Page 7 of 56

Halloween Volunteering Opportunities

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On 25th October 2023

In News & Views

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:

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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 Best Practice: Signposting – In-Person

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On 19th October 2023

In TeamKinetic Best Practice

In-person, or place-based, signposting is often the first step in a volunteer’s journey. A visual queue can be very provoking! Just like you might update your current noticeboard with news and events, update it with ongoing and new volunteering opportunities. Signpoisitng volunteering opportunities on-site or across your organisation’s locations is a brilliant way to inspire those who have an existing affinity with your organisation, or, are simply passing by.

TeamKinetic aids the creation of physical volunteering opportunity advertisements with the ‘Print’ tool. Press ‘Print’ on an opportunity to generate a poster. The poster includes the opportunity details you entered and a QR code to the opportunity page. Existing employees can also download a volunteering opportunity list as a CSV or PDF. This is especially useful when looking to fill skill-based opportunities that may be best suited to those with existing knowledge of your organisation.

If you want to get even more creative, Canva and Adobe are useful tools for creating free signage or posters. Design your poster to be visually appealing and informative. Don’t forget to include the opportunity QR code linked to your TeamKinetic site! With the QR code, volunteers can scan, view and join the opportunity via their mobile phone.

Best Practice Inspiration

This is an example of best practice in-person signposting by A.C.E. A.C.E’s inclusion of location and contact details and a thorough ‘Opportunity Description’ make for an informative poster generated using TeamKinetic’s ‘Print’ tool.

More Signposting Best Practice!

For guidance on other best practice signposting methods including website signposting, search engine signposting and social media signposting, click here.

Ensure you follow us on our social media pages to receive regular updates about the voluntary sector and learn more about the TeamKinetic system. You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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TeamKinetic Best Practice: Signposting – Search Engine Optimisation

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On 19th October 2023

In TeamKinetic Best Practice

The Importance of Signposting for Search Engine Optimisation

You may be surprised by how many people scout out volunteering opportunities online before inquiring or joining an opportunity. Even with all the best in-person signposting, you will not appear in an online search without effectively signposting your volunteering opportunities on your organisation’s website and TeamKinetic site! The aim of search engine optimisation (SEO) is for your organisation’s TeamKinetic site to appear at the top of the search engine, e.g. Google, results page. Therefore, an important element of best practice signposting is search engine optimisation. As outlined below, effective signposting for search engine optimisation includes updated content, location data, detailed opportunity descriptions and links.

How?

When creating an opportunity, be sure to provide a detailed ‘Opportunity Description’, list any ‘Benefits & Perks’, ‘Skills Required’ and ‘Search Tags’. Therefore, when people are searching for volunteering opportunities, either on a search engine or within your TeamKinetic site itself, there is more likelihood that the keywords used will match up. If a volunteering opportunity is long-standing, it is a good idea to update the ‘details’ so that your site’s content is accurate and fresh. Websites that have regularly refreshed content tend to rank higher on the search engine results page.

Besides being a crucial element of a volunteering opportunity, including location data in your volunteering opportunity is a factor in search engine optimisation. When creating an opportunity, select ‘Pick the Location’ and enter the address details. Those browsing online for volunteering opportunities will be doing so via an IP address linked to their location. If your volunteering opportunities contain location data, those who are nearby are more likely to see your TeamKinetic site at the top of their search results page.

Including inbound links to your own website, news feed, or blogs can also boost your chances of ranking highly on the search results page. A good place to include a link to your organisation’s website would be the ‘About Us’ and ‘Home’ pages on your TeamKinetic site. Volunteering opportunities could include a link to your volunteering-related website news feed within the ‘Opportunity Description’. As with signposting on your organisation’s main website and social media, including links to your TeamKinetic site adds continuity across your organisation’s online platforms. High online presence raises SEO.

Best Practice Inspiration

An example of best practice signposting for search engine optimisation is Glasgow Life‘s TeamKinetic ‘Home’ page. Glasgow Life has included various outbound links; linking to their organisation’s main website under the ‘Back to Glasgow Life Volunteering Homepage’ button, to volunteer registration under the ‘Register Now!’ link, a ‘log in’ link, and registration buttons depending on whether a site visitor is ‘Interested in Volunteers?’ or ‘Recruitng Volunteers?’.

More Signposting Best Practice!

For guidance on other best practice signposting methods including in-person signposting, website signposting and social media signposting, click here.

Ensure you follow us on our social media pages to receive regular updates about the voluntary sector and learn more about the TeamKinetic system. You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

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TeamKinetic Best Practice: Signposting – Website

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On 19th October 2023

In TeamKinetic Best Practice

The Importance of Website Signposting

For most organisations, their website is the go-to destination for information about what they do, where to find them and who to contact. Therefore, signposting your TeamKinetic site on your organisation’s main website is best practice. Showcasing your current volunteering opportunities inspires involvement with your organisation. Continuity between your website and TeamKinetic site helps to create a more rounded picture of your organisation. This way, volunteers can have insight into their impact and how this benefits the purpose of your organisation. 

How?

If possible, be sure to update your volunteering website features regularly. This is key for ensuring you come to the top of online search results. If you have an existing ‘news’ feed, recent and current volunteering events will fit in nicely. Entice those browsing your website with past and present volunteering projects, events and initiatives. Also, collect volunteer testimonies and feature them alongside the opportunity details. Hearing from a volunteer helps to assure prospective volunteers that your organisation is welcoming and personable. 

Include a call to action button! For example, ‘Volunteer with us’ or ‘Volunteer now!’. This can be in addition to more detailed opportunity descriptions, or as a stand-alone prompt. If you have less time or resources to create a volunteering news-style feed, simply linking to your TeamKinetic website via a call to action button will be effective. You can link to any relevant area of your TeamKinetic system; specific opportunities, your TeamKinetic homepage or volunteer registration.  

Using volunteering-related keywords in your website will mean that those looking for volunteering opportunities with your organisation, or similar, are more likely to be directed to your organisation’s website. Signposting volunteering news and opportunities on your website is a simple way to increase your chances of ranking higher in search results. Optimising your TeamKinetic page for Google search is explored in the TeamKinetic Best Practice – Search Engine Optimisation Signposting guide.

Best Practice Inspiration

An example of best practice website signposting would be Wiltshire Wildlife, who have a tab on their main organisation website that links directly to their TeamKinetic site. In addition to this, their ‘Blog’ and ‘News’ tabs feature regular volunteering opportunity-related updates and information.

More Signposting Best Practice!

For guidance on other best practice signposting methods including in-person signposting, search engine optimisation signposting and social media signposting, click here.

Ensure you follow us on our social media pages to receive regular updates about the voluntary sector and learn more about the TeamKinetic system. You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

TeamKinetic Best Practice: Signposting

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On 18th October 2023

In TeamKinetic Best Practice

TeamKinetic is perfect for showcasing your volunteering opportunities, but how do you make the journey to registering as a volunteer clear and simple? You may already be doing one or more of the following, depending on the nature of your organisation. But, as you will see, it is vital to effectively signpost your volunteering opportunities across in-person and various digital spaces! This way, you will maximise your volunteer reach and outcomes.

For seamless volunteer signposting, ensure you:

  1. Direct volunteers via your organisation’s website
  2. Optimise your TeamKinetic site for search engines 
  3. Use in-person signage
  4. Utilise your social media platforms

Click any of the above for guidance on how and why to incorporate each signposting method.

Ensure you follow us on our social media pages to receive regular updates about the voluntary sector and learn more about the TeamKinetic system. You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

TeamKinetic Best Practice: Signposting – Social Media

By

On 18th October 2023

In TeamKinetic Best Practice

If you are a volunteering-involved organisation, don’t be quiet about it on social media! Social media signposting is best practice for attracting volunteers to your TeamKinetic. After creating an opportunity on your TeamKinetic site, there is an option to ‘Share’ to multiple channels including your organisation’s social media accounts under the ‘Promote’ tab on the left-hand toolbar. If your organisation already communicates with existing and prospective volunteers via their Facebook page, for example, then posting about volunteering opportunities on Facebook will increase your chances of attracting enthusiastic volunteers! Similarly, where enabled, your volunteering opportunities can be shared between different organisations’ TeamKinetic sites or national brokerage sites such as Do it, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) or the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO).

In addition to your website, regularly update your social media page with volunteering news. Post links to opportunity pages on your TeamKinetic site, and engage with other sector voices. For example, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM) or Volunteer Scotland. Engaging with sector voices over social media draws attention to your organisation’s social media profile, and, in turn, drives traffic to your TeamKinetic site. Ways to engage with other organisations’ social media pages are; reposting and adding some of your thoughts, commenting on another page’s posts, or simply being active and liking posts that are of interest or relevance to your organisation. If links to your website and TeamKinetic site are present on your social media pages, either in your page’s ‘bio’ or within posts, your TeamKinetic site will be easy to find!

Best Practice Inspiration

An example of best practice social media signposting would be One Knowsley, who post a volunteering opportunity of the week feature across their social media pages. Including the opportunity link makes it quick and easy to view the opportunity page. Mentioning Guide Dogs improves One Knowsley’s chance of achieving a wider audience reach on Twitter.

More Signposting Best Practice!

For guidance on other best practice signposting methods including in-person signposting, website signposting and search engine signposting, click here.

Ensure you follow us on our social media pages to receive regular updates about the voluntary sector and learn more about the TeamKinetic system. You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

TeamKinetic 2023 Conference Roundup

By

On 11th October 2023

In Events and Conferences, News & Views

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.

If you attended the conference, we’d love if you could take the time to fill in our evaluation form: https://forms.gle/16sA1PBDYbWRYf9P7

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:

  • Practical applications
  • New volunteer roles
  • Enhance our influencing
  • Prioritise the people side of our role

Connect with Rob by visiting his website and social media, all his important links can be found here.

New to TeamKinetic: App and Integrations

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.

If you’re a TeamKinetic user, please register your interest in the new app and integrations here: https://forms.gle/THuCk4PLMrTZT6Yc7

See Rolf’s slides by clicking here.

Workshops

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.

Catch up on Tempo’s session here:

If you’d like to find out more about Tempo, visit their website: wearetempo.org

Register your interest in the new app and integrations.

Streamlining the DBS Process with First Advantage

Lee Weightman (Senior Customer Manager) delivered an interesting presentation on how organisations can use First Advantage’s background check system to speed up processes.

Watch Lee’s session here:

If you’d like to find out more about First Advantage, please visit their website.

Register your interest in the new app and integrations.

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.

Watch the full session here:

Designing volunteer roles for the twenties

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.

See the full session below, or click here:

Measuring Impact using the Logic Model

Timo Becker (Doctor of Philosophy and Professor) dialled in from Germany to share conceptual frameworks with us, such as the Logic Model.

Watch Timo’s session here:

Digital Volunteer Toolkit

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

Watch Gethyn’s session below:

Again, thank you to everyone who attended the conference, we hope to see you again next year!

If you haven’t already, please fill in our survey on the conference here: https://forms.gle/16sA1PBDYbWRYf9P7

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:

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TeamKinetic Masterclass: Improving Your Volunteers’ Experience

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On 5th October 2023

In Training

Join Steve in this TeamKinetic Masterclass on improving your volunteers’ experience. He covers the key areas in which administrators can configure their TeamKinetic site in a good or bad way, with examples of both.

TeamKinetic offers a lot of flexibility for how your system can look and perform. Some of our users configure their systems with tight deadlines, which can mean areas are overlooked or not given the appropriate attention. The result is a difficult navigation experience for volunteers. This session covers how to improve your site’s look and feel, about us page, onboarding, automated emails and document hub.

Topics include:

  • Look and Feel
  • Front page design
  • About us design
  • Provider profile pages
  • CSS
  • HTML and rich text emails
  • Onboarding
  • New volunteer help
  • Customising emails
  • Document Hub

Watch the session below, or click here

You can check the latest training dates from within your system. Just go to ‘Help & Support’ → ‘Extra Training’.

If you’d like to suggest a future TeamKinetic Masterclass, please let us know. We’d be happy to develop one on any topic! You can get in touch via our website, email, phone, or social media. See all the important links below.

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

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

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.

TeamTalk October: Roundup

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On 4th October 2023

In Newsletter Roundup

Hello and welcome to TeamKinetic’s TeamTalk October newsletter in blog form!

This roundup is designed to let you read more about what’s going on within TeamKinetic, the third sector, and the world in general.

If you’d like to subscribe to the TeamTalk newsletter, please send an email over to me at alex@teamkinetic.co.uk and we’ll get you on the list!

To read our roundup of stories we think you need to know about, click to go to the next page below, or choose a story from the list:

Next Page

A Fresh Look at Digital in Volunteer Management

By

On 3rd October 2023

In News & Views, Volunteer Management

This post was written by Gethyn Williams

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.

Coupled with this, we are living through a period of huge social change, impacting further on people’s propensity and willingness to volunteer, testing well-founded but increasingly outdated approaches to recruitment and retention.

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.

Thanks for reading 🙏

Notes and Further Links 

The Digital Toolkit will be a resource owned by and developed for the Association of Volunteer Managers and its members. 

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.

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