After the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, it’s not uncommon for volunteers to lose their enthusiasm and drive. As a result, it’s important to find ways to re-engage your volunteers and get them excited about volunteering again. So how can you start re-engaging volunteers after a break?
First of all, you should define the problem. Volunteer engagement isn’t always easy, especially if your organisation has had volunteers take breaks from their terms of service. But if you identify exactly what the problem is, it’s easier to come up with solutions tailored to you and your volunteers.
Secondly, you should set goals before you start. If your goal is to have more effective volunteers who stay longer than [x] months at a time, then that should be reflected in all aspects of their experience with your organisation. Starting with their onboarding process, through to training sessions and regular check-ins or evaluations.
Remind them of their impact
One way to reengage your volunteers is to focus on the impact that their work has on the organisation and the community. Remind them of the difference that they are making and the reasons why their contributions are so valuable. You can also highlight any recent successes or achievements that the organisation has made, and how your volunteers played a key role in making those achievements possible.
Feedback for a volunteer left via TeamKinetic’s volunteer management system.
Through TeamKinetic, you can reward volunteers through HourTrades, custom reward badges, or simple ‘Thank you’ communications.
Offer exciting new opportunities
Another way to reengage your volunteers is to offer them new and exciting opportunities to get involved. This could include working on a special project or event, taking on a leadership role, or learning a new skill. By providing your volunteers with fresh challenges and experiences, you can help them stay engaged and motivated.
You can also try to make the volunteering experience more enjoyable and rewarding for your volunteers. This could include providing regular recognition and appreciation for their hard work, offering flexible scheduling options, and creating a supportive and inclusive volunteer community. By creating a positive and engaging volunteer culture, you can help your volunteers feel valued and connected to the organisation.
With TeamKinetic, you can utilise our many opportunity creation options to create something that stands out to your volunteers and will help them feel excited about getting back into volunteering with you.
Reach out individually
Finally, consider reaching out to your volunteers individually to check in with them and see how they’re feeling. If you can put together a list of disengaged volunteers, you may want to consider asking them if there’s anything specific you could do in order for them to return. Perhaps they need more support than other volunteers with similar roles, or maybe they just need some time away from volunteering altogether.
This can be a great opportunity to listen to their feedback and address any concerns they may have. You can also offer support and guidance to help them overcome any challenges they may be facing. By showing that you care about your volunteers and their well-being, you can help them feel more engaged and motivated to continue volunteering.
TeamKinetic’s search filters allow you to find those volunteers who seem to be disengaged. Reaching out to them directly can help them feel valued and like their work for you makes a real difference.
In conclusion, re-engaging your volunteers after the holiday season is crucial for the success of your organisation. By focusing on the impact of their work, offering new opportunities, creating a positive volunteer culture, and providing individual support, you can help your volunteers regain their enthusiasm and continue making a difference.
2023 could be a challenging year to engage and retain volunteers due to the cost of living crisis; people may not have as much time to volunteer as they did previously because now people may replace volunteering with paid work. Ensure you start the year off by providing a high level of support to your volunteers, when volunteers don’t feel supported it can lead them to feel unmotivated and unengaged in the organisation. Below are some ways you can help retain and engage volunteers in 2023.
Recognition And Rewards
Show your volunteers how they make a difference. In the previous blog post, we spoke about how to reward your volunteers at Christmas, but volunteers shouldn’t just be rewarded at Christmas time, they should be rewarded all year round too. Highlight your volunteers’ successes to show them how their hard work has helped your organisation. You could note down the things they have done to help make a difference and then let the volunteer know, this will make them feel seen within the organisation. Volunteers want to feel needed, appreciated, and that they’re making a difference.
Stay Connected
Keep in touch with your volunteers and communicate on a regular basis. Whether this is through emails, phone calls or text messages it would be a good idea to see how people are getting on and if they are enjoying volunteering for the organisation. Also, due to the cost of living crisis and the new year, people may be struggling with their mental health and could be facing money issues, you can support your volunteers by regularly contacting them so you are the first to know if they are feeling unmotivated or burnt out. It’s also important to be in contact with your volunteers so you can let them know if there are any last-minute changes to shifts.
Ensure that how you are communicating with the volunteers is personalised, by acknowledging the volunteers’ names and what they do you are able to connect with them on a much deeper level and they will feel noticed. Listen to what feedback your volunteers have to say, they can give you valuable information and important questions and concerns that you need to address.
Develop A Community
Build a sense of community among your volunteers. This way they can feel connected to each other and become better connected to you which can help with volunteer retention. If the volunteers build friendships and get to know others in the organisation then it will encourage them to stay and continue volunteering for the organisation as they are surrounded by a friendly and welcoming environment.
Online catch-ups with all of your volunteers or in-person social events can help them to feel comfortable around one another and develop relationships. Having fun catch-ups or socials with volunteers can also allow them to feel engaged and supported through their volunteering experience.
Training And Upskilling
Understand the motivations of your volunteers, this way you can help them to accomplish what they want to achieve. You can talk to your volunteers to understand what they would like to learn from their volunteer experience. This can help you provide value to your volunteers which can keep them engaged. Motivations could be people wanting to gain different skills or improve current ones. By training volunteers they can feel supported and volunteers can feel valued. Improving their skills can also benefit the organisation too as fully trained staff can help make an effective difference to the organisation. If volunteers are fully trained they can complete the volunteering to the best standards and feel satisfied with the hard work and the support they have been given.
Key Takeaways
Overall 2023 could be a very challenging year to engage and retain your volunteers, a combination of strategies may work best to keep people volunteering for your organisation. Flexible opportunities may be more suitable as people might not have the time to volunteer as they are picking up extra paid work elsewhere to help them through the current cost of living crisis.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
It’s important to reward your volunteers all year round and not just at Christmas time, but if your volunteers celebrate Christmas, then it would be nice to say thanks for all the help and support they’ve given to your organisation this year. Due to the cost of living crisis, it may be a struggle this year for charities to fork out gifts for all their volunteers however, most of the ideas listed below are affordable.
Personal Cards
Writing a letter or Christmas card that is personalised to each volunteer with a unique message shows that you have recognised the work of each individual volunteer and are thanking them for the difference they have made to the organisation.
An inexpensive way of doing this is sending personalised emails to your volunteers instead this way you can save on printing costs. Ensure you keep track of the types of things each volunteer does throughout the year to keep your organisation going, this shows you have appreciated their hard work and have noticed the small things they do.
Certificates And Awards
Reward your volunteers with certificates to celebrate their hard work, you can be flexible to match the certificate to the volunteer. On the certificate, you can include things like how many hours have been completed by the volunteer this year to show how much they’ve helped the organisation and the difference they’ve made. These certificates could also be sent out via email to save printing costs.
Handing out physical awards could be a more expensive way to reward your volunteers however, you could handmake the awards to make them more affordable for your organisation. An easy alternative instead of buying awards is printing out what you want the award to say and framing it. Award ideas could include “Most Enthusiastic Volunteer”, “Most Motivating Volunteer” or “Volunteer Of The Year” and other similar personality traits that carry your organisation.
A Christmas Party
A Christmas party may be a struggle for most charities and organisations due to the cost of living crisis. Venue hire and catering may be out of budget so a cheap alternative is to have a virtual party over an online call involving a Christmas quiz with small prizes to be won.
Even though this is very lockdown-esque way to celebrate, it’s an affordable and easy alternative that doesn’t involve much planning to get all your volunteers in one place. There are many available Christmas quizzes online or you can have some fun and make up your own!
Homemade Gifts
Homemade baked goods or Christmas ornaments are an inexpensive way to reward your volunteers this Christmas. Who doesn’t like baked goods at this time of year, this is also a cheap option that anyone would be happy with. Some ideas for Christmas baked goods can be found here.
Making your own Christmas tree decorations or ornaments is a sustainable and affordable way to say thanks, this way volunteers can re-use the decoration each year and be reminded of the hard work they have achieved. There are plenty of ideas online for DIY Christmas decorations. Eight cheap and easy decoration ideas can be found here!
Give Volunteers Recognition On Your Blog
If your organisation has a blog, you could write a blog post thanking your volunteers. This means their work can also be recognised outside of the organisation. Similarly, you could create posts for social media with the volunteers’ names and a photo of their efforts. This is a free and easy way for volunteers to feel special and receive acknowledgement for their actions.
Make sure your volunteers feel appreciated and recognised all year round for their hard work – not just at Christmas time.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
To support your volunteer’s mental health and wellbeing, it is important to ensure all your volunteers are happy and content and you are doing all you can to sustain their wellbeing and create a supportive environment for the volunteers. Showing the volunteers that their mental health matters to you can also help retain volunteers. Ensuring you have a well-maintained relationship with volunteers means they will feel more comfortable raising any concerns with you.
Ways To Support Your Volunteer’s Wellbeing
Provide your team with information about bettering your mental health and wellbeing and letting them know that support is available. Mind offers some information about this on its website which can be found here.
Strengthen The Relationships With Your Volunteers
Make sure you have strong relationships with your volunteers. Well-maintained relationships can reduce stress and increase happiness, engagement and overall health. According to NCVO research shows that a feeling of belonging is important to people and can help motivate them.
You can strengthen relationships with volunteers by encouraging team-building activities and creating opportunities for people to come together in person and online for example socials or regular informal meet-ups. You can also keep in contact with volunteers by using our new automated emails feature in our 2.2 update which allows you to send automated emails so volunteers will get a message wishing them all the best on their birthdays and thanking them for volunteering. You can read more about what else is included in our 2.2 update here.
Create A Mental Health And Wellbeing Policy
Ensure you have a mental health and wellbeing policy. Having a policy shows what actions you’ll take to support staff and volunteers’ wellbeing. In the policy, you can include things like how you’ll respond to people who disclose a mental health problem. NCVO have suggested St John’s Ambulances policy as an example which you can gain ideas from for your own policy.
Use The Wellness Action Plan (WAP)
Volunteer Now suggests using the Wellness Action Plan (WAP) as a way for Volunteer Managers / Organisations to support the mental health of their volunteers.
WAPs are a personalised tool that can be used to help us identify what keeps us well at work and the support we would like to receive from our manager to boost our wellbeing. You are able to fill in a Wellness Action Plan template on the Mind website.
Connecting With Your Volunteers
Get to know your volunteers, ask them questions and show interest by asking what their hobbies are or what their motivations are for volunteering. This can help build healthy relationships and allow you and the volunteers to be more comfortable around one another and volunteers are able to feel more freely about voicing their concerns.
Have Regular Informal Catch-ups
Have one-to-one informal meetings or check-ups with your volunteers if possible or just regular check-ins via email and make sure to actively listen to your volunteers, and seek out their thoughts, opinions and feedback. NCVO have a one-to-one meeting template that you can use for inspiration.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
It is important to use volunteer-friendly language when addressing and discussing volunteers. As volunteers are not paid workers, subtle differences in vocabulary can make people think volunteers are unpaid employees, this would mean they can have the same legal rights as paid employees which isn’t the case as volunteers aren’t included in employment legislation.
Rethinking Your Vocabulary
Karen Knight, a Volunteer Management strategist and mentor, recently posted a blog post discussing the language of volunteering and made some interesting points. In the blog, Karen proposed some problematic words in the volunteer world. These included referring to volunteers as “yours” and also referring to “using” volunteers. Both of these words could be objectifying and imply ownership of the volunteers.
Perhaps using words like “involving” and “engaging” may be more volunteer-friendly words. Karen suggests if you are unsure about if a word is problematic, have others in your organisation give their opinions on it. The more feedback you can get the better.
NCVO and Volunteering England put together a document with volunteer-friendly words. The document gives tips such as don’t borrow vocabulary from employment, human resources or work experience policies without making sure it applies to your volunteer programme and ensure you re-read what you have written from the perspective of your volunteers. Using volunteer-friendly vocabulary can give people a clearer idea of their legal rights or responsibilities.
Examples of volunteer-friendly words and phrases
Ensure you’re using volunteer-friendly language
To ensure you are using volunteer-friendly language, avoid using the word ‘contract’ when discussing the volunteer’s agreements. Referring to the agreement as a volunteer contract can mean the volunteer may be entitled to claim workers’ rights. When providing the volunteers with information about what they will be doing, it would be better to use the term “volunteer role” rather than “job description”. The definition of a job description is a “written description of the exact work and responsibilities of a job”. Volunteers may think that the role is formal employment.
Try using the phrase “informal chat” instead of an interview during the recruitment process. “Informal chat” is a more suitable word than “interview”, which is used when applying for paid work. The phrase “informal chat” can also put the volunteer at ease.
Share these tips with other volunteer managers and people in your organisation so that we can make a change in the world of volunteering.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
A volunteering strategy sets out what you want to achieve with volunteering and how you want to do it. A strategy articulates what needs to be done to achieve the purpose of an organisation, group, programme, and so on. Creating a strategy is important as it explains how volunteers will contribute to the organisation’s aims. It can also include how it will find, recruit and support volunteers. The strategy helps everyone understand your vision for volunteers and why you’re involving them.
You may think being a busy Volunteer Manager that you may not have the time to write a strategy however a well-thought-out strategy may save you time in the long run and be beneficial to your organisation.
Important Things To Consider When Writing A Strategy
Important things to consider when writing your strategy are speaking to others in your organisation and taking a look at some important resources to help you. Engaging with everyone and having lots of collaboration and feedback is necessary when writing the strategy so use the opinions of others in your organisation. People to include could be paid staff within your organisation or existing volunteers as they may have valuable suggestions.
To ensure your strategy supports your organisation’s aims, you should think about the following questions NCVO have put together as useful advice when writing a strategy.
Think about these questions when writing your strategy
After you have created your strategy it is essential to review it. Reviewing your strategy will help you respond to trends and changes in volunteering. You should do this annually with the people you consulted when you initially wrote it to see if it is still up to date with your organisation’s aims and if there are any other suggestions for it.
Useful Resources To Help You Write Your Volunteer Strategy
Volunteer Scotland runs a one-day course on, “Developing a Volunteer Strategy”. This includes learning an understanding of how to put together a strategy, having time to reflect on what is needed and preparatory work. Volunteer Scotland also has a list of suggested useful resources for developing an effective volunteer strategy which can be found here.
NCVO have some useful resources including reports and research about volunteering and the voluntary sector to help you write your strategy. You can also bring in an external consultant to help develop your strategy. To find out how NCVO consultancy can help your organisation you can fill in their short online enquiry form.
There are also some examples of volunteer strategies available which may help guide you, however, strategies must be unique and tailored to the needs and ambitions of the organisation. Royal Parks have a volunteering strategy that may be useful which can be found here and a volunteering strategy agreed by the city’s public agencies and the third sector produced by Edinburgh Compact can be found here.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
The ‘mini-budget’ was announced by the Chancellor on 23rd September (2022) due to the rapidly escalating cost of living crisis. Sadly the budget meant that there would be little in the way of support for people and communities. A further budget is now expected on 31st October 2022.
On October 17th (2022), the government announced support within its Growth Plan to protect households and businesses from high energy prices. The Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Relief Scheme are supporting millions of households and businesses including charities with rising energy costs, and the new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt plans to continue to do so from now until April next year. However, Jeremy Hunt now says that any support after April will only be targeted to those most vulnerable meaning many households and organisations could be struggling in April 2023.
The scheme may provide immediate relief to charities, but when it hits next April, charities are likely to face problems. The charity, Family Space from Cheltenham, said the government’s energy price cap would not be enough help for the most vulnerable.
For struggling families, it was “a welcome relief, but not a solution”, the charity’s manager Sarah Avery said. Family Space has a new project called #FeedCheltenham, which involves Local Charities, Schools and Churches working in partnership across the food support network to feed people in Cheltenham. Increasing numbers of people are using the service, but fewer are donating.
Due to the significant effect the cost of living crisis will have on communities and government support which will only last until April, the role of charities and volunteers will be more crucial than ever. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Turn2Us have also highlighted how people will be impacted by the lack of further financial help combined with an increasingly severe benefits system.
A new report by Volunteer Scotland was released on the 27th of September discussing the impact the cost of living crisis will have on volunteers and volunteering. Increased demand for volunteers is needed for charities that focus on giving support to tackle the financial, health and well-being of the cost of living crisis.
There may also be a reduced number of volunteers as a decrease in disposable income could stop people from volunteering as their free time now needs to be used up by working another job. However, volunteering may be more attractive as people can take the opportunity to ‘get out of the house’ and take their minds off the crisis during this stressful time. The health and well-being of volunteers may be largely impacted as the cost of living crisis could cause financial stress and uncomfortable living environments.
The cost of living makes the reimbursement of volunteers a vital issue. If charities can’t afford to reimburse volunteers then it could have a large impact on the inclusivity and diversity of the voluntary sector as it can mean only those who can afford to be out of pocket can volunteer.
What Extra Support Is There?
NCVO have cost-of-living help and guidance, including support, webinars and training opportunities. They also have a small charity helpdesk if any extra information or advice is needed. On the 30th of November 2022, they will also be hosting a webinar on “How to manage rising energy costs” where they will be sharing ways to help you keep costs down during the energy crisis.
More on the cost of living crisis and extra support can be found here.
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:
For TeamTalk Season 2, Episode 3, Kristen Natale from Sport England joins hosts Chris Martin and Imogen Greatbatch.
Welcome back to season 2 of our TeamTalk podcast. This season, we are talking to thought leaders, customers and stakeholders from the world of sports and physical exercise. Join us as we dive deeper into sports volunteering and the volunteer managers who make it happen.
In this episode, Kristen Natale joins us. Kristen is the Head of Volunteering at Sport England and her passion for volunteering shines through.
Co-host Imo Greatbatch also joins us. Imo is currently the Head of Volunteering at England Netball. She is passionate about volunteering in sports and is offering her knowledge and insight on the topic.
About Kristen Natale
Kristen has over 10 years of experience in volunteer development, working with partners across various sectors. Although she didn’t plan for a career in volunteer management, she knew she wanted to do something rooted in communities and making lives better for people.
Now she is passionate about the power of volunteering and is the Head of Volunteering at Sport England. Kristen discusses her thoughts on the Vision for Volunteering and how she got to where she is today.
About Sport England
Starting out as The Sports Council, it was an independent body under the Department of National Heritage, established by the Royal Charter in 1972. The organisation now invests in sport and physical activity to make it a normal part of life for everyone in England. Two-thirds of their funding comes from lottery players, and everything the organisation spends ties into our vision that everyone in England should be able to participate in sport and activity.
Sport England believe they can be part of a bigger picture of work that helps to address many of society’s biggest challenges. Their Uniting the Movement strategy is a 10-year vision to transform lives and communities through sport and physical activity.
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 
