is:
The changing world and its potential impact on volunteering.
Get ready for an exciting online event that will bring together professionals from across the third sector. The TeamKinetic 2023 Conference is your chance to connect, learn, and grow with like-minded individuals.
The conference will feature a diverse range of sessions covering various topics related to volunteer management, digital solutions, and the future of volunteering.
Throughout the event, you’ll have the opportunity to hear from industry experts, participate in engaging discussions, and gain valuable insights that will help you excel in your own role.
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, the TeamKinetic 2023 Conference is designed to inspire and empower you. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to connect with fellow volunteer managers and expand your network.
We’re excited to head to the Integrated Care Systems Conference 2023. The event, hosted by Govconnect, will be taking place at the Royal Society of Medicine in London. We’ll be heading down on the 23rd March to meet with people from across the sector and share the work TeamKinetic has been doing recently.
Find out more about Integrated Care Systems below.
As part of our attendance, we’re excited to be offering an exclusive offer to the attendees of the event. They can start using the TeamKinetic Volunteer Management System at a reduced rate! Attendees who take advantage of this limited-time offer will receive 25% off their first year.
We’ll be handing out flyers at the event from our exhibition stand, they have an exclusive code on them. All you need to do is follow these steps:
Input the code on the flyer in the ‘Promo code’ box
and that’s it!
If you’d rather not start a trial and instead talk directly to one of our team, you should find a chat box on the website, you’ll be put in direct contact with one of the team between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
Terms and Conditions apply. The code can be used from 23/03/2023 until expiry on 23/06/2023. The code can be used either when a trial is started or in correspondence with one of the TeamKinetic team. The offer gives you 25% off the fee of your first year using the system. The first year at 25% off offer starts from the date of your first payment, if the system is used after this period, standard charges will apply. Standard prices can be found on our website at https://teamkinetic.co.uk/pricing. This offer can only be used once. Offer only open to attendees of the Integrated Care Systems Conference 2023 using the code when making their trial site (proof of attendance may be required). Please direct any questions about this promotion to alex@teamkinetic.co.uk.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
IVM day is an annual day to celebrate the profession of volunteer leadership. World Volunteer Managers Day 2022 will be taking place on Saturday 5th November and this year’s theme for the day is “Many Backgrounds – One Profession – Stronger Together”.
The day was founded in 1999 and was developed in order to bring recognition to individual Managers of Volunteers and their roles in the mobilisation and support of the world’s volunteers.
There is a group of key leaders and organisations from around the world that are helping to spread the word about IVMDay. This is known as the International Supporters Group.
IVM has some important values which they stand by. They believe Volunteer Managers change the lives of volunteers themselves and of those served by volunteers. Volunteer Managers provide the leadership and direction that allows people to build a good and just society. Without professional leadership, people’s time, talents and efforts could be wasted.
The Committee
The committee members are a dedicated team of global volunteers who are driving the promotion of IVMDay internationally.
The committee has a range of 5 volunteer managers from all around the world who have worked in different areas of the voluntary sector. From the UK, Rob Jacksonis part of the committee. Rob runs his own consultancy and training company and has worked with Volunteering England and was involved in the creation of AVM. Rob was also our keynote speaker at our TeamKinetic 2022 Conference where he shared ideas about what the future might hold for volunteering.
Ways To Spread Awareness and How To Get Involved
On the IVM website, there is plenty of content they have produced which can be posted to social media, on your website or printed out to be put up in volunteer centres.
On the IVM day website, they have suggested several different ways you can celebrate volunteer managers on this day. To spread awareness of IVM day you can post a link to the IVMDay web page on your website. Other ideas include sending cards, letters or emails to thank your colleagues for all the hard work they do and to show your appreciation for them.
Janet Compton, Head of Volunteering at PDSA National Volunteering Centre said she sent “thank you cards printed with the IVMD logo and sent it to all locations in PDSA that work with volunteers”, another idea from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry was offering volunteers the opportunity to write a thank you note to their supervisor at the museum. They provided hand-made cards and volunteers had to write their personal messages.
If you would like to start getting involved, tweet us at @TeamKineticUK using the picture below to share what you were before you became a Volunteer Manager using the hashtag #IVMDay.
Content ideas for Social Media on IVMDay
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
This year, the annual TeamKinetic conference theme was Volunteering to 2030: What might the future look like? We had a variety of incredible speakers discuss their thoughts on the future of volunteering.
Day One
Day One of the TeamKinetic Conference involved sharing some exciting new updates to the TeamKinetic system, sessions on how to onboard volunteers and providers, available reporting tools on the system, how to create and use roles and other topics covered in a series of breakout sessions.
New To TeamKinetic
Rolf started off by taking us through the next major release. New opportunity creation system, better sharing options when sharing your opportunities, scheduling bulk emails, reporting improvements, and more! You can learn more about the 2.20 version here.
Watch Rolf’s session to get to grips with our exciting new update. If you’re a TeamKinetic Admin user, youcan even test it for yourself over at https://beta.teamkinetic.co.uk/vk/admin (Just use your usual admin login details!)
Reporting With TeamKinetic
Steve gave his session on reporting with TeamKinetic and later spoke to us about onboarding volunteers and providers and opportunity restrictions. He touched on the different types of reports, maintenance, general awareness of activity, how you can measure the success of your volunteer programme and other areas of how to report with the TeamKinetic system.
Watch the session below to find out how reports can help you uncover various things about your volunteers and opportunities.
Onboarding Providers and Volunteers
In Rolf’s breakout session he spoke to us about onboarding volunteers and providers. He started off by talking about the new onboarding/help screens that will be available to new volunteers when they register. These will be available for admins to customise in the upcoming 2.2 release. Rolf then discussed how to find and customise the emails that are sent to new volunteers and providers. These emails are the first communications your new volunteers and providers get from your organisation and they are a great place to set out your stall and set the tone for your programme. Finally, we took a look at how to keep your recently onboarded users engaged using the weekly newsletters, bulk emails and search filters to extract those users that are not interacted since registering.
Super Admin Options and Customising Emails
Another breakout session was run by Steve. This was a fun and busy session with lots of questions regarding customised emails and custom areas. Steve also touched on which functions are limited to organisations with providers who work for them, and what functionality can be used by all organisations including volunteer centres. Lots of interesting points and suggestions from attendees, and overall it was a very useful session. In case you missed it or would like to re-watch Steve’s session, it can be found here.
Why use Roles? And How to Create Them
Roles are still a relatively new addition to TeamKinetic. We know they could help a lot of customers but appear to be significantly underused. This is why Chris decided to base his breakout session on this feature. He talked us through how to create roles within your system, how they can be used effectively on your opportunities, and the differences between roles and restrictions.
Are You Taking Advantage Of Opportunity Restrictions?
In our final session of day one, Steve took everyone through the different opportunity restrictions available within TeamKinetic. These restrictions are important to ensure you get the right volunteers for your opportunities every time!
There are a number of ways to restrict your opportunities in TeamKinetic to ensure you get the right volunteer for the job, but are you using them correctly? Watch the session to find out:
Day Two
Day Two of the TeamKinetic conference saw some impactful guest speakers join us. They all covered a range of topics such as expenses, volunteer retention/impact, criminal checks, and more.
Guest speakers included Rob Jackson, Ruth Leonard from AVM, Randa Bennett from vHelp, Simon Dickinson from Digital Gaps, Dan McManus from Time Tempo Credits, Felicity Adrian from General Practise Alliance, Scott Jones from 123 Internet, and Allan Merrifield from First Advantage.
Rob Jackson
Rob Jacksonwas the keynote speaker at the 2022 TeamKinetic Conference. He shared ideas of what the future might hold for volunteering. Rob had some powerful points which we think are worth sharing.
Since the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, people’s mental health has worsened. The pandemic has caused people to be burnout and have a lack of motivation. According to a brief by the World Health Organization, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25% in the first year of the pandemic. This could imply that in the future, volunteers may need increased support from volunteer managers due to poor mental health and lack of energy to put their time into volunteering.
The cost of living crisis could also cause an increase in stress and anxiety in people’s lives. Individuals may not have the spare time to volunteer as they have to work multiple jobs to support themselves through the cost of living crisis. The cost of living crisis also means the reimbursement of expenses needs to be prioritised. People may be reluctant to volunteer as they worry that it might leave them out of pocket as expenses are taking too long to be reimbursed.
After Rob Jackson, we then had a session choice between Simon Dickinson from Digital Gaps and Dan McManus from Time Tempo Credits discussing volunteer retention and impact in 2030.
Digital Gaps
Simon delivered a great session on providing verified volunteers for digital services. Digital Gaps’ mission is to help the public and third sector realise the financial, customer experience and improved well-being outcomes that data solutions deliver.
He talked about the work they have done with us to put in place a digital passport. Simon showed us the process that would verify a volunteer, using Yoti to verify your identity which then allows you to have a digital identity wallet which can be used when recruiting volunteers.
Tempo Time Credits
Dan McManus from Tempo Time Credits then took us through how to build and sustain a volunteer workforce in his session. Tempo Time Credits allows you to earn a time credit for each hour of volunteering.
Dan talked through some future plans for Tempo including an improved facility to donate to groups. Some thoughts Dan had on the future of volunteering was that the pandemic has had a large impact on older and vulnerable volunteers which has made it difficult for organisations to recruit volunteers.
vHelp
Randa Bennett from vHelp gave her session on how we should be handling expenses in the future. Randa has been in the technology sector for over 20 years and came across this problem around reimbursing volunteers and that’s where vHelp was born.
One key point she touched on in her session was the importance of inclusivity. If organisations aren’t reimbursing volunteers quickly, it could be excluding the less fortunate people who can’t afford to be left out of pocket, leaving only wealthier people being able to volunteer. Transparency is also a key aspect for the future of volunteering. In the future, organisations need to ensure they inform their volunteers about expenses in the early stages of recruitment.
123 Internet and General Practice Alliance
In the next session, we were joined by Felicity Adrian from General Practice Alliance. Felicity is a project manager and she helps put together the volunteer passport online platform for Northamptonshire.
Scott Jones from 123 Internet talked us through how he made their volunteer passport homepage. They gave us an overview of the concept behind the volunteer passport and discussed why the re-design was needed. To decide why the re-design was needed they held a workshop to help them understand what their key vision was for volunteering across Northamptonshire and how it could be shared through the volunteer passport.
First Advantage
Allan Merrifield from First Advantage spoke to us about Digital ID DBS. First Advantage are a global technology background screening company delivering innovative solutions and insights that help their clients manage risk and hire the best talent quickly and efficiently.
Their aim is to automate DBS checks to make it as easy as possible. During Allan’s session, he spoke to us about what services are available through the partnership that is in place between TeamKinetic and First Advantage. Allan also took us through the journey of creating a digital ID and how to use one.
A Big Thank You!
We’d just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who attended the 2022 TeamKinetic Conference and all our great speakers for their informative sessions. We hope you had a good time with us.
If you have any suggestions of things you’d like to hear about – or people you’d like to hear from – please tell us by emailing alex@teamkinetic.co.uk
We look forward to next year’s conference!
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
The TeamKinetic 2022 Conference will take place on Tuesday 27th – Wednesday 28th September 2022. The fully-online conference will take a look into volunteering and volunteer management in today’s climate, while also looking ahead to how it could change in the next decade.
The conference is aimed at anyone involved in the third sector, specifically those who manage volunteers.
Day One of the conference will focus on TeamKinetic. What does the system offer to volunteer managers today? And how will our system adapt to suit the latest trends in volunteer management?
Agenda
9:30 – 10:00 Welcome: Feel free to join us at any time before our 10am start!
10:00 – 11:20 New to TeamKinetic: We have some exciting new updates coming to both the TeamKinetic web service and the mobile app. Rolf will talk you all through these updates.
11:30 – 12:20 Reporting with TeamKinetic: Steve will take you through the comprehensive set of reporting tools available to you in TK and what the data can help you uncover about your volunteering programme.
13:15 – 14:00 Session Choices
Session 1: How to Help Yourself Alex will talk you through the different support options available to you as a TeamKinetic user. Both internally and externally.
Session 2: Onboarding Providers and Volunteers Rolf will discuss best-practice for getting new providers and volunteers started on your TeamKinetic system.
Session 3: Super Admin Options and Customising Emails Steve will take you through how to use the different Super Admin options effectively, as well as how to customise emails sent from the system.
Session 4: Why use Roles? And How to Create Them Chris will outline how you can create Roles within your system and how they can be used effectively on your opportunities.
14:10 – 15:00 Are you taking advantage of opportunity restrictions? There are a number of ways to restrict your opportunities in TeamKinetic to ensure you get the right volunteer for the job, but are you using them correctly?
15:00 – 16:00 Networking / General Q&A: We’ll be sticking around for anyone who has any questions or wants a bit of a chat!
Day Two
Day Two of the conference takes a look at the wider world of volunteer management. We’ll dive into case studies and current volunteer management best-practice while also considering the future of volunteer management and how the next decade might shape up.
Our Day Two sessions are as follows:
10:00 – 11:00 Keynote, Rob Jackson Volunteering to 2030: What might the future look like?
11:15 – 12:15 Session Choice (1/2)
Simon Dickinson, Digital Gaps / Digital Coproduction Volunteer Passports: Providing Verified Volunteers for Digital Services.
Dan McManus, Tempo Tempo Time Credits: Volunteer Retention and Impact in 2030.
13:10 – 14:10 Session Choice (3/4)
Randa Bennett, vHelp Money – a dirty word in the volunteering world, how should we handle it in the future?
Stephanie Mallender, Sport England #iWill and the Vision for Volunteering: A Deeper Look.
14:25 – 15:25 Session Choice (5/6)
Scott Jones, 123Internet / General Practice Alliance Homepage Design: Why It Is Important.
Allan Merrifield, First Advantage First Advantage Digital ID DBS with TeamKinetic
Read about our Day Two speakers by clicking here, or pressing page 2 below.
You can find out more about TeamKinetic through our website or social media:
The TeamKinetic conference is back! This year we’re bringing you a range of exciting speakers from across the third sector, all tying into our main conference theme:
‘Volunteering to 2030: What might the future look like?’
The conference will be split over two days, with day one focusing on TeamKinetic itself and day two taking a look into the third sector as a whole.
Dates: Tuesday 27th September – Wednesday 28th September 2022
Note: TeamKinetic admins should have received an email about special rate tickets.
You can also join our Facebook event page to read up on all the speakers and join the discussion before the conference begins! Just follow this link.
Day One
Features a range of sessions hosted by Chris, Steve, and Rolf on the TeamKinetic system as it stands today and how it could change in the future. Keep your eye out for one or two new features!
Day One is catered specifically towards existing TeamKinetic users, but all are welcome to join!
Day Two
Featuring a keynote from Rob Jackson, day two takes a look at the third sector as a whole. Our speakers look into best volunteer management practices, their recent work, and how managers may need to adapt for the future. We currently have confirmed speaker sessions from Sport England, vHelp, Tempo Time Credits, and more!
Last Friday we travelled down to Birmingham for Volunteer Expo. If you haven’t seen our coverage on our socials- fear not! I’m here to give you a whistle stop tour of our experience, and what we can take from the day.
Volunteer Expo connects communities and brings together many sectors under one roof to celebrate what it is that unites us. Sitting in on talks from GB Paralympians and our friends at the Association of Volunteer Managers- volunteering was (and still is) the thing that brings us together the most.
The Power of Sport Volunteering:
We started the day on Friday listening to the first talk of the conference: The Power of Sport. Hosted by Steve Brown, GB Paralympian, he was joined on stage by Hannah Mills, Sam Barlow and Phil Smith. The talk focused on the power of sport in volunteering and what the focus is moving forward to better volunteering and the environment around it.
Hannah Mills spoke openly about her passion for the environment. She’s spearheaded many projects to raise awareness about the world we live in. She highlights the 2019 pledge ‘The Big Plastic Pledge’ aiming to eradicate single-use plastic used in sport. Alongside Hannah, we were introduced to Sam Barlow.
After losing her husband in 2020, Sam dedicated her BBC Personality of the Year Unsung Hero 2021 award to him. Sam founded Fitmums and Friends simply by accident. After the birth of her child, Sam decided to ask if any other mums wanted to go on a run- and run she did! Now with 15 groups across the UK, Sam has helped people get active and support one another.
Finally on the panel was Phil Smith. Executive Director for Partnerships at Sport England, Phil joined the panel to talk about how his focus is on creating a more inclusive environment for volunteering in sport.
The talk opened our eyes to the importance of volunteering in sport (and every sector) along with the understanding that it isn’t yet perfect. There’s a lot of work needed to do in every volunteering sector…
Vision for Volunteering:
After a sport focused talk, we joined many others in watching the launch of Vision for Volunteering. Introduced by our friend at AVM, Ruth Leonard, she outlined what the Vision for Volunteering is all about. As one of the five partner organisations for this vision- it’s all about empowering people to find solutions and make a difference within the community.
There are five threads of the launch focusing on: Awareness and Appreciation, Equity and Inclusion, Experimentation, Collaboration and Power. For each of these themes, Vision for Volunteering highlights their ambitions and what volunteering should like 10 years from now.
Between talks, we managed to make our way around the stands and catch up with some of you! It was great to see so many familiar and new faces- along with seeing the launch of Vision for Volunteering live too.
It’s been some time since we’ve been in a room with so many people, and after grabbing a cheeky drink to cheer and say thank you to all volunteers we headed back up to Manchester. For those that may have attended on Saturday, let us know what you think!
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.
International Youth Day (IYD) is a time to celebrate young people and their contributions to the world. In 1999, the UN General Assembly marked August 12th as International Youth Day. It serves as an ‘opportunity to celebrate and mainstream young people’s voices, actions and initiatives.’
Each year, the United Nation of Youth create a theme for IYD. This year is: Youth Engagement for Global Action. This theme seeks to highlight how young people are engaging at local, national and global levels enrich themselves, institutions and processes.
Youth Engagement to You
So, Youth Engagement for Global Action… what does this mean to you?
As a young person myself, this statement is important. Allowing young voices and opinions to be heard is crucial to making changes at all levels.
Whilst the world is stuck in a limbo-like situation, local, national and global action is needed to find new ways we can overcome this period. Change is needed now more than ever – having young voices at the forefront allows for fresh input into processes being made. Therefore ultimately paving the way for themselves and future generations.
However, youth engagement to you may mean youth volunteering. This kind of engagement will be important to you and your organisation as it allows for fresh, new input. Giving your youth volunteers the chance to voice their opinions may help improve your future volunteering opportunities.
Education plays a vital part in getting young people to engage. 69% of 10 – 20 year olds get involved with volunteering through their school, college or university. With this, a survey found almost all of youth volunteers reported these opportunities had benefited them in some way.
1.6 million people volunteer abroad yearly, with an astonishing 84% of millennials also saying they would travel abroad to participate in volunteering activities.
With the pandemic clearly showing an increase in youth volunteering, I’m sure you are wondering how you can start to engage this generation and use their ideas to help your organisation.
TeamKinetic is here to help as our research shows our software is extremely effective at recruiting younger volunteers. This could be down to our digital tools that let you share to social media or the fact the younger generation prefer that digital approach.
You can trial our software for FREE to see how TeamKinetic can help you. Just head over to our website to learn more or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube for more tips and information about volunteers.
International Youth Day allows us to celebrate all young people and their hard work, whether it be on a local, national or global level. Join us today in saying thank you to all of the young people in our lives!
Happy International Friendship Day! A day to reflect and appreciate the friends you have. But this is also a day to create new friendships, and a great way to achieve this is through volunteering. But as a volunteer manager, how can you help your volunteers create friendships?
Research shows that one of the most common motivations for volunteers is the desire to meet new people and to make new friends. Volunteering can strengthen ties to communities and expose people to others with common interests; making creating new friends easier than ever.
Similarly, 70% of employees say friends at work is the most crucial element to a happy working life. Whether your work is paid, or unpaid, it is proven that you are likely to perform better when working with friends. Research also shows that 50% of employees with a friend at work feel a stronger connection with their company. This makes your organisation better and stronger.
Therefore, for volunteer managers, it is suggested that your volunteers are working in a friendly environment where they have the opportunity to make friends. If your volunteers become friends, that helps volunteer retention and therefore creates a stronger volunteer workforce for your organisation.
My Volunteering Experiences…
Here I am, in my two most favorite volunteering experiences (i’m the one with short blonde hair). This was where I volunteered for Once Upon a Smile at a bucket collection, and created a fundraising event for the RNLI.
My volunteering journey only started last year, during my second year studying Events Management at Manchester Metropolitan University. We would always receive emails about new volunteering opportunities that could help us engage further with the course.
I was extremely nervous to start volunteering as I can be quite a shy person. Despite this, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and start volunteering. I only started to volunteer so I could start making industry contacts and gain experience. Over time it then became so much easier to make friends when volunteering! This was from developing upon my social skills from meeting people with similar interests. Never did I think it would lead to some of the amazing friendships I have since made.
Volunteering allowed me to meet many students from my course who I had previously never spoken to (we had a VERY big class). This made the experience even better as I was able to engage with other people from my course who I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. These people later ended up becoming some of my best friends at university.
From my personal experiences, I can definitely say my volunteering experiences were improved by making friendships. It made volunteering even more enjoyable and made so many volunteers happier to know they are working with their friends. Having friendships made me feel connected with the company I was volunteering for, making me feel more confident within my roles.
So What Could Volunteer Managers Do – and How Can We Help?
We all know it is standard practice for volunteer managers to introduce volunteers to one another before their duties begin. This allows volunteers to get a sense of who they are working with before moving on to starting their duties. Similarly, you may also want to consider using a platform where your volunteers can communicate. This then gives volunteers the opportunity to communicate with people they have met during an opportunity, allowing friendships to flourish.
You might now be thinking, what could we possibly do to help? With TeamKinetic, volunteers can use the chat room function to talk (or ask questions) to their friends from the same opportunities. This encourages communication between volunteers and increases the likelihood of volunteers signing up to the same opportunities together. As a result, this feature of communication therefore allows the creation of those vital, long-lasting friendships through one easy to use system. Volunteers can also share opportunities to other volunteers through TeamKinetic. This feature is then further increasing the likelihood of friendships between volunteers being made within your organisation.
Also, did I mention it is FREE?! If you now want to find a system that allows you to manage your volunteers effectively whilst also helping volunteers create those vital friendship, you can simply start a FREE trial today! For more information and to start your FREE trial today, visit our website or call 01619145747.
is part of the committee. Rob runs his own consultancy and training company and has worked with Volunteering England and was involved in the creation of 
Education plays a vital part in getting young people to engage. 
