Heritage and culture organisations do vital work, preserving the legacies of our past for future generations. They rely on dedicated individuals and effective organisation. This is where volunteer management can be a great tool!
The Role of Volunteers in Heritage Preservation
Volunteers generously offer their time and expertise to nurture and protect our cultural heritage. Whether they’re cataloguing artefacts or leading tours through historic sites, volunteers foster a deeper connection between communities and their heritage.
Challenges in Volunteer Management for Heritage Preservation
While their contributions are incredibly valuable, managing heritage volunteers still comes with its own set of challenges. These include recruitment struggles, providing adequate training, coordinating schedules, and retaining engagement. It’s no doubt that heritage organisations face a fair few hurdles when optimising their volunteer programs.
Volunteer diversity can be a big issue for organisations in the sector. A 2019 report from the Heritage Volunteering Group raised questions about the lack of diversity and the roles volunteers play. Is this still the case in 2024?
Over the years, some great resources have been developed to address this issue. For example, take a look at this Make Your Mark webinar on how you can remove class barriers to heritage volunteering. This is just one of the factors which might be limiting your volunteer diversity.
Digital resources and tools can help you mobilise a wider range of volunteers as you can recruit outside of your usual ‘bubble’ in a quick and easy way.
The Importance of Effective Volunteer Management
Effective volunteer management is the cornerstone in overcoming these obstacles and maximising impact. By implementing streamlined recruitment processes, offering comprehensive training modules, and fostering open communication channels, heritage organisations can fulfil the true potential of their volunteer base.
Best Practice Volunteer Management for Heritage
To ensure the success of a volunteer programme, organisations must prioritise best practices. This may include establishing clear roles and expectations, providing ongoing support and recognition, and embracing technology to streamline administrative tasks. For example, a volunteer management system. A VMS can save you countless admin hours and help you cultivate a great community of volunteers.
Within TeamKinetic, volunteers are allowed to self-serve – meaning they have an active role in filling out their profile, choosing which opportunities to join, and following opportunity types that interest them.
Overall, volunteer management stands as a powerful tool in heritage preservation. By recognising the invaluable contributions of volunteers and implementing effective management strategies, we can safeguard our cultural legacy for generations to come.
How are we involved with the heritage & culture sector?
We recently announced our partnership with the Heritage Volunteering Group. This collaboration marks a commitment to the preservation of heritage sites and their volunteers.
Our shared aim is to foster community engagement and amplify the impact of volunteer efforts within heritage and culture organisations. In line with this, we are supporting all HVG events as well as their 2024 conference.
HVG’s annual conference is taking place on the 26th and 27th of November. Make sure you get the date in the diary by clicking on this link.
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For those customers that required higher security for their administrators, providers or volunteers, or that required the control of their user generation to be maintained centrally, TeamKinetic supports login and account generation via SSO (single sign on).
We support any SSO provider that is compatible with OpenAuth 2; this includes Azure, Okta, AWS and many others.
You must be an enterprise customer to enable SSO and there is a one-off fee for setup and implementation. To enable SSO we will require a few pieces of information;
The client id
The client secret id
The tenant id
With these we can create the necessary links for the login pages that look a little like this for Azure;
The user (admin in this case) will be presented with an SSO only button to login, like this;
They will get redirected to the SSO provider to login using their existing username and password and then if successful will be redirected back to your application. If the email matches an email in your administrator list they will be logged in, or if it does not exist a new minimum administrator account will be created and then they will be logged. Alternatively, if you wish, any emails for successful logins must match pre-existing accounts or the login will fail.
If you are interested in enabling SSO please get in touch or open a support ticket.
The latest major release is now complete! Say hello to TeamKinetic 2.5.
Here are the great new features you can look forward to.
Watch our masterclass on all the key new features now:
Save your favourite searches and set a default
Create your personalised smart search and save to your profile to retrieve anytime. You can set any search as your default for the volunteer, opportunity and provider search pages. So as soon as you open one of those pages you’ll get the results you need immediately.
You can set your defaults across all the search pages in one go from your profile area. (The person icon at the right of the top menu.)
New Search Filters
We’ve added some new filters to the volunteer and opportunity search pages;
Date volunteer last logged hours
Volunteers waiting for parental consent (in the type sub-filter)
Opportunity ID check required
Is opportunity accessible
Opportunity applicant statuses
Providers with open applications
It’s always worth checking the search filters as they get added and improved constantly.
Watch it in action:
Full WYSIWYG rich text editing everywhere
Anywhere you can email a volunteer or a group of volunteers, you’ll now have access to the full rich text editing features and can include images, links and files.
This includes the volunteer search page, opportunity pages, volunteer profile pages. Basically anywhere you can email, expect to see the rich text editor.
Watch it in action:
Volunteer self-reported extra volunteering
We are very excited to reveal that volunteers will now be able to create their own complete record of volunteering and capture all their opportunities and hours.
Volunteers can add a description, the organisation and any hours donated. These will be included in their own record of achievements and hour totals.
Admins are notified when a volunteer adds their own extracurricular volunteering. If they wish, they can certify it and include it as approved hours. Those certified extra volunteering activities will be converted into the regular owed hours (now all termed ‘Extra Volunteering’) type opportunities. These will be included in reports and act as regular logged hours throughout the application.
Watch it in action:
Email send reports
We all know how frustrating it is to send emails to lots of volunteers. Some of them just don’t make it for various reasons.
Now, when you view the email log for any volunteer you will notice a little link next to the subject ‘check delivery’. This small little link will reveal what happened to the email, if it was sent, if it was received, and if opened.
Perfect if you need to know if a volunteer is receiving the emails you are sending.
Watch it in action:
Mark a volunteer as finished on any opportunity type
For long-running opportunities, you can end up with lots of inactive volunteers (those with no future sessions left) clogging up the volunteer list and email lists. Previously you have only been able to remove the volunteers completely from the opportunity which has the undesired side effect of also removing their contribution to the opportunity… not ideal.
We have re-engineered the ‘finished on this opp’ feature. It was previously available on flexible opportunities only, but it has been expanded to all opportunity types.
When selecting volunteers on an opportunity you’ll have an extra function ‘Mark as Finished’ which gives you a few extra options as well as just marking as finished. You can hide the volunteer from the provider completely on the opportunity page and you can also prevent the volunteer from joining any new sessions if you wish.
Watch it in action:
Merging volunteer accounts
It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally a volunteer has unexpectedly registered twice with different email addresses.
This works similarly to the merge provider feature and will copy all the sessions and hours from the volunteer you are viewing to the selected volunteer.
Watch it in action:
Sharing private notes
The private note area has been super useful for lots of our users, and the provider equivalent lets the provider also store private notes for their use against a volunteer.
Admins can now choose to share their private note(s) with providers if they feel it would be useful. And vice-versa: providers can share their private notes with system admins.
Additionally when a provider shares a private note to the admins a notification is sent, in case its important.
Watch it in action:
There are of course many other fixes and improvements;
Impersonate a volunteer directly from the opportunity management page,
Update expense claims status in bulk,
New customisable emails,
Tooltips won’t get lost over the edge of small screens.
TeamKinetic 2.5 is scheduled to go live on May 6th. But before we go live we need your feedback! Test all this out right now on https://beta.teamkinetic.co.uk/vk/admin using your regular admin login.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
These terms and conditions govern the use of the promotional offer provided by TeamKinetic to members of The Heritage Volunteering Group. By taking advantage of this offer, you agree to comply with these terms and conditions.
1.Offer Details: 1.1. TeamKinetic offers members of the Heritage Volunteering Group (HVG) a discount of 25% off the standard rate for the TeamKinetic volunteer management system. This offer is valid from 23/04/2024 – 30/09/2024.
1.2. The discount applies only to the first year of subscription for any version of the TeamKinetic volunteer management system.
1.3. Organisations can take advantage of this offer by reaching out directly to TeamKinetic, either by starting a free trial, or emailing info@teamkinetic.co.uk with notice of their intent to redeem this offer.
2.Eligibility: 2.1. To be eligible for this offer, users must be members of The Heritage Volunteering Group at the time of purchase.
3. Discount Application: 3.1. The 25% discount will be applied automatically during the checkout process for the TeamKinetic volunteer management system.
3.2. The discount applies to the first year of subscription only. Subsequent renewals will be charged at the standard rate.
3.3. The discount will only be given to organisations that can prove their membership to the HVG. TeamKinetic reserves the right to refuse the discount to any organisation that cannot prove their membership.
4. Payment: 4.1. Users agree to pay the discounted subscription fee for the first year of their TeamKinetic subscription upon purchase.
4.2. Subsequent renewals will be charged at the standard rate unless otherwise stated by TeamKinetic.
5. Modification and Termination: 5.1. TeamKinetic reserves the right to modify, suspend, or terminate this offer at any time without prior notice.
5.2. In the event of termination, users who have already availed of the offer will continue to receive the discount for the duration of their current subscription term.
6. Limitation of Liability: 6.1. TeamKinetic shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising out of or in any way connected with the use of this offer.
7. Acceptance: 7.1. By taking advantage of this offer, users acknowledge that they have read, understood, and agree to these terms and conditions.
8. Contact Information: 8.1. For any inquiries or assistance regarding this offer, users may contact TeamKinetic by email at info@teamkinetic.co.uk or by telephone at 0161 914 5757.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
We are thrilled to announce a new partnership between TeamKinetic and the Heritage Volunteering Group (HVG). This collaboration marks a great step forward in our mission to make volunteering easier for everyone.
Who are the Heritage Volunteering Group?
The Heritage Volunteering Group is dedicated to helping volunteer managers unlock the power of volunteering through collaboration and sharing best practice. They have a fantastic community of passionate individuals committed to driving positive change in the sector.
HVG is open to any organisation that works within the Heritage and Culture sector. This includes volunteer-led organisations, national museums, trusts and groups. They hold an annual conference as well as two networking forums a year. Find out more about HVG here.
Their mission aligns perfectly with ours, making this partnership a natural fit for both organisations.
We are thrilled to be partnering with an organistion who shares our vision for volunteering in the heritage sector. TeamKinetic’s sponsorship of our events programme and our flagship conference, Heritage Volunteering ’24, provides an incredible opportunity for us to enhance our support to heritage volunteer managers across the UK, enabling them to create volunteer programmes that transform organisations, lives, and communities.
Matthew Hick Chair of the Heritage Volunteering Group
How do they fit with TeamKinetic?
At TeamKinetic, our passion is developing volunteer management software that simplifies volunteer management. We want to empower organisations with the tools they need to mobilise, manage, and motivate their volunteers, all while measuring the amazing impact they’re making.
Overall, we just want to help organisations mobilise volunteers and maximise the potential of those volunteers – aligning perfectly with HVG’s mission.
Together, TeamKinetic and the Heritage Volunteering Group will work to produce resources and events for all volunteer managers. Including an upcoming event on April 23rd (read on for more info)…
The Heritage Volunteer Group is one of the most established specialist volunteer manager groups, and we have admired their work for some time. We attended a meeting of the North West HVG group just before Christmas, and it was a pleasure to see the professionalism and support that HVG provided to its members.
When we were offered the opportunity, we were only too happy to support this wonderful network of volunteer management professionals. TeamKinetic is well-established across the heritage sector, so we hope this partnership will provide new and exciting opportunities for collaboration, support and innovation.
Chris martin Co-founder of TeamKinetic
To kick off the partnership, we hosted an event with HVG where we discussed what TeamKinetic can do for heritage organisations everywhere of any size. We’ll also be sponsoring their upcoming future events, including their 2024 conference in November.
TeamKinetic is also excited to offer all members of the Heritage Volunteering Group 25% off any TeamKinetic subscription! Not only this, but we’ll also offer free data migration for anyone switching from another volunteer management platform.
How do you take advantage of this offer? Start a free trial today over on teamkinetic.co.uk or contact info@teamkinetic.co.uk to get started.
Welcome back to Season 3 of our TeamTalk Podcast! This season, we are talking to thought leaders, customers and stakeholders from the world of volunteer management as we dive deeper into the world of volunteering.
In this TeamTalk episode, we were joined by Ian Braid. Ian is an exciting guest with plenty of stories to tell from his time in the industry. We could have probably done a whole season with him!
He is currently the founder of DOCIAsport – an award-winning business that supports ‘the people who look after the people’. DOCIA stands for ‘Duty Of Care In Action’ and it’s something that may have been overlooked in the past, but Ian and his team are doing incredible work across the sport sector now.
Listen Now
Join Chris, Imo and Ian as they discuss Ian’s volunteer work and his career. He also discusses his mental health journey, an incredibly important and insightful conversation. One that could have gone on for much longer. We appreciate Ian being so open with us and highlighting this issue in the sector.
Ian consistently tackles the stigma of mental health in sport through his work at DOCIAsport.
He is a member of Mental Health First Aid England, Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity, Professional Body of Sports Leadership and UK Coaching, a member of the UK Coaching – as Coaching Advisory Panel, and Chair UK Coaching Duty to Care Committee.
His past work includes roles as Major Events Director of the British Triathlon Federation and CEO of the British Athletes Commission (BAC) – the union for Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
A new partnership between TeamKinetic and DoIt promises to help you share your opportunities during The Big Help Out.
The Big Help Out is going ahead again in 2024 and here at TeamKinetic, we’ve got you covered to make sure your opportunities can be included.
We have partnered up again with DoIt to prepare a way for you to share your opportunities with DoIt so they can be included in the Big Help Out and beyond.
When active, providers will be able to link their existing DoIt account to the TeamKinetic platform and elect to share individual opportunities with DoIt. They will appear as new activities on the DoIt platform with a link back to the providers’ opportunity on TeamKinetic.
Linking is a simple matter of sharing the secret API key that you can find on your DoIt dashboard. Just cut and paste the key and that’s it.
We are also exploring the possibility of giving admin users the option of sharing opportunities with DoIt. This would be under their own DoIt account, where the provider is unable or unwilling to create a DoIt account or to share the API key with us. This means the shared opportunities will appear under your persona on DoIt, but otherwise will operate in the same way.
If you are interested, get in touch through the usual channels so we can start to prepare your TeamKinetic application to be ready for the Big Help Out.
When is The Big Help Out?
The Big Help Out will take place between the 6th and 9th of June, at the end of Volunteers’ Week (3rd – 9th).
The objective of The Big Help Out is to raise awareness of volunteering throughout the UK and provide opportunities for people to experience volunteering and make a difference in their communities.
Together with DoIt, we’re hoping to make a big difference, making it easier for people to get involved and help out in their communities.
The link between TeamKinetic and DoIt is not active yet. We are hoping to have it ready in good time before The Big Help Out 2024. But if you have any questions about this collaboration in the meantime, please reach out.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
At TeamKinetic, we understand the importance of appreciating art and culture – and of course, we love a good festival! That’s why we are proud to announce our recent addition as Friends of the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF).
What is the AIF?
The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) stands as a cornerstone for independent festivals across the UK. AIF are recognised as the leading representative body for festivals. They advocate for their members, fostering collaboration, and driving the growth and sustainability of independent festivals nationwide.
At TeamKinetic, we firmly believe that volunteers play an invaluable role in events worldwide. Their dedication, enthusiasm, and hard work are fundamental to any festival’s success. That’s why we’re thrilled to partner with the AIF to enhance the volunteer experience within the events sector.
What does this partnership mean?
Through our collaboration with AIF, we are committed to delivering top-notch volunteer management and engagement services to their members. Our goal is to ensure that volunteers feel genuinely valued, adequately supported, and empowered to make significant contributions to the festivals they serve.
Recognising that the volunteer journey extends beyond the event day, we understand the importance of offering comprehensive support. From recruitment and training to on-site coordination and acknowledgement. By closely collaborating with AIF and its members, we aim to implement industry best practices, streamline processes, and elevate the overall volunteer experience.
Furthermore, our partnership with AIF presents a great opportunity to gain deeper insights into the volunteer landscape within the events sector. By collecting feedback, sharing insights, and fostering open dialogue, we can collaboratively identify areas for improvement. Allowing us to implement solutions that benefit volunteers, event organisers, and attendees alike.
Together with AIF, we are committed to fostering a culture of appreciation, inclusivity, and excellence within the events industry. We look forward to utilising this partnership to support the incredible work of event volunteers.
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