Tag: charity retail volunteering

How Can Hospices Become More Sustainable… (Part One)

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On 2nd February 2022

In Hospice, Volunteer Management

Demand for palliative and end of life care is increasing. As a result, Hospices are under greater pressure to find ways to do more with less. The Discovery Phase of the Future Vision Programme, by Hospice UK, starts a conversation around developing a more sustainable future. The charity has outlined nine principles of sustainability and today, we’ll be exploring the first 5! 

So, how can hospices become more sustainable?

Integrated Care Systems for sustainability

Integrated Care Systems may have a big role to play in the coming years. Helping to ensure the public and voluntary sector act together in the best interests of patients, service users and families. 

While many are in support of partnerships, there are also concerns for Hospice independence. It’s important for Hospices to develop greater integration, in addition to keeping a Hospice’s unique identity, values and high quality care. In Hospice UK’s survey, 99% of respondents thought there should be either full or partial integration with the wider Integrated Care System. 

If you’re looking for ways to explore integration, why not try…

  • Starting at the clinical service level. What services are you going to provide and by whom? Where are these services going to take place? 
  • Build relationships with other Hospices- it’s key to greater integration, while it takes time, you’ll reap the benefits. 
  • Start aligning your data and reports. In order to seamless integration (further down the line) one patient record shared between all providers of a system is critical.

Start collaborating…

Through integration, it also presents the opportunity to collaborate. Covid-19 has inevitably intensified the pressure on constrained resources, and yet despite this, there’s a drive for positive change present.

Why not look towards collaborating with neighbouring Hospices on service deliveries? Similarly, look towards exploring back office joint posts and funding? Each Hospice is different, so we know that not everything suggested will work best for you, but it’s best to explore your options.

Collaboration means you can reach out and work with a wider range of partners in the sector- you aren’t limited.

Time to get technological 

As a volunteer management system, we’re all for talking technology– and it’s crucial for you to define your digital strategy. With the increasing demand for care, the opportunities to look digitally as an enabler to change is exciting.

To succeed, as Hospice UK say, is to look from a patient-centric perspective- make sure that the leadership and governance of your digital systems is in place for fostering future innovation. 

Speaking to stakeholders Hospice UK picked on multiple themes that need to be addressed for greater digital enablement:

  • Improve patient experience and engagement. Allowing your patients to have more choice and control over their care, and how they’d like to receive it. 
  • Help provide integrated care- it will be easier to connect individuals to the right parts of the health system. You can strengthen the partnerships across sectors. 
  • Help decreasing the demand for palliative and end of life services driven by the UK’s aging population, a growing population, and an increasing prevalence of chronic conditions and diseases (just to name a few). 
  • Technology can also help with making systems more efficient- there’ll be less time looking for information or duplicating patients. 

Influencers for sustainability

Alongside rising demand, hospices may also be providing services to just a minority of people who need it. So, Hospices need to start reaching greater numbers of people with the limited resources they have. Stakeholders have expressed that the focus has to shift from efficient delivery of direct services to patients towards earlier system interventions and advanced care planning- to do this? Influence.

Hospices can use their own influence to bring additional resources in to meet the evolving demands:

  • Influencing the system through closer working relationships with other providers. 
  • There is a value in education, and adding family members/friends to support delivery of care can help avoid crises alongside meeting a patient’s needs. 
  • Covid-19 has sped up education through online learning and training. Hospices can use this to their advantage to promote awareness and help drive referrals to other sectors in the system. 
  • Hospices can use their unique data insight, this complemented with other systems intelligence, gives opportunity to enable a needs-based approach to the allocation of resources in future.

Is the current funding model sustainable?

The Hospice UK’s survey also highlighted that 83% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the current funding model is unsustainable in the long term. Most respondents went on to point towards a renegotiation of the funding offer with relevant commissioners as a high priority to ensure stable sustainability in the future.

An example of this would be End of Life Together in Nottinghamshire. The collaboration between a number of local Hospices’, Trusts and Primary care providers formed a partnership to secure funding and create an integrated care model. There key services included: 

  • One point of referral providing a triage, assessment and coordination of a person’s needs. 
  • ‘Hospice at Home’ services with community hospice beds. 
  • Access to bereavement and carer support services. 
  • And more!

To conclude…

After all that, we’re coming back with a part 2! This week we’ve looked at the first 5 principles for sustainability through the Discovery Phase of the Future Vision Programme. Hopefully, you’ll be gathering some ideas on how you can develop the sustainability of your Hospice, we’ll be back next week for the final 4 principles- we’ll see you there!

Above all, if you’re interested in developing your volunteer management processes, why not start a  trial? Head over to our site and sign up today!

Trial Photo for sustainability blog post

How Will Hospice Volunteers Look In The Future?

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On 20th January 2022

In Hospice, Volunteer Management

The pressure and demand on hospices is only increasing. With an aging population, it’s important to note, this demand will continue to increase in the next few years. So, how important will volunteers be in the future? We’re aware of the immense impact volunteers make today- they are the backbone for many hospice services.

In 10 years time, could the role of volunteers look?

Building on best practice…

Hospices will need to adapt to the growing demand for care so can we strengthen hospices best practices to help ease increasing pressures. In the context of volunteers, a large volunteer workforce could be needed. To do so, there should be plans to encourage growing recruitment.

It would be beneficial to have a volunteer management system in these times to help you recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers (and yes, we mean us!) You can start a FREE trial with us, here at TeamKinetic, through our website – or book in a demo with us today! 

After all that plugging, why not work towards developing a package for volunteer training. The quality of training is key for volunteers to deliver the best care to patients and their families. While training costs money, it means volunteers become an integrated part of hospices and their team. These packages should be general and available to all, but they should also have the chance to be adopted and changed at a local level…

The perception of volunteers also looks to have improved. They are too essential to be left out of any hospice strategy for extending the impact a hospice can make to those who need its services. If you’re looking for new volunteer recruits, why not get your current volunteers to help? They may have reaches in the community that the hospice doesn’t. 

As volunteers become more significant in the supporting of hospices, we could also see: 

  • Clear boundaries for those volunteers working in patient-facing roles. 
  • Extend the supervision of volunteers in patient-facing working roles too. 
  • There should be common applications for approaches that sustain volunteer practice safely.

Promoting excellence in the future

There is a belief that investing volunteers and voluntary management can push more volunteers to contribute more, and we have to agree. We find volunteer management systems (whether it’s our own or others) helps build up communication, and a relationship between organisation and volunteer. In turn, this encourages the volunteer to volunteer more.

In the future, hospice models could look towards changing models and programmes that, while might be working now, could become unsustainable with increasing pressure. Therefore, more innovation is needed. Hospice UK believes this can start in three core areas…

  • Enabling volunteers to play a full role in the work of the clinical team- working in partnership with clinical colleagues. 
  • Having volunteers contribute to the services and strategy for hospices. They play an important role and should be recognised as the vital connection between hospice and community. 
  • Take new approaches to sustaining and nurturing volunteer contribution through volunteer stewardship…

Exploring new approaches for the future

It’s encouraged that hospices look to experiment with volunteer roles. Like a trial and error process, hospices can learn, evaluate and share their findings to pinpoint the useful roles volunteers can play. There are a number of new approaches which could be taken… 

  • Encouraging new organisation forms of hospice-owned but volunteer-led volunteer services at the end-of-life. Volunteers may be able to organise ways that support their contributions across end-of-life providers. They may be able to bring knowledge and continuity to systems of care. 
  • Volunteers can take on significant roles for helping people, and their carers and families. This can relieve pressure on other providers, who may have other responsibilities to attend to; you can’t have one person in two places at once. 
  • There is a call for extensive research in hospices, in particular hospice volunteering. It can build a base around the effectiveness and economic impact of volunteer-led, volunteer delivered and volunteer enable innovation. 

In conclusion…

It’s known to us now just how important volunteers are for Hospices. There is no doubt that this importance is only going to increase as pressure on hospices increases. Volunteers will continue to be the backbone of hospice services, and more should be done to support volunteering in these circumstances. 

If you’re looking for a volunteer management system, why not sign up for a FREE trial with us! Head over to our website, and set your site up now… 

 

How to support your local hospice…

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On 12th January 2022

In Hospice, Volunteer Management

Palliative care and hospice volunteers support those with life-limiting diseases and their families. Their purpose, to improve quality of life and build deeper relationships with patients, gives valuable insight to hospices and their overall care. 

Being able to understand the role that volunteers play within hospices helps improve their effectiveness and will better aid those who are thinking of volunteering. Recent evidence suggests that in order to make an impact on the development of volunteering, stronger resources and commitment from those in high positions is required.

More care and support is needed now more than ever – volunteering can play a key role in adapting to the changing needs.

Do Hospice Volunteers Need Training?

Before anyone becomes a hospice volunteer, it’s likely that training will need to be completed. Volunteer training helps prepare them for any services they may perform and understand how they will be assisting patients and their families.

It’s likely that a hospice training program will include: 

  • Understanding the hospice’s philosophy of care. 
  • Understanding the services delivered by the organisation. 
  • How to properly communicate with patients, caregivers and families. 
  • Understanding patient privacy regarding their health information. 

Through this training, hospices have recorded common traits that make effective volunteers: 

  • A sense of understanding and compassion towards those on their end-of-life journey. 
  • A respect for all customers’ cultures and religious views. 
  • The ability to listen when needed and be comfortable in silence. 
  • Awareness of personal limitations. 

 

The Types of Volunteering for Hospice Volunteers…

Hospice volunteers provide an immense amount of hours through two main categories: Direct and Indirect Care volunteering…

Direct Care Volunteering is defined by those volunteers who work directly with patients, caregivers and families. They provide comfort and support in a number of ways: 

  • Preparing meals for patients and their families. 
  • Giving transportation. 
  • Helping out with light household chores. 
  • Providing companionship and comforting patients. 
  • Help create a soothing and joyful atmosphere.

(via Crossroads Insights)

Indirect Care Volunteering, on the other hand, is for volunteers who would like to work behind the scenes. They help the hospice with any administrative tasks. For instance, preparing mailing and/or newsletters to the community. They’ll also be looking to input any general data and other clerical duties needed to be completed. Indirect Care involves making sure the hospice is known within the community and day-to-day tasks are completed for everything to run smoothly.

The Challenges for Hospices

There are concerns about the accessibility of those who can benefit from hospices services which have become a challenge. Volunteers have been a significant part of responding to this and, as a result, can be a significant advantage for hospices.

Volunteers extend the scale of availability to hospices in order to deliver a wide range of services. Importantly, they offer a prolonged connection of care to those with life-shortening illnesses in ways beyond clinical. Volunteers can help extend the reach a hospice can make in the community through stronger social activities. 

A diverse range of volunteers can broaden the range of skills and benefits available to you. Hospices can reach out to the same broad community mirrored within the hospice. It’s extremely important to acknowledge the work and benefits volunteers bring, while starting to think about how volunteers can work effectively to push back against rising challenges.

How Can We Help?

With a broad range of volunteers, you might be wondering how you’re going to connect and reward them for their work… Here’s where we come in. A volunteer management system, like TeamKinetic, can help you: 

  • Recruit more volunteers than ever before. 
  • Fully customise your site and volunteer registration. 
  • Communicate with your volunteers easily, all in one place. 
  • Motive and reward your volunteers with our achievement badges or create your own! 

Start a free trial with us at TeamKinetic here! 

How to Effectively Reward Charity Retail Volunteers

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On 8th December 2021

In Charity, Volunteer Management

As an act that is entirely selfless, rewarding volunteers may seem like an impossible task – surely the work is rewarding enough? While, yes, the work is rewarding. It doesn’t keep a volunteer motivated to keep volunteering for you. So how do we reward charity retail volunteers?

In this blog we’ll go through a variety of ways, because not every volunteer will respond to the same methods.

First, why do they volunteer?

Understanding the reasoning behind your volunteer’s commitment can help you tailor recognition and rewards to them personally. Here are some common reasons:

  • Because they care about the cause/have been personally impacted by the organisation.
  • As a good way to fill their time.
  • To join friends and family who volunteer.
  • Because it’s a good networking opportunity.
  • Because it contributes to something wider – e.g. the Duke of Edinburgh award.

So how do we reward charity retail volunteers?

This is where it starts to feel complicated: formal vs informal, intrinsic vs extrinsic, physical v digital, etc. But don’t worry! We’ll lay it all out for you so you just have to worry about picking the right method for your volunteers.

Formal v Informal Rewards

Formal rewards are usually regarded as those you plan ahead of time. This could include things like award ceremonies, volunteer of the month awards, and certificates.

In contrast, informal rewards are the smaller things you would use on a day-to-day basis. Instead, it focuses on improving the experience for volunteers. You might reward volunteers in this way through bringing them refreshments while they work, having conversations about how their experience could be improved. A great benefit of informal rewards is their low cost and significant ongoing impact.

Intrinsic v Extrinsic Motivation

Volunteering can be personally rewarding to many people and this good feeling is often a big motivator. Intrinsic motivation is all about helping your volunteers continually feel good about the work they’re doing and the difference they’re making, rather than working towards one particular reward. It follows the same premise as informal rewards – you want to reward volunteers by continually improving the state of your volunteer programme.

On the other hand, extrinsic motivation involves volunteering because of outside factors, such as receiving a reward. This isn’t always a negative thing, as mentioned above, people often volunteer as part of something else. For example, a student may volunteer in a charity shop in order to fulfil one of the requirements of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

There’s always potential to retain this kind of volunteer through intrinsic motivation. If they become motivated by the way volunteering makes them feel, rather than fulfilling a requirement, they’ll be more likely to keep volunteering for you.

Physical v Digital

Now we know about the different types of motivation and rewards, we can start thinking how to deliver them. Those of you who are not yet fully engaging with digital may feel more comfortable delivering purely physical rewards (such as thank you cards and teas/coffee).
One Welsh charity even decided to help the local community beyond their existing efforts. The Gellideg Foundation Group gave their volunteers gift cards to small local businesses as a reward, helping boost the local economy and keep local shops open!

However, there are a whole host more options available to you via digital means. And you never have to stick to purely digital or physical rewards – there’s room for both to be used effectively.

How can I reward volunteers with TeamKinetic?

TeamKinetic can facilitate a range of options when it comes to rewarding your hard-working volunteers.

First of all, after every opportunity, volunteers and opportunity providers are asked to leave feedback. This feedback serves as a way to praise the volunteer but can also be used to improve internally. If any volunteers have issues, these will be sent to you and you can deal with them. Giving volunteers a great place to work is a great step to help them feel appreciated.



Furthermore, the system offers HourTrades. These are rewards for reaching a certain number of volunteering hours logged. This can be set to anything you desire, offering a wide range of incentives to your charity retail volunteers.

We also have Opportunity and Achievement Badges.
Opportunity badges can identify opportunities that will contribute to an award, such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Achievement Badges are awarded over time – the more hours a volunteer logs, the better badge they receive! These are saved digitally but for an added touch you could create physical badges to match!

Try it for yourself

You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website, giving you access to everything the system has to offer for 30 days.

If you want to find out more about the system, or have any questions you can use the chat feature on our website, email us, phone us on 0161 914 5757, or find us on social media:

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.

Why Analysing Your Volunteer Programme is so Important

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On 1st December 2021

In Charity, Volunteer Management

If your organisation has an established volunteer programme, you’ll have your volunteers up and running with good quality opportunities, but now it’s time to evaluate. Maybe you’re already analysing your volunteer programme, but is it enough?

Analysing your volunteer programme can provide key insight into the impact of your programme. This could include how you’ve improved the lives of people in the local community and key demographics of your volunteers. So let’s dive right in…

The Fundamentals

Let’s start with your goals. Do you have them and are you achieving them?

Simple reporting tools can help you recognise whether you’re hitting these goals. If you are, it can inform how you go about setting new goals. If not, it’ll give you an idea of how to adjust your operations in order to achieve them. And if you’re yet to set any goals, key KPIs can help you draw some up.

What are KPIs?

Key Performance Indicators: a set of quantifiable measurements used to gauge a company’s overall long-term performance. This could include things like:

  • Total number of active volunteers
  • Volunteer retention rate
  • Total number of hours logged
  • Volunteer demographics (gender, age, ethnicity, location, etc.)
  • The monetary value of services rendered by volunteer support
  • Number of people in the community served by volunteers

So Why Is It Important?

Analysing your volunteer programme is a pathway to discovering a whole host of things.

Volunteer retention rate can suggest the happiness of your volunteers or quality of your opportunities. If volunteers aren’t happy and don’t have access to good opportunities, they won’t keep coming back. You can read more on how to fix this issue in our ‘How to Increase Volunteer Retention (and keep it!)‘ blog.
Just remember: a happy volunteer is a loyal volunteer!

Furthermore, volunteer demographics can be compared to demographics in your area to see whether your programme is attracting an expected variety of people. If not, why not?
For example, demographics showing a very high proportion of white volunteers in a very ethnically diverse area could suggest there are barriers to people in your community who want to volunteer. Our recent post ‘Is Your Pool of Volunteers Diverse and Inclusive?‘ provides valuable tips on how to improve this within your own organisation.

However, data isn’t just about spotting areas for improvement. It could also be used to identify those who are going above and beyond for your organisation. With tools like hour logging and feedback, you can see which volunteers are giving their time the most and receiving praise for their work.

How can I get started?

There’s a good chance you’re already managing your volunteers digitally, but are you using volunteer management software? Software can put everything in one place for you, allowing you to manage, communicate, and analyse your volunteers in a few clicks. You can read more about implementing volunteer management software in this blog.

While it’s possible to analyse your volunteers using spreadsheets and other software, it’s definitely much easier to have everything in one place. Instantly have everything you need to manage your volunteers all in one place, leaving you more time to focus on the important stuff.

Why not try TeamKinetic?

You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. This includes features such as volunteer-owned profiles, the ability to log hours completed, and reporting tools. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers and start analysing your volunteer programme!

Contact us:
– Email: alex@teamkinetic.co.uk
– Phone: 0161 914 5757
– Social media:

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Is Your Pool of Volunteers Diverse and Inclusive?

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On 24th November 2021

In Charity, News & Views, Volunteer Management

Organisations should be diverse and inclusive to the communities they serve, and your volunteers should mirror that. So, how do organisations achieve this? A recent agenda consulting survey gives us some more detail into how volunteering organisations value diversity.

Agenda Consulting undertook a survey as part of their ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the UK Third Sector’ report. The report looks to understand people’s views and experiences of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within the organisations they work with. The survey covers 8 sectors: Gender, Gender different to that originally assigned at birth; Ethnicity, Disability, Religion, Sexual Orientation and Age.

Agenda Consulting Survey:

The overall view from survey results states the average positivity for DEI is 72%, with neutrality being 21%. The average negativity is 7%. What is most surprising is that the highest level of negativity is regarding age: at 12% negativity overall. 

It’s clear that while there are mostly positive results, there’s still work to be done: 67% of respondents feel the leadership groups display their commitment to DEI. However, just 48% of people feel their organisation is committed to promoting the representation of diverse groups. By recruiting and retaining a workforce that is diverse, you can work towards building stronger perceptions. 

Sector Results:

The results show for gender little difference between men’s and women’s perception, yet statistics from Agenda’s People Count, show that gender balance shifts as we move through levels of seniority. There may be an imbalance in results. 76% of the survey sample are female, fitting with Volunteers Count of 70% of all volunteers being female. For more information, we have a blog post which dives into the reasons why women volunteer more than men. 

For those whose gender is different to that originally assigned at birth: results suggest there needs to be education within the sector. Only 50% believe that, regardless of gender reassignment, people are treated equally. By increasing the education or knowledge of volunteers surrounding DEI, it becomes an organisation-wide initiative, instead of being held to within one department. 

There is a strong perception that there is equal treatment regarding ethnicity, with 73% of people feeling like everyone is treated equally irrespective of race/ ethnicity: but 10% disagree. Perceptions of equal treatment are considerably lower for those respondents from an ethnic minority. More awareness is needed throughout organisations: and this should be done by the very people who it directly affects. We’ve looked deeper into the socio-economic status surrounding volunteers and whether volunteering is too white and wealthy… 

Disability, Religion, Sexual Orientation and Age:

The results from disability-related questions show that 67% feel people are treated equally, with 24% neutral and 9% feel negatively. This use of ‘neutral’ suggests that volunteers don’t have enough insight. This is possibly due to the fact that just 4% of volunteers are disabled (according to Volunteers Count). If we remove those barriers, we open volunteering up to a wider community with fresh ideas and skills, representing wider society as a whole.

74% feel that people are treated equally despite a person’s religious beliefs, with 22% of people feeling neutral and 4% opposing the statement. There are several groups who are the least positive. Agenda’s report outlines those who identify in another way and ethnic minorities as standouts for those who aren’t as positive. It can be suggested that this is down to wider societal stereotypes, which are translating into the volunteering sector. 

Overall, only 1% of those who identify as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) felt they weren’t treated equally due to their sexual orientation, whereas 84% of people did. During the survey, it was LGB groups who thought less positively about the statements being asked of them. This possibly suggests that they are more aware than others about the inequalities minorities face.

As mentioned above, it is age that has the greatest discrepancy when it comes to being treated equally. Out of the 3% of under 25s who took part in the survey, only 59% felt positively, with 18% negative. As age increases, the negativity does too. This suggests a divide within organisations among age groups on whether certain groups of people are treated equally.

So Why Should We Increase the Diversity of Volunteer Programmes?

Harvard Business Review confirms that when a team member shares the ethnicity of their client, the entire team is 152% more likely to fully understand the client. This ability is crucial for volunteer programmes. By increasing the diversity of your organisation you receive new ideas and approaches to your work; with new volunteers, you gain people from different educational backgrounds with different soft skills, like communication. 

All of this helps your organisation, but it also helps those you volunteer for: your volunteers can be role models. Those who can see themselves within volunteers can inspire and increase their aspirations. They may also want to volunteer in some capacity too! Organisations should be looking towards becoming inclusive for all, for a stronger future.

So How Do We Increase the Diversity of Volunteer programmes?

There are a number of strategies to ensure your volunteer programme can become inclusive for all. Starting with your language. Switching up your language to attract certain groups of people can help you gain a wider audience.

Start to build relationships! Building up relationships with communities means you can speak freely and they can too! It’s important to identify those communities you want to engage with: it’s important you’re authentic. 

The policies that your organisation has may need rewriting. What you have written down versus the culture surrounding your volunteer programme can be drastically different.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are so important for volunteer programmes who want to move forward. It’s simple, organisations must be inclusive for all. Your pool of volunteers should mirror the community you work in. With a diverse pool of volunteers, you have an opportunity. Team bonding exercises can bring people together. 

AVM’s Making an Inclusive and Accessible Recruitment and Onboarding Experience

Save the Date! Wednesday the 27th April, 9:30am- 12:30pm, AVM are hosting an event helping you to create an inclusive and accessible recruitment and onboarding experience! Straight from AVM, at this event you will…

  • Hear ideas on how you could adapt your recruitment and onboarding process to be more inclusive
  • Learn how organisations have overcome some of the barriers to inclusive recruitment
  • Reasonable adjustments that can be made to ensure your recruitment process is accessible to all
  • How to attract a diverse range of volunteers and what you might need to consider
  • Have an opportunity to plan your next steps, in small groups with your peers

Learn more about the event and how you get your tickets here! 

Manage Your Volunteers:

We now know how important diversity and inclusion are to volunteer organisations and volunteer management. An efficient and effective management system is needed to help you help your volunteers and the community. TeamKinetic can help you recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers… 

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 TeamKinetic Transforms Volunteer Management For Good…

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On 17th November 2021

In Case Study, Charity, Hospice, Volunteer Management

Willowbrook Hospice provides care for patients with life limiting diseases living in St Helens, Knowsley and the surrounding areas. They rely on their fundraising methods and their dedicated volunteers. After realising they needed a volunteer management system, they came across us, TeamKinetic.

Why TeamKinetic?

For Willowbrook hospice, their previous system was archaic- there was no way to engage with their volunteers. We know the importance of interacting with volunteers we have already, so this was a concern for Willowbrook. They needed a system that allowed for this interaction. Willowbrook also wanted a web-based programme which would allow everyone to access the site from anywhere.

Benefits of using TeamKinetic:

One of the biggest benefits for Willowbrook, as mentioned above, is the ability to access the system anywhere. It’s critical for volunteer managers in each of Willowbrook’s nine shops to have access to the system. This way each shop manager can see who’s coming in to volunteer, and has all the information they need in one place. 

In Willowbrook’s case, their current contact details for volunteers was through paper, which we all know isn’t the most effective. With TeamKinetic’s data protection and GDPR compliance, Willowbrook Hospice are able to see necessary contact information on volunteers profiles. If there is an emergency, managers know exactly where to go to find an email address or a phone number. 

Having this information at hand means that they’re able to be more present in volunteers’ lives, through emails and messages. Since using our system, Willowbrook’s volunteers have noticed the change- they feel as if they’re more involved with the Hospice due to the update emails they receive. Willowbrook has learnt the importance of communication and engagement between themselves and volunteers along with the importance of volunteers talking with each other too.

Willowbrook Hospice’s communication:

For Willowbrook, they’ve created a befriending team between their volunteers. They’ve brought their volunteers together to support each other- especially through-out the pandemic. TeamKinetic hosts a private notes function, so Willowbrook can update when they’ve spoken to a volunteer. 

All this communication has meant that volunteers feel more involved than ever with the happenings around Willowbrook Hospice and their nine shops. By involving volunteer managers and volunteers, it becomes much more likely that they will spread Willowbrook out into the world further. You’ll be attracting new volunteers whilst building and retaining the volunteers you already have. In Bev Neilson’s (a volunteer manager at Willowbrook) words, “if you want efficient communication, then you’re going to get it with TeamKinetic, definitely”. 

Willowbrook also outlined the quick response rates you can get with the TeamKinetic system;

“We’ve had small events that have come up now and again. We had an event that came up where we could sell things in a local Garden Centre. It’s something we had to implement quite quickly because it was over Christmas. So, I created it on TeamKinetic and had it emailed out to all the volunteers. I would say within the hour, we filled up all the slots for two weeks worth of people volunteering for it. I think that raised over £2,000; without TeamKinetic that would never have happened.”

The ease of creating an opportunity online, and advertising it out to volunteers meant that they’re unexpected fundraising occasion was a success! Our advertising options aren’t limited to just emails, you can automatically send out a post on social media when you’ve created an opportunity, or bulk text your volunteers to let them know!

Willowbrook Hospice advice:

You’ve heard a lot from us, so here’s Willowbrook’s advice for those looking to manage their volunteers more efficiently; 

“I think having this system in place helps because everything is in one place. Before it all felt a bit jumbled, we were going from system to system to try and run everything, and engage volunteers while still trying to keep in touch with them. Whereas now, we’ve got one system that we can use and as it’s web-based, like I said before, we can access it anywhere.”

What’s Next For Willowbrook Hospice?

What is happening for Willowbrook at the moment? They’ve recently celebrated World Hospice and Palliative Care Day on the 9th October. Willowbrook have decided to incorporate a Reaching Out Focus into their 2019-2022 Strategy and Organisational Work in line with this year’s theme: ‘Leave no-one behind- equity in access to palliative care.’ There objectives are as follows: 

  • All the members of the community we serve are aware of our services, have equal access and feel comfortable to do so. 
  • To see more people from across the communities we serve.

Thank you to Bev Neilson and Willowbrook Hospice for letting us in behind the curtain! 

Find out more:

TeamKinetic helps to build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, increase impact and improve insight. Our goal is to make volunteering easy for everyone no matter what. But, don’t take our word for it, why not check out our customer reviews. 

For more information on how we can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers, visit our website or contact us on 0161 914 5757.

How To Get The Best Out Of Micro-Volunteering

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On 10th November 2021

In Charity, Volunteer Management

Over the past 20 months we have seen organisations transform and adapt in order to continue helping those they serve. One way they have adapted is through micro-volunteering. We’ll be covering just what micro-volunteering is and how you can really get the best out of it! 

What is micro-volunteering?

Micro-volunteering consists of people taking small amounts of time out of their day to volunteer; we’re looking at up to 30 minutes on a particular task, maximum. These tasks can be broken down into small parts, in which one volunteer can complete just one component. It’s convenient and low commitment actions appeal a lot to potential volunteers who may only have limited free time. Micro-volunteering takes numerous small contributions and accumulates them together to make a difference.

While the majority of micro-volunteering takes place online, through signing petitions and sharing/retweeting to spread awareness- it doesn’t have to be. You could be taking part in a run, sorting through recycling or baking for an event.

Micro-volunteering is good for organisations and it doesn’t take away from traditional volunteering. Volunteering long-term, micro-volunteers aren’t who you should be looking at. They cannot be deemed as reliable. So, if your organisation is looking at micro-volunteering, make sure that your opportunities fit the micro-volunteering mould; don’t change a traditional opportunity for the sake of it- you’ll find more often than not, it simply won’t work.

Plan Correctly…

If your organisation is thinking of using micro-volunteering, they have the chance to save themselves time and money, if planned correctly. 

Start Planning. What’s the opportunity? Who’s going to manage this within the organisation? 

Get Advertising. Use various websites and social media to promote your micro-volunteering opportunity. 

Quick Management. Find your volunteers, get them started and confirm they know what it is they’ll be doing (there still needs to be some management even if the opportunity is small). 

Recognise and Reward. Send volunteers some feedback on their completed opportunity and tell them about their impact. 

The Pandemic Effect on Micro-volunteering…

As organisations rethought their volunteer programmes throughout the pandemic, micro-volunteering and the digital opportunities it provided was the gateway organisations needed to carry on. Organisation’s now face whether they keep micro-volunteering up now we return back to ‘normality’. 

At AVM’s annual conference, it was mentioned that micro-volunteering should have as little bureaucracy as possible. These aren’t the volunteers you so much rely on, but they can massively make an impact within your organisation. Relationships with micro-volunteers are different from your traditional ones (mainly because you can have hundreds of micro-volunteers, so personal relationships will be hard to maintain!) 

Benefits and Considerations

As we’ve hinted at, micro-volunteering does have some benefits for organisations. Currently the biggest barrier to volunteering is time. The world we live in now is fast paced, and people find that they don’t have enough time to get everything done; micro-volunteering is perfect. The flexibility of smaller tasks is appealing to many, but remember, new volunteers may be worried that they have to pledge a long-term commitment of some sort. With micro-volunteering they don’t have to.

Micro-volunteering opens you up to have a wider range of skills at your disposal (so to speak.) As volunteers are only engaged for a small amount of time, you might find that you have a group of volunteers with the same skill. Opportunities can now be split and completed quickly and efficiently: it’s a win-win. Your organisation will be getting the help it’s looking for, while volunteers haven’t lost too much of their free time.

A challenge with volunteers from an organisation’s perspective is making sure that you reach the micro-volunteering demand, especially because you’re dealing with quick opportunities. Along with this you’ll also need some sort of support for these volunteers. While they aren’t directly linked to your organisation, they’ll still need some support and direction from you. To do this, having a support tool kit you can send to your micro-volunteers with all the information they might need will set them on their way and means you can focus on other aspects of your organisation.

While your relationship with micro-volunteers is different from your traditional volunteers, you should still collect feedback (from them and from you!) As we know, micro-volunteering can be set at an arm’s length, especially for those opportunities completed online so volunteers may never know the impact they’ve made within an organisation – so make sure to let them know!

How do you know whether your organisation can use micro-volunteering?

Despite what the title says, not every organisation will work well with micro-volunteers (sadly). If you’re struggling to figure out whether your organisation would benefit, we might be able to help. Micro-volunteering is good for organisations that: 

  • Have the potential to attract a large pool of diverse volunteers; especially those who may not have a lot of time on their hands. 
  • Have a strong path for potential micro-volunteers to transfer into a traditional volunteer role (this may be letting micro-volunteers know where they can register their interest etc.) 
  • Have ideas around building motivation for micro-volunteers to keep them interested in the progression of your organisation, whether it be to volunteer or just to keep in touch. 
  • Offer new micro-volunteering opportunities to existing volunteers. This is really important now that we’re coming out of the pandemic, because volunteers’ perceptions and safety concerns have changed.

Hopefully those bullet points can give you some insight into whether, or how your organisation can start to introduce micro-volunteering into its daily process. It’s clear to see how this kind of volunteering has become popular in recent times, especially as the past 18 months have transitioned onto online platforms. If you’re thinking that micro-volunteering is something you should be adapting into your company, you might need a good volunteer management system…

Need a good volunteer management system? Look no further. 

TeamKinetic helps to build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, increase impact and improve insight. Our goal is to make volunteering easy for everyone no matter what. But, don’t take our word for it, why not check out our customer reviews. 

For more information on how we can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers, visit our website or contact us on 0161 914 5757.

Why Charities Should Be Using Technology To Manage Volunteers…

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On 3rd November 2021

In Charity, News & Views, Volunteer Management

Having a strong pool of volunteers is absolutely crucial for charities; and technology can be the solution to effectively recruit new volunteers. We’ve seen recently just how much technology has connected us, bringing people together – exactly what charities are looking for.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) have recommended that charity organisations move to digital outputs in order to become as accommodating for potential volunteers as possible. We want to cut through current barriers stopping people from volunteering.

Managing volunteers on a digital platform builds a community, and improves communication, not just between organisations and volunteers, but between volunteers themselves too! You’ll find that everyone will be more focused on your organisation’s cause.

Richard Cooper, Director of Programmes at the Technology expresses that one of the biggest issues in charities is the lack of understanding on how technology can help. Well, we can help with that!

Why Technology/Digital?

So, why digital? You can find the right volunteers for you. With constantly changing volunteer pools, digitally advertising your opportunities gives you new options. When you promote your opportunities, you’re able to tailor your language to the volunteers you’re looking for. If you already have a good volunteer pool, you can use them as a reference… How would you promote them? What tone would you use? 

By having a digital sign up/application process, you have all the information you need on a volunteer’s profile, in one centralised system. By registering online, volunteers can instantly gain access to your opportunities, and start volunteering as soon as possible! 

If your charity has an onboarding or training process that volunteers have to complete, you can transfer this onto volunteer management systems too. Your processes are now streamlined and you can attract more people than ever; a digital initiative by Age UK a has amassed a 50% increase in their sign up conversions.

Perfect your Two-way Communication:

You might think that it’s all well and good having volunteers sign up, but for charities human connection and having that relationship between one another is crucial. So how do we achieve that online? 

Communication between a volunteer and organisation should always go two ways: it’ll help you keep attracting and retaining volunteers. With digital systems, that communication is always open. You can build a relationship through email, chat box, or even SMS text all from one place. 

This not only shows your support but can also be used to recognise volunteers. For example, within TeamKinetic’s system you can leave feedback (on both a volunteer and organisation side) thanking the volunteer in question for completing the opportunity. The Charity Retail Association (CRA) has expressed how showing appreciation can really motivate a volunteer – and we agree! 

Digital systems also offer new ways to recognise and reward your volunteers too! To come back to TeamKinetic, you can create custom achievement badges such as ‘volunteer of the month’ or enable ‘HourTrades.’ HourTrades are vouchers that volunteers can swap their logged hours for. This gives them a reward (the reward is up to you!)

Has the Pandemic moved technology forward?

It doesn’t seem a surprise that the pandemic has thrown volunteering into a more digital design. Using digital platforms throughout the pandemic to work and volunteer have doubled compared to pre-pandemic rates (82%). This has meant that volunteering through the pandemic was able to continue, with new digital systems improving service accessibility by 45%. Technology has been able to improve the ease of access towards volunteering over the past 18 months, and if we look more into the future, digital platforms are here to stay.

One of the concerns surrounding moving to digital, is the lack of skills paid staff had. Yet over the past 18 months to 2 years, there’s been an increase of 73% of required staff increasing their level of digital skills. It seems the pandemic has only increased the rate at which charities are moving online and taking a more technology based approach. This is reminiscent of the work towards Volunteer Passporting, which we wrote a blog all about too!

The processes of time-consuming and complex processes are a thing of the past, streamlining your volunteer management digitally offers a comprehensive service, for your managers and your volunteers.

Want To Know More?

Here at TeamKinetic we can get you set up quickly and efficiently, so you can start to recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers… 

Start a free trial with TeamKinetic here. Or alternatively email chris@teamkinetic.co.uk or call on 0160 914 5757.

How to Increase Volunteer Retention (and keep it!)

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On 28th October 2021

In Charity, News & Views, Volunteer Management

Now that life is returning to normal – or as normal as it can be – you might be wondering the best practice when it comes to volunteer retention.

Over lockdown you might have lost volunteers. Research suggests the number of volunteers in charity shops fell by 20% as a result of the pandemic. These people might have moved into full-time work, they might not feel comfortable coming back due to health/personal reasons, or maybe they just no longer have time to give anymore. 

But don’t worry! There are many ways to recruit new volunteers and make sure you retain them too.

Here are our top tips when it comes to solving the issue of poor volunteer retention rates.

Keep Volunteers Happy

A happy volunteer is a motivated and loyal volunteer. But what makes them happy? Well that’s a hard question to answer. Everyone is different but the key fundamentals should give you a good start: 

Good Communication

If you consider volunteers to be essential to your organisation, remember to check in with them regularly. Their opinions matter and can help you improve your volunteer programme, leading to increased recruitment and better retention rates.
Many might communicate with volunteers through things like WhatsApp and Facebook groups, but have you considered alternatives? Any good volunteer management system will allow you to communicate with your volunteers in a range of ways all through one medium. For example; emails, SMS Texting, Social Media sharing, and opportunity chat rooms are all possible in TeamKinetic.

Be Flexible

These options are available when creating an opportunity on the TeamKinetic system

If you’re experiencing a lot of absences from your volunteers, maybe it’s a sign of unhappiness and/or stress. Giving them flexibility (i.e. multiple shift times & dates and/or an option to work from home) could be a way to improve this. Giving volunteers a range of ways to help out can make them feel valued. You’re not just trying to fill a position – you actually appreciate the work they’re doing for you. Which brings us to our next point…

Show Appreciation

Even though they’re giving their time for free, it’s still nice to be acknowledged every so often. Showing appreciation doesn’t just stop at sending them a thank you card, it can also involve how they’re treated on the job. Ensure volunteers feel valued in their positions, give them good quality training materials and empower them.

Access to Good Quality Opportunities

An example of an opportunity on the TeamKinetic system

Firstly, make sure all information about your opportunities (and ways to apply) is easy to access for your prospective volunteers. Making opportunities easy to find means that you’re increasing the amount of people you could reach. This could in-turn increase the quantity and diversity of people who want to volunteer for you.

Secondly, making the opportunities you’re offering of a good quality. Giving volunteers good work means they’ll actively want to keep giving you their time and you’ll both get much more out of the whole experience. However, not only do your opportunities have to be worthwhile, but the way you describe them does too. Provide as much information as possible, including all the key details (times, dates, location, etc.) as well as highlighting the skills they can develop.

Upgrading Your Volunteer Management Solution

Perhaps you’ve read these tips and want to use them, but implementing them may seem like a mammoth task. Well, have you thought about volunteer management software? It may seem like an extra expense you don’t need, but the tools you’ll receive access to will improve your volunteer programme and save you massive amounts of time! 

With features that fulfil everything mentioned in this article, why not give it a try? You can start a free trial with TeamKinetic now. Once you’re up and running with a trial site, we’ll contact you to ask if you’d like a demo with Chris. This will give you a personalised, in-depth look at the system and all its capabilities.

With no obligation to pay anything until you’re sure our system is right for you it seems like a no-brainer.

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