The latest minor release is out in the wild now. Here are the big things to watch out for in the new TeamKinetic update.
Tempo Time Credit Integration
This is super exciting and we will be covering this in some other posts and communications.
If you join the Tempo Time Credit scheme, your volunteers will be able to exchange hours they log in TeamKinetic for real-world rewards in their local area. It’s a fantastic way to reward and recognise your volunteers.
The process is fully integrated and volunteers can register and exchange hours from right within the TeamKinetic app. You can find out more on the Tempo website.
Another first for volunteer management software. We have integrated the First Advantage digital and criminal check service right into the TeamKinetic app.
As an admin, all you need to do is select the volunteer whose identity you want to check or perform a criminal check on and hit a single button! The volunteer will be contacted to download an identity check app to their phone, proceed to verify their identity, and then the criminal check will be performed and the results fed straight back into TeamKinetic. We expect most checks to be completed within 48 hours.
It’s also possible to perform in-person identity checks and just use the service to complete the criminal check if you are satisfied with the documents presented.
If you’re interested in integrating your identity and criminal checks directly into your volunteer programme, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ryvW7cs3yGJGNnV26
Gender and Birth Sex
We have now successfully decoupled our gender and birth sex questions. Previously we collected the birth sex answer as part of the gender question and you might have noticed that Female/Male was always appended to your own gender list.
We used this answer to define a birth sex of female or male so that if opportunity creators restricted an opportunity by sex we could correctly identify those volunteers that matched.
We’ve been monitoring the usage of the sex-restricted opportunities and it has been going down and down so we decided it was the right time to break this a little so we can get our gender/sex position correct.
You’ll see two new options in the Super Admin Settings > Options menu under the registration section that you can use to switch on/off the Birth Sex and Gender questions. If enabled the questions will be asked at registration and also within the volunteers profile.
If your organisation has no sex-restricted opportunities then the birth sex question will be switched off. We have also retained the female/male responses in your gender lists, but they are now editable, and if you wish you could remove them and use cisgender or whatever your organisation prefers.
Disability and Support Questions
We have also split up this section into two optional registration questions so you can choose to ask if a volunteer considers themselves disabled and/or if they have any extra support issues. We know that for some organisations it is not appropriate to ask or record if a volunteer is disabled but it’s still useful to know about any support issues you can help with.
These options can be found in the REGISTRATION section of the Super Admin Settings > Options menu.
Along with the now optional sex and gender questions you can now have a really minimal registration page which we would always advocate if you don’t need the extra data.
Auto Deletion of Volunteers
We recognise that storing old data can be an issue, both for GDPR and reporting. It has always been possible to delete volunteers based on a filter like login activity but it was manual. We have added a new feature where you can switch on auto deletion and enter the period of inactivity after which to remove the volunteers.
Matching volunteers will be marked for deletion if they have not logged in within the period you specify, which is 12 months by default. Then after 48 hours, they will be removed and their hours saved in the usual way for deleted volunteers.
Recording No-Shows
For some of our customers, no-shows can be a real issue and while it has been possible to check volunteers in via the day schedule report page, and for volunteers to self-report as a no-show, we’ve not supported an admin method to record the no-show.
You can now do this for single or multiple sessions in the past from the Log Hours section of the opportunity management page. This data is being recorded and once we have some more to work with we will be reporting this data back via the reporting pages and volunteer management page.
Volunteer Status
In the past we have had three possible statuses for a volunteer; newly registered with no access, access granted, and access revoked. We have extended this to include a retired status, a revoked due to safeguarding issues, and an under-review status. These status changes have also been added to the webhook actions so your connected applications can be notified when a volunteer’s status changes.
More Automated Notifications
We’ve added a few more email notifications to try and streamline the pre and post-session operation.
If you utilise the custom opp joining email to let your volunteers know more details about the opportunity once they have joined, then we will resend that email the day before a volunteer’s next session, just to remind them!
We have also added an editable post-opportunity period setting so that you can control how long after a volunteer’s last session on an opportunity they receive the post-opp reminder email (or you can switch it off entirely). If the opportunity has a post-opp survey or document this will be appended to the email.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will also notice in that screenshot that you can now also choose to include or exclude events in the weekly email newsletter that is sent every Friday.
There is of course, as always, the usual bug fixes and small changes that we hope make your day-to-day interaction with TeamKinetic better and better.
Many thanks to all our customers who open support tickets and new feature requests that helped shape this TeamKinetic update…keep them coming in!
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
For alternative ways to fundraise, attract new volunteers, and excite existing volunteers, add a bit of seasonality to your volunteering opportunities! With Halloween just around the corner, it’s not too late to create volunteering opportunities on your TeamKinetic system. Take inspiration from the following Halloween volunteering opportunities and you’ll have a volunteer-involved event organised in no time!
Spooky Movie Screening
Some fundraising opportunities can be hosted entirely by volunteers! Hosting a screening of a Halloween film is minimal effort but can generate a significant reward. Guests will pay a small fee for an evening of frighteningly good entertainment. Whether this is a family-friendly event or a super scary horror night; consider what will be most appealing to your organisation’s audience and volunteers. Simply provide seating and project your film of choice. As an additional fundraising opportunity, include a Halloween bake sale or tuckshop.
Trick-Or-Treat QR Codes
Encourage your volunteers to take home stickers with a ‘scan to donate’ QR code or QR code linked to your TeamKinetic site. Stickers can be placed on buckets taken out treat-or-treating or placed on a bucket containing your own treats for treat-or-trickers to take from. Volunteering has never been so easy! Besides donations, this is also a great way to raise awareness of your organisation. QR.io is a useful free tool for generating QR codes.
Halloween Sweet Treats
A Halloween bake sale can be a stand-alone event or incorporated into a larger volunteering opportunity like a games night or movie screening. Encourage people to bring along Halloween-themed treats and the hard work will be done for you! Be sure to indicate that all proceeds will go to your organisation’s worthy cause. Task volunteers with running the stall or even making or preparing items for sale. Click here for some fun Halloween baking ideas!
Now it’s your jack-o’-lantern!
Don’t give up the ghost; engage with seasonal events! Halloween is perfect for fundraising events that are also great volunteering opportunities. Remember to signpost your Halloween volunteering opportunities at your organisation location and across your website, social media and TeamKinetic site itself. This is essential to boost volunteer registrations in a short time period!
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
The TeamKinetic 2023 Conference took place on Wednesday the 27th September. We brought together voices from across the third sector, all discussing the latest hot topics from the world of volunteer management.
This year, our theme was:
The changing world and its potential impact on volunteering.
All responses will be taken on board to help us make next year even better.
We kicked things off with an intro to the Association of Volunteer Managers, you can find out more about the AVM and all the great work they do for the sector here: https://volunteermanagers.org.uk
Next, we had a great Keynote from Rob Jackson on the conference theme (The changing nature of work and what this may mean for volunteering). He touched on the potential of AI and the implications for volunteer engagement professionals. He believes that AI currently has the potential to:
Create jobs
Provide health benefits
Give us freedom from the mundane
Allow us to focus on what’s uniquely human
Meanwhile, Rob mentioned that the implications for people working in volunteer management/engagement may include:
In our final session before lunch, we heard about all the new TeamKinetic App and Integrations from Rolf, as well as some recent new updates people might have missed. See this session below, or click here.
Creating Volunteer Pathways for Everyone with Tempo
Rachel Gegeshidze (CEO) & Brian Ratcliffe (Director of Operations) gave us a great presentation on how to create pathways into volunteering for everyone.
Rachel and Brian also spoke about the benefits of using Tempo Time Credits to reward your volunteers and the impact they make.
Lee Weightman (Senior Customer Manager) delivered an interesting presentation on how organisations can use First Advantage’s background check system to speed up processes.
Volunteer Experience: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Steve Hall (one of our Directors here at TeamKinetic) delivered an engaging session on how to improve the volunteer experience within your TeamKinetic system. There are a variety of things you can do within TeamKinetic to take your system to the next level, including custom CSS and adding your own volunteer onboarding resources.
Molly Sweeney (Volunteering Project Manager) from Groundwork London joined us to discuss how people can most effectively advertise their opportunities to volunteers. She mentioned the current issues people face:
She also proposed three models of volunteer types that can then be used to create opportunities which will improve engagement.
Last but definitely not least, Gethyn Williams dropped in to talk to us about the Digital Volunteer Toolkit we’re building in collaboration with AVM.
The toolkit aims to help Volunteer-Involving Organisations adopt digital tools and approaches that are right for them. You can help shape the toolkit by responding to this poll about the issues you face in volunteer management: https://forms.gle/8qJDzbyxuLuSTEHp6
If you have any questions about the conference don’t hesitate to reach out. You can email alex@teamkinetic.co.uk or you can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
What role can digital play in effective volunteer management in 2024?
That’s the question under consideration by TeamKinetic and the Association of Volunteer Managers as they embark on an exciting initiative – the creation of a new Toolkit for Digital in Volunteering – helping Volunteer-Involving Organisations to adopt the digital tools and approaches that are right for them.
Digital technology has for many years played an integral role in volunteering, whether through scaling up how we advertise our opportunities online, streamlining the onboarding process or improving how we communicate with our volunteers.
Sometimes a new advance in technology comes along and has a dramatic, instant impact, revolutionising our approach and unlocking fresh value that we couldn’t have previously imagined.
However, at other times it can feel as if digital evolves under its own agenda, developing functionality that may or may not address the challenges we face in real-world volunteer management.
Helping volunteer-involving organisations to ask the right questions and adopt the digital technologies that best meet their needs, on their own terms, is the purpose of this new Toolkit.
Why now?
No-one steps in the same river twice
Heraclitus, 500 BCE
That change is our only constant may be a well-understood idea, but in recent years the volunteering landscape seems to have changed more rapidly and dramatically than at any point in recent history.
The impact of the Covid era has deeply affected both who volunteers and their expectations, perhaps permanently. Initiatives such as the Vision for Volunteering encourage us to recognise this and adapt our approaches, or risk losing more volunteers as these trends continue.
So what role can digital technology play in helping us cope with these transitions?
You’ve probably looked at digital options for your programmes many times in the past – but given that technological development also moves at pace perhaps now, given the change we’re experiencing on all fronts, is a great time to look again at the role digital plays in your operation.
What’s in the Toolkit?
TeamKinetic’s mission has always been to enable volunteer-involving organisations to make the most of digital’s potential, so the questions this Toolkit need to answer should come from you – the leaders in volunteering.
And whilst we can anticipate some of the big areas we should probably include, such as:
How do we prepare for the impact of AI?
How can digital help us be more inclusive? or
What exactly is open data and its potential?
…there’s no better way of getting to the heart of an issue than by listening to our customers and the challenges they are facing, in their own words.
After all, a question well-stated is a problem half-solved.
How can I get involved?
So if you’d like to help shape the Toolkit, or there’s a particular digital angle you’d like it to address, we’d love to hear from you. You can:
Complete our poll – four short, multiple-choice questions that will help us understand your priorities better. You can access the poll here: https://forms.gle/8qJDzbyxuLuSTEHp6
Send us a message telling us what you’d like to see, in your own words.
Or, if you’re a member of the AVM there’s an opportunity to join a roundtable to explore the Toolkit’s structure and content, currently scheduled for the 21st of November. Stand by your inboxes for further details.
Its creation is sponsored by TeamKinetic and will be built by Gethyn Williams, an independent volunteering strategist, working closely with partners and taking input from AVM members and wider stakeholders.
We anticipate the release of the Toolkit in Spring 2024.
TeamKinetic recently attended the Why Sports ‘Improving Health and Increasing Activity Conference’ at the Royal Society of Medicine. Focusing on preventative health measures, the conference featured voices from the public, leisure, education and sports sectors. It was an informative, thought-provoking day punctuated by 8 themed sessions including a panel discussion hosted by TeamKinetic’s director, Chris. Here’s our Why Sports Conference roundup!
So, Why Sports?
It’s common knowledge that activity is beneficial for the mind and body. Healthier people live happier lives. Those at the Why Sports conference want to turn this knowledge into concrete action. As Mike Farrar from Ukactive articulated at the conference opening, we must align the physical activity sector with the health sector. When scaled, case studies and pilots by the likes of Sport England and Ealing Council can create widespread, real-life outcomes.
Social prescribing links together groups, services, people and activities within communities to address the social, emotional and practical influencers on health and wellbeing. Active Travel Lancashire have taken an approach that prioritises activity in communities by encouraging local cycling and walking.
Keep offering support. In a couple of years time, the data will highlight the benefits of these ambitious schemes.
Without the likes of Gemma Hyde from the Town and Country Planning Association, such schemes could not be scaled. Gemma defined the concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods, why they benefit people’s health and, importantly, how can we make them happen. Using architectural design to remove barriers to activity is a significant undertaking that sparks much debate. The benefits of such a setup reach beyond health. If done in an inclusive, viable manner, 20-minute neighbourhoods can greatly benefit the environment and economy.
The Conference encouraged partnerships of all kinds; between charities, community groups, councils and the NHS. Such partnerships provide direction and outcomes that can inform government policy and implementation. For the second time, Raleigh Bikes was a Why Sports sponsor. Birmingham and Southall’s free bike schemes evidence the power of activity once social and economic barriers are removed.
TeamKinetic Panel
Volunteering isn’t just about giving; it’s about gaining too! Alongside some brilliant keynotes, the TeamKinetic panel inspired some fantastic discussion. TeamKinetic’s Chris Martin was joined by Leila Bendrimia from GLL, Bryony Hudson from Active Lancashire and Lee Malkin from Everybody Health and Leisure. The panel spoke on what volunteering means to their organisations and the difference that effective volunteer engagement software has made. The connections between leisure trusts through the Active Kindness Programme showcase the power of volunteering in the sports, health and leisure sectors. Here are some snippets from the panel discussion:
Ask your volunteers why they are there, this is crucial for volunteer retention.
Leila, GLL.
When reporting back to our board about how volunteering is going, with TeamKinetic we can dissect data at the click of a button.
Lee, Everybody Health and Leisure.
Volunteering brings all the good vibes and best out of people, but having TeamKinetic lets us translate this into something tangible you can justify to your trustees or board.
Bryony, Active Lancashire.
Final Roundup
The Why Sports ‘Improving Health and Increasing Activity Conference’ built upon our existing awareness of the benefits of activity. Hearing from industry professionals and analysing case studies will inspire and inform the implementation of additional activity-based initiatives.
Sheffield Hallam University developed the 5I’s ‘Easier to be Active’ Framework in partnership with Sport England, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, The Richmond Group of charities, and others. The framework overviews the necessary considerations when seeking to help people to live more active, healthy lifestyles. If you’re looking to incorporate activity into your organisation through volunteering or other schemes, this framework is a helpful starting point!
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
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.
Volunteer interviews are often a crucial step in the volunteer recruitment process. It is here that you can really get a sense of a person and their suitability for your organisation. However, conducting volunteer interviews is different to paid role interviews! Whether the potential for volunteer impact is small or big, volunteer interviews must be thoughtful and selective.
Interviewer Responsibilities
As an interviewer, it is your responsibility to lay the groundwork for a productive volunteer interview. Volunteer interviews are usually more informal than interviews for paid roles and are conducted for the purpose of getting to know the candidate as opposed to checking credentials. If necessary skills or requirements are entered in TeamKinetic, only suitable candidates will be invited to interview.
Remember that interviews are a two-way process. First, briefly outline the volunteer role and your organisation. This helps to put the interviewee at ease and affirms the focus of your discussion. Candidates should be given the opportunity to ask questions of their own in response to the information you have provided. A keen interest in the role and your organisation is always a positive!
Potential Questions
The informal nature of volunteer interviews can make it more difficult to select and sort volunteers. Having some core questions that structure the interview will make it easier to identify your chosen volunteer/s. Here are some question categories and examples to guide you when conducting volunteer interviews:
Personal
What motivates you?
Do you prefer working independently or collaboratively?
What do you like to do in your free time?
General
Do you have any personal connection to our organisation?
What attracted you most to this volunteering opportunity?
What other volunteering experience do you have, if any?
Situational
What would you do if you were faced with an unhappy patient/customer/etc?
If you felt that someone in your team was behaving inappropriately, what would you do?
Describe a volunteering situation that would require you to be empathetic.
Volunteer Selection
Use your checklist of core questions for each interview to ‘score’ interviewees. In combination with your personal impression and wider discussions that took place, a scoring system in response to specific questions ensures your interview process is fair. More broad observations you can make include:
Interviewee Green Flags
Confident responses
Referring to examples in their answers
Genuine personality
Admitting weaknesses
Knowledge of the organisation
Interviewee Red Flags
Vague responses
Unclear intentions
Not prioritising values
Lack of knowledge about the organisation
Interview Tips for Volunteers
Make sure that you have an understanding of the organisation that you wish to volunteer for. Knowing the purpose of the organisation will guide you towards being the best volunteer you can be!
Your interviewer wants to know that you will enjoy your role. Therefore, demonstrating enthusiasm for a voluntary position is particularly important. Your enjoyment and sense of purpose will be your primary motivators.
Ask questions! When researching the organisation, take note of the things that you would like to hear more about. Equally, feel free to ask any questions when the interviewer describes the role and organisation. This will show that you are interested and proactive.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
