DOs and DON’Ts Of Volunteering

On 8th February 2019

Every year people all over the world set them selves new year’s resolutions. Many of which do not get fulfilled, in fact, 66% of resolutions don’t even last a month. What can you do that really makes a difference?

Volunteering is something that you can do all year round. This is a resolution that not only helps yourself but others as well.

DO – HELP SOMEONE ELSE

“We can’t help everyone but everyone can help someone”.

Former US President Ronald Reagan may not be everyone’s cup of tea but he certainly got this one right. Why not make your changes for 2019 ones that can help others. There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer all over the UK and worldwide, this year your help really could change a life. TeamKinetic is lucky enough to work with organisations who offer these amazing opportunities and we’d love to help you get started.

DON’T – BE A HASHTAG HALFWIT

Social media gives us an audience never before imagined in human history. It’s so easy to get caught up in what’s trending and follow the crowd. The cringy popular ones every year are ‘#NewYearNewMe’ and ‘#WatchOut2019’. As we’ve seen, less than half of new years resolutions stick, so now we are in February, revisit your new year’s hopes and aspirations. It is great to let people know what you’re planning on doing over the of course of the year. Just do not let it become embarrassing when come the end of the year you have not acted on your goals. Hashtags are easy, real change needs a little more effort!

DO – USE VOLUNTEERING TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Helping out can make you so much more employable. Volunteering does not have to be at a charity or something ‘uncool’. There will likely be opportunities for you to get a voluntary role in your future profession. This will help you stand out from the crowd as people will see you have a genuine passion for your career. Almost every University will have a department that will be able to help, or your town will have a volunteer centre that will have be able to signpost you with volunteering opportunities. These life experiences can be worth it’s weight in gold in the long term.

DON’T – GIVE UP!

February is coming to an end and I’m sure that many of you have already given up, with most challenging tasks the easiest thing to do is to jack it in!

This is our biggest DON’T. It’s ok to give up, but don’t give up on trying again, you only need to succeed once to make that difference. If you don’t give up on your volunteering resolution, you will be making a difference to someone else and yourself. Volunteering can genuinely change lives – both yours and those your work supports.

Last year TeamKinetic joined Liverpool Football club to help with a disability football session. We got the chance to speak to volunteers first hand and see what volunteering meant to them and hopefully you can see the difference being involved with something you are passionate about can make to your life and others. Check out how Liverpool FC use TeamKinetic here.

TeamKinetic provides volunteer management software that can work for every organisation. We work with groups of all sizes who have had success with us in recruiting, retaining and realising the potential of their volunteer workforce.

Please visit our website to find out more about our work and how we can help you. Feel free to request a demo so we can show you around and tell you about how we can help you specifically. Alternatively, you can give us a call on 0161 914 5757.

2018 User Survey Results

By Rolf Herbert

On 31st January 2019

In News & Views, TeamKinetic Features

TeamKinetic 2018 User Survey Results

We achieved a very reasonable 65% response rate, so thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our satisfaction survey last November, it is very much appreciated. Without your feedback we are unable to gauge our progress in making your TeamKinetic experience even better.

The take home message for us was that we need to do better in informing and providing help and context for new features as they become available.

TeamKinetic has been growing quickly over the last 18 months and we have definitely fallen behind in our goals to write tutorial and guide content for all the new stuff that has been going on in that 18 months. We now have renewed focus on this issue and will have some news soon about how we plan to present contextual information and help within TeamKinetic. We are also ramping up our online master classes and live sessions, so join our Facebook group to get early access to those resources.

We asked five questions concerning some of the most useful functions and terminology that we suspected were being under used or misunderstood;

I am aware of sharing opportunities outside of my website
I am aware that you can add volunteers to existing opportunities
I am aware that i can limit opportunities to groups and linked volunteers
I am aware of activity tags and how they are used in search
I am aware of flexible, repeating, non-repeating opportunities

I am aware of sharing opportunities outside of my website

Some 57% of respondents were not aware that there is potential to share opportunities outside of their application in order to extend the reach of their opportunities and gain more volunteer interest.

We can share your opportunities to Do-It, the largest volunteer opportunity signposting app in the UK, our own, more modest, national TryVolunteering site and via the API to SalesForce or other external systems such as Volunteer Scotland and Volunteer-wales.net.

This is a great feature that is clearly not being utilised enough. We will be dedicating one of our masterclasses and video tutorials to this topic soon.

I am aware that you can add volunteers to existing opportunities

Nearly 50% of respondents were not aware that administrators and providers can add volunteers directly to sessions, and the volunteer will receive an email notification so they can check their availability.

TeamKinetic is a self service application for volunteers, we do not demand that administrators and providers micro manage all aspects of the recruitment process. This saves valuable time for the managers and allows the volunteers to pick and choose the sessions that suit them without the sometimes long exchanges between managers and volunteers as they try to allocate volunteers to sessions.

However we fully understand that it maybe necessary to manage a particular opportunity that carefully and you want full control, or partial control over what volunteers join what sessions.

This is a useful and important set of features and we will definitely be adding some tutorials about this to the help guide and the masterclass sessions.

I am aware that I can limit opportunities to groups and linked volunteers

A third of our respondents did not know about the various restrictions you can place on opportunities, either when creating the opportunities or editing them at a later date.

Volunteer grouping is a very powerful feature that allows you to segment your volunteers. Groups are fully customisable and providers can have separate groups to administrators. Volunteers can be members of no, one or multiple groups and can be moved around at anytime.

As well as being able to restrict opportunities you can message particular groups, quickly update volunteer information and statuses for group members and create registration links so that people are automatically placed in the correct group when registering without any admin input required.

I am aware of activity tags and how they are used in search

We had a pretty even 50/50 split about this question. Its a little esoteric but important even so.

Most importantly tags are used during search as a way for volunteers to narrow down their search. Any text entered in a search is compared to tags and all opportunity tags for the matching opportunities are offered to the volunteer as filters so they can further refine their search.

Its super important to understand how they are used so you can get the best out of tag based searching so please take a look at our video tutorial on tags and super charge your opportunity tags.

I am aware of flexible, repeating, non-repeating opportunities

At TeamKinetic we discuss, alot, about what we should call these opportunity types and how they should be presented when creating opportunities. I’ll let you into a little secret, there is NO difference between repeating and non-repeating opportunities, you just get a different layout when adding your sessions.

The difference between flexible opportunities and the others is important and does have ramifications for the joining and logging process.

Fortunately we had a very positive 75% of respondents who were aware of the three types (unfortunately we didn’t think to add a follow up question asking if they were also aware of the reasons for choosing different types).

We are still discussing how we can adapt the opportunity creation page to make it clearer why you would choose one over the other and once we have that dialled in we will release a video explaining it all.

Thanks again to everyone that took time out to respond, it is invaluable. Please reach out with any questions or feedback and don’t forget, join our Facebook user group to get the latest help and to share your knowledge and expertise with other users.

Volunteer management – Understanding your volunteers

By Steve Hall

On 30th January 2019

In Community, News & Views

Volunteer management isn’t easy, it takes a passion for people, commitment to your cause and bags and bags of organisational skill.

To have an effective and engaging volunteer programme, it is key to know your volunteers and understand what drives them to volunteer.

So can your volunteers be categorised and can that help you understand them better?

NCVO definition

“We define volunteering as any activity that involves spending time, unpaid, doing something that aims to benefit the environment or someone (individuals or groups) other than, or in addition to, close relatives. Central to this definition is the fact that volunteering must be a choice freely made by each individual.”

Oxford dictionary definition

“A person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.”

Those definitions are pretty broad and all volunteer managers understand the danger of pigeonholing your volunteers, definitions can be problematic! The term Volunteer holds very different meanings to each individual.

Every volunteer has their own reason, motivation or story to volunteer, and no volunteer is the same. What the data we have collected here at TeamKinetic has demonstrated is that there are some general volunteer categories and themes that we can use to gain a deeper understanding of the types of volunteers you may have within your organisation:

One-time volunteer and Event Volunteers

One-time volunteers are individuals who volunteer as a one-off and move on to the next opportunity/event or are never seen again! These types of individuals can still be regular volunteers, but will only volunteer when they have the time to do so or do so at events or roles that excite them specifically.

They are often quite self-contained roles that are well-defined and associated with a high-profile and exciting event. That in itself generates excitement for the volunteer to say ‘I was there.’ These are often one-time positions that require minimal training and experience but are fun days out for the individual.

Some of you reading this might think; why would I want to invest in a volunteer that isn’t committed to helping me regularly?

Research from Glasgow 2014 and London 2012 suggests many of the volunteers who applied were new to volunteering, and sadly many who did volunteer did not go on to do more volunteering after the event, even though the levels of satisfaction from being involved were high.

The sense of community, enjoyment and empowerment of being part of the event can quite quickly fade post-event, but on occasion, it can prove the catalyst some people need to start them on a journey to much greater community involvement.

Micro-volunteer

Research conducted by the NCVO suggests that micro-volunteering is on the rise and has the power to make a difference to organisations. In order to be impactful organisations must engage and appeal to these types of volunteers by providing quality volunteering opportunities that suit their aspirations and lifestyles. These types of opportunities are often possible via technology, such as phones, tablets or computers. Others have referred to them as ‘Armchair Activism.’

These opportunities are attractive to individuals who often have limited time, but still, want to have the feeling that they are making a difference. Opportunities vary from, the ice-bucket challenge to tweeting your MP. This type of volunteering can also act as a gateway to individuals, and if their experience is positive and they feel they are making an impact, you can look to engage them in further work.

Skills-Based Volunteers

Skills-based volunteers are individuals who often assist with tasks that require additional and specialist knowledge, or they develop this type of knowledge through their volunteer experience. Skills can be varied, examples include updating website data, running the social media accounts, taking phone calls, and providing accountancy or legal advice.

Volunteers often have the desired set of skills that many organisations need. These individuals who possess these professional skills and offer them pro bono may have many reasons for their desire to be involved. There is always a high demand for these types of Volunteers. As an organisation, it’s important to know why these volunteers want to be involved. It’s also important to make them aware of the impact they have on the organisation. This can make the volunteer feel appreciated and that their skills are bringing value to the organisation.

Lifelong / Regular volunteers

Lifelong or regular volunteers are often people who volunteer for an organisation that they feel a significant emotional connection to. Regular volunteers are happy to help meet an organisation’s expectations and the individual’s commitment to the role can be significant. Roles can vary but include positions such as a charity shop assistant or a coach within a sports club.

Organisations depend on these volunteers as they are core members of the organisation’s community. Regular volunteers usually take on positions that require a higher level of responsibility and therefore need regular training and appropriate support to ensure that they can fulfil what is expected of them.

These types of volunteers are so important to the long-term survival of many organisations, they feel especially close to the cause and their work. They are often overworked and if not managed correctly they can make others nervous to get involved, as the levels of commitment they show are superhuman and this scares off other volunteers from getting involved.

Does Age Matter?

Research has shown that both the 16-24 and 65+-year-olds are the most likely groups to volunteer. This makes sense as many universities provide students with opportunities to develop skills and experience for the world of work, whilst helping great causes. Likewise, many older volunteers provide support to organisations due to being retired but still wanting to stay active and part of the community.

Age will certainly play a role in how you incentivise and communicate with volunteers. As well as the length/type of role, and level of commitment required from them!

An appreciation of your volunteer audience will impact your roles on offer. So it is important to be aware of how you advertise, the language you use and the types of rewards and recognition you may wish to offer.

Good volunteer management!

The best and most effective way to understand your volunteer is the initial first part of their volunteer experience. By having a well-thought-out recruitment process, volunteer managers can make sure that volunteers are well selected and given roles they can excel at but also enjoy. This also ensures that volunteers are aware of the variety of opportunities available to them.

TeamKinetic’s volunteer management system allows all volunteers to create their own profile. This allows them to search and find opportunities that providers are advertising. Volunteers can also upload supporting documents to showcase experiences they have had in the past making the volunteer management process that much easier.

Volunteer managers are able to review volunteer profiles, run inductions, record data and get an insight into the individual and which roles they would benefit from. This is a key feature in allowing volunteer managers to distinguish between a one-off volunteer for an event, a volunteer with the desired skill set or someone that is able to commit to a regular role and who will form a long-term commitment with the organisation.

Additionally, the system allows volunteer managers to receive and provide feedback to volunteers. A perfect way to evaluate the effectiveness of roles and making sure volunteers are content with the tasks they undertake. TeamKinetic is centralised around helping voluntary organisations achieve their goals, which is why also offer a FREE version of our volunteer management system.

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

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

How can you make a difference this Christmas

By Rolf Herbert

On 17th December 2018

In Christmas

Every Christmas it is easy to get wrapped up in the commercial side of things. Presents, parties and Xmas markets, etc. It is really a time for giving. A time where we should be thinking about the people who are less fortunate than us and how we can help them.

Every year lots of fantastic work is done up and down the country to help people in need. The amount of work that is done and the opportunities available rises during the festive period and this year is no different, which is great to see. Manchester in particular has some great ways of making sure people are helped this Christmas.

MANCHESTER

Since 2015, official Christmas carols have been a tradition at the Manchester Cathedral to raise money for the Royal Children’s Hospital. They do fantastic work all year round and funding is vital to allow them to keep doing this.

Tickets are now on sale for the Christmas Carols in the City concert. It’s a chance to experience an authentic festive choir, and part of the ticket fee goes to those who need it most. It takes place on Thursday 20th December and festive refreshments will be available. Tickets are £6 for children and concessions, £12 for adults.

The North West city is doing far more than just this over December. An estimated 8.4 million people across the country go without adequate food in the winter. You can do your bit to help fight hunger and ensure that some of the most vulnerable people in our society have enough to eat this Christmas by joining Team FareShare and spending a morning or afternoon in December collecting food donations from your local Tesco store.

LONDON

The capital is also well known for the charitable work over the winter months. There are many elderly people who spend Christmas alone every year. The Rotary Club holds a Christmas day party, for over-65s living in Wandsworth. The wild shindig takes place in Battersea Park. Last year, 450 elderly people who otherwise would have been alone went along.

Volunteers are needed for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and applications for 2018 are now open. You can do just one, two, or all three days. Jobs include preparing the venue, helping with transport for the guests, serving food, and clearing up afterwards.

As you can imagine London is packed with great volunteering opportunities. Our friends at Team London are the ultimate search tool for volunteering opportunities, ideal when Google lets you down. Type the keyword ‘Christmas’ into the search engine, if you need your volunteering to be festive.

A few things that caught our eye: Christmas bucket collections, volunteering at a Christmas concert, or helping out in pop-up Christmas shops.

If you are on the search for a reliable trustworthy volunteer management software, look no further than TeamKinetic. We offer a service suitable for any sized company, we can tailor your system to you. To find out more, give us a call on 0161 914 5757 or or send us an email at info@teamkinetic.co.uk.

Masters of Scale and Nancy Lublin – must listen podcast for the socially aware

By Chris Martin

On 12th December 2018

In News & Views

If you’ve not yet joined the rebirth of the podcast then you are definitely missing out! ‘Podcasts’ I can hear many of you shout with a mix of confusion and derision, ‘what have Podcasts got to do with volunteer management?’

This form of media is exploding right now. Its unique in its ability to democratise content creation, as it is so cheap and simple to create. It offers a unique space for long-form interview and spoke word. These longer interviews and deeper examinations of issues at the heart of our sector are really insightful and give you access to thinkers from a much wider section of academia and public life than you may otherwise access. So over the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing a few of my favourites with you, and hopefully, open your eyes to some amazing people and their ideas.

I’m starting with the Pod that inspired me to write this page.

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman the founder of LinkedIn with his guest, social entrepreneur Nancy Lublin. The Founder and CEO of Crisis Text Line.

In each episode, Reid shows how companies grow from zero to a gazillion, testing his theories with legendary leaders. Masters of Scale is the first American media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for guests. It won the 2018 People’s Voice Webby for Best Business Podcast.

Nancy Lublin, for those that want to know a little bit more before they commit their ears to this Pod, is an American social entrepreneur who launched Dress For Success, a charity to empower women across the globe. Lublins next challenge was to turn around the youth volunteer service dosomething.org, before finally launching her current project crisis text line. I won’t give the story away here, you need to listen, but it’s a story that I think anybody who leads in the voluntary sector will be able to relate to What is interesting is Nancy’s particular method of dealing with problems.

Hoffman uses the interview with Lublin to demonstrate the importance of ‘grit’ for any would-be entrepreneur. I enjoyed this Pod as Lublin explains how to effectively ‘pivot’ a charity as you would hear a more traditional CEO talk about change management in their business. She explains brilliantly how to take advantage of technology and the insight that technology can provide if used well.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this podcast in the comments section below. If you have a story of technological success or failure in the voluntary sector I’d love to hear your story.

So if you’re interested in how as a voluntary sector leader, you combine technology and service delivery in the most effective way, give this 30 minutes of your time. You can download the pod from any of the podcast apps, I’ve put some links below for those who want them.

The Sports Volunteering Research Networks impact on volunteering

By Steve Hall

On 12th December 2018

In News & Views, Sport

TeamKinetic is proud to have created a new website for the Sports Volunteering Research Network. TeamKinetic sees the role of research in the voluntary sector as essential for growth, sustainability and resilience. Linking high-quality research to practitioners is one of the key areas of development for the sector.

Sports Volunteering Research Network

The Sports Volunteering Research Network

The UK SVRN has run since 2006 and was founded by Dr Geoff Nichols of Sheffield University. It was reconstituted in its current form in 2012. The network aims to assist the progress of new ideas and practice in sports volunteering; which is key for understanding the direction of the sports and third sector. SVRN meet twice a year to present new research and discuss ideas.

The SVRN is completely independent. However, they work with a number of organisations such as Sports England, Sports Wales, Sport and Recreation Alliance, and NCVO. The network is growing, and it allows anyone with an interest in sports volunteering to join the SVRN.

Sports volunteering is important to us and our customers. Here is a taste of the quality information and research papers you will be able to find on the new website.

volunteer management software, volunteers system, volunteering

Sports Volunteering Research Network

Dr Fiona Reid, Lecturer in Events and Sports Management at Glasgow Caledonian University and vice-chair of the SVRN said “We are a network of researchers and practitioners who want to share resources and information and best practice about sports volunteering. The website allows us to share our archives and allow more people to access our work.

We hope that it will facilitate the network and increase our reach to those that may not have heard of us before.”

Chris Martin, Director of TeamKinetic said “its a real pleasure to support the work the of Sports Volunteer Research Network, Teamkinetic are committed to the development of high-quality research and the sharing of best practice. The people behind the SVRN are leading the way in bringing together volunteer managers academics and organisations that are raising the profile of volunteer management.

This website we have helped develop is another useful tool in their work. We look forward to supporting them in the future.”

Visit the new website at sports-volunteer-research-network.org.uk and tell us what you think.

TeamKinetic and SVRN want to create a resource for everyone who works with volunteers, if you want to find out more about the work of the SVRN or to attend any of their fantastic free events visit the site now and join the network. Its totally FREE and they don’t bombard you with rubbish emails.

TeamKinetic is centralised around helping build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, increase impact and improve insight.

For more information on how we can help visit our website or contact us on – 01619145757

Common problems in volunteer management

By Rolf Herbert

On 11th December 2018

In News & Views

Over the last decade, we have worked with many organisations, helping them improve their volunteer management. We have found some common problems in volunteer management.

As you know being a volunteer manager can often be a lonely job. TeamKinetic feels that it is important to get volunteer managers talking, sharing good practice and working together, this is important for the growth of the third sector and volunteering as a whole.

Recruitment Issues

Recruiting enough volunteers is one of the most common problems we hear. Our software looks to help resolve this common volunteer management issue. Although this may seem a monumental task to find the help you need, sometimes it can be simpler than you think.

Here are a few of our suggestions:

The rise of social media is a wonderful thing for the voluntary sector. Social media being free is a blessing for many industries and the voluntary sector is no different. Over one billion people are on Facebook and Twitter meaning there is an audience out there, you just have to appeal directly to them. There are many pages offering tips on how to use social media properly – cracking this medium may be the way to grow your volunteer base.

Do you know your volunteers, do you know what social media, if any they use?
Do you have the IT skills to communicate with your volunteers through the most appropriate channels?

Modern marketing isn’t the only way to attract new volunteers, more traditional means of communication should never be ignored. How do you engage with older volunteers, who are not on social media? How can you start a word-of-mouth campaign to build your support. Ideas like refer a friend or linking to existing groups such as rotary or taverners work well. People tend to respond positively to a review from people they know and trust.

Don’t ever discount the power of good posters or interesting newsletters.

Keeping Volunteers Interested

Retaining a volunteer is much cheaper than recruiting a new volunteer! Improving your retention should be a priority for anyone working in volunteer management.

How do you keep your volunteers for longer?

Theories of behaviour change suggest that for people to make a significant and sustainable change to their behaviour, their motivation must be significant or that change of behaviour will not be long-lasting. If you want to help motivate a volunteer to stay involved, you must call to their primal instincts.

What you are doing as a volunteer makes a difference! We could not do this without you. We need you!

It’s just good manners to say thank you to the people who help you. Say thank you right and that person will come back time and again.

Recognition is tricky, as no one volunteer is the same and some people feel uncomfortable being made a fuss of. However, it is important that you recognise people’s efforts. Be it a Christmas party, a summer dance or a cup of tea with the team, getting your volunteers together to say thank you properly and to tell them how important they are, how indispensable they are and what a difference they make. Appreciate your volunteers and remember to show and share that appreciation.

Timing Opportunities

Knowing your volunteers and understanding them is vital in volunteer management. For you to cater to the needs of your volunteers do you understand the demographics, motivations and barriers to participation? Examples of this might be, are you volunteers 18-24, are they students, unemployed, have children, are they likely to be in work during the day? How do I optimise my session times, recruitment and opportunity description to appeal to my target audience, do I know what motivates them and what prevents them from doing more?

Do I have the data to find out what time is best for my volunteers? Do I have the tool available to learn through insight?

Volunteers appreciate you fitting opportunities around them. To offer them what they want, when they want to do it. Boosting volunteer enthusiasm, because they know you’re taking their personal situation into account.

TeamKinetic – The Solution!!

Of course, we think a great way to solve many of these issues and more besides effective volunteer management is software. What’s even more obvious to us is the volunteer management software that you should use should be built using open data principles, work on every device and be super easy to use.

TeamKinetic’s volunteer management software has a system that can suit everyone no matter how large or small. We would be more than happy to have a chat with you regarding your particular volunteer management needs. We work across the sector with Universities, National Sporting Governing Bodies, volunteer centres, charities, major events, hospices, hospitals, museums, parks, community groups and Sports Clubs.

If you think that your organisation could benefit from having more time to help more people, please feel free to get in touch.

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

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

How volunteering improves mental health

By Rolf Herbert

On 7th December 2018

In News & Views

Mental health is a growing problem, approximately 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year, as reported by Mind. Women are most likely to suffer from a mental health issue but males are more likely to take their own lives, at 78% of all suicides. While it can’t be the answer to everything, it has been said that volunteering improves mental health.

Causes Of Poor Mental Health

Many believe that the NHS is underfunded for the treatment of mental health. The King’s Fund reports that 23% of NHS activity is dedicated to treating mental health whilst only 11% of the budget is allocated to the issue.

Demand for help is up, but services are diminishing as a result of austerity. Recent figures show a 30% fall since 2009 in the number of hospital beds for people with acute mental health conditions. This follows the revelation in November 2017 that two-thirds of children referred for specialist mental healthcare are not receiving treatment. The charity Barnardo’s warned that ministers were “sleepwalking” into a deeper crisis in children’s mental health, after the government’s response to a parliamentary select committee report and green paper failed to promise urgent action to plug “gaping holes” in services.

It’s believed that social media plays a massive role in poor mental health. A study of 1,000 young people in the USA found 41% of respondents stated that social media platforms make them feel anxious, sad or depressed. The suggestion is social media makes young people feel anxious. Ben Jacobs, a DJ who has more than 5,000 followers on Twitter, decided to go on a hiatus from the platform in January 2016 and has found the break really beneficial. “Twitter did indeed make me feel anxious from time to time as it slowly dawned on me I was concerning myself with the feelings of the thousands of strangers I followed, while they didn’t necessarily know who I was.”

Volunteering And Mental Health

Studies show that volunteering improves mental health. It allows you to get rid of negative feelings and emotions such as anger, aggression or hostility that have a bad impact on our mind and body. Engaging in random acts of kindness can help decrease these feelings and stabilise your overall health. 94% of people who have volunteered in the last twelve months say that it improves their mood. Statistics such as this suggest that volunteering can improve poor mental health.

Volunteering also improves self-esteem. As the statistic above proves, voluntary work can improve your overall well-being. It makes you feel better about yourself. Research shows that knowing you’re making a difference to someone else makes you more confident and content.

Another reason to volunteer is the amount of life satisfaction that it can bring you. NCVO say that volunteering can boost happiness, therefore reducing symptoms of depression and other mental health issues.

TeamKinetic – Proud Of Our Friends

We make volunteering easier for organisations that help others. They help to recover, improve and prevent poor mental health. In September 2018, members of TeamKinetic went down to the Liverpool FC Foundation. We spoke to a number of volunteers on the ‘Respect For All’ activity day. They all gave great praise for the work the foundation does. Many felt the foundation had a positive impact on them. One person even said ”The foundation means everything to me.”

We also work with several hospitals, such as Warrington Halton Hospital, and many NHS Trusts. They do remarkable work every day to contribute to the positive well-being of others. TeamKinetic are very proud to be associated with these organisations and show full gratitude for the work they do.

For those interested in a volunteer management software that can help you the same way we have helped many others, please visit our website to book a demo and we would be happy to talk with you further.

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

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

TeamKinetic Christmas Giveaway

By Steve Hall

On 4th December 2018

In News & Views

The Christmas TeamKinetic is continuing its ambition of helping build stronger volunteer communities across the globe!

What’s Christmas without giving a little back, right?

volunteer management software UK, TeamKinetic, volunteer system

Gift

TeamKinetic Christmas Giveaway

Each year as we are growing across the voluntary sector, we are fortunate to work alongside some tremendous organisations that make a big impact in their communities.

Our volunteer management software allows organisations to manage volunteers no matter what size; big or small, and is providing opportunities right across the world. Seeing the great diversity our on our users and the impact their volunteering has on their communities fuels our commitment to build the very best software we can.

The festive season is a time of coming together and celebrating all the good in the world. It’s a time to think about being kind and generous (not to say that this cant is done all year round). However, this time of the year can also be a tad hectic and a long haul for voluntary organisations. Cuts made by the government have made it difficult, and often demand on services goes up during the colder months.

So this Christmas we wanted to give one lucky organisation the chance to win 6-months on TeamKinetic Enterprise, normally worth about £3000!

What’s this giveaway mean?

1 x TeamKinetic Enterprise Edition Volunteer Management Software (worth £3000) for 6-months.

This will allow the lucky winner to have their own fully customisable bespoke website with no limit on the number of volunteers they can recruit.

More information on what is included in the Enterprise system can be found here.

How can I win this fantastic festive giveaway?

To be in with a chance of winning this incredible Christmas giveaway all you have to do is one of the following:

Follow us on Twitter on @TeamKineticUK and retweet our giveaway post pinned to the top of our page

Follow our TeamKinetic Linkedin page.

It’s really as simple as that!

Spread the word to your volunteer manager colleagues and you could be responsible for them getting an early Christmas present.

Terms and Conditions

The TeamKinetic Christmas giveaway will run from the 2nd of December until 11:59 PM on the 31st of December 2018. One entry per person (This does not restrict different individuals in the same organisation to enter the giveaway). The winner will be announced on all platforms in the new year! Further information will be provided to the winner on how to access the prize.

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5 Reasons why YOU should volunteer

By Rolf Herbert

On 23rd November 2018

In News & Views

Want to be happier, feel more fulfilled and live in a nicer world? Here is why you should volunteer.

1. Volunteering is a great career booster

Volunteering is a great CV booster that can set you apart from the rest. If you and another candidate look the same on paper what will you have to differentiate yourself?

Volunteering is a surefire way to get you ahead of the competition and secure your next career move. Lots of companies allow employees to take volunteering days.

Career-boosting volunteers used their experience as a great way to network and meet influential people. Want to work in event management? Volunteer in events. Want to work in Football? Volunteer at a local club. Simple!

2. Helping a good cause

Do you want a sense of satisfaction and contentment, research tells us volunteers are happier and feel greater levels of trust in their community.

There are many reasons why people all over the world volunteer. Often its because they have been directly affected by a cause or issue. People want to give back to the organisation or cause that helped them in a proactive way, people like to feel that they can make a difference.

Working to make a difference about things you care about will make you feel better!

3. Personal improvement

Get out of your comfort zone and volunteer. If you have never done it before getting started can be tough! But it is sure to develop you as a person. Volunteers often report higher levels of confidence and self-esteem.

The skills you gain from volunteering can help you improve your everyday life. Volunteering in itself can make you feel both humble and good about yourself.

Who wouldn’t want that?!

4. Health benefits

Research reports that volunteering can actually make you a healthier and happier person. For instance,

94% of volunteers say that after 12 months of volunteering, they feel physically more healthy and their mood has improved.

96% of people who have been volunteering for at least a year say that volunteering has given them a purpose in life.

Want to read more about the health benefits volunteer offers here.

5. It’s Fun!!

like most scenarios in life, volunteering will be what you make it and if you want it to be fun it will be fun!

Volunteering is a great way of establishing relationships and making a whole new set of friends. It gets you out and is a fantastic cure for loneliness.

Doing something you enjoy, with people who can become your friends, whilst potentially helping others. It’s a win-win.

So what are you waiting for? Get searching and find something to volunteer for today.

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