Another great value interim release for you all, and only a few weeks since the last one! This one is all software based, no hardware or infrastructure updates, which is much better for my health and sanity =)
Update Feedback from Volunteer Dashboard
Providers and admins can now update a volunteers feedback from the feedback section on the volunteer dashboard page. Just hit the update link and you can save it right there – no refresh required.
New Translation Engine
For those customers (Enterprise only) that use an alternative language to English (get in touch if you are interested) we have now brought all translations in-house to our own replacement engine.
This has a number of advantages; we can update and add new replacements fast, translator marked Super Admins can provide translations right there in the Super Admin area, and they can request new replacements to be added.
Using our own replacement and translation engine has increased the page load time for translated pages by four fold, an excellent result.
Send Custom Newsletters Whenever You Want
The bulk email system has been updated to use the same HTML wrapper as the weekly newsletter, so all your bulk emails will now look better and have more branding elements for your organisation.
When creating bulk emails you can now select any number of opportunities to be included in the email. You have the option of including the events that week and if you want to show the volunteer’s statistics across the top. These are all displayed in exactly the same way as within the newsletter so its now possible to send a newsletter type email to any of your volunteers, for any of your opportunities, whenever you like!
We have also rearrange and refactored the preview and draft buttons so you can now send a preview email to your email instantly and save a draft copy without leaving the page. We also now update the saved draft each time you hit the save draft button, rather than creating a new draft.
Expenses Module – First Phase
This is another great Enterprise only option to help you manage your expenses. You’ve been able to mark an opportunity as expenses provided for quite a few versions now. This new module closes the loop for expenses.
Volunteers can select applicable opportunities from their dashboard, upload a receipt, an explanation of what the expense is for, and the amount they are claiming.
Admins get an alert when a new claim is submitted by a volunteer and can manage them all from a simple interface.
The admin can view the receipt, adjust the claim amount, and update the claim status. A full history of changes and notes is maintained and viewable underneath the main claim.
We have also added some additional profile data points for UK bank account and sort codes which are only requested and stored if a volunteer makes an expenses claim. One day we hope to create some in app payment methods but we’ve yet to find one that has been acceptable to the majority of our customers yet…but we are still looking!
The managed expenses module is an enterprise only feature. Administrators can switch this module on and off and allow trusted providers to be able to mark an opportunity with the managed expenses flag. The managed expenses runs alongside the regular expenses flag, so anyone can still mark an opportunity as paying expenses, and this will show in the search filters and opp description, but only enterprise admins and trsuted providers will be able to add this managed aspect to those expenses.
Front page customisations
Our new front end (if you are not using it we suggest switching it on as volunteers seem to prefer it!) has some extra customisations, and now they are all also available in your chosen alternative language (enterprise only).
If you can’t find a suitable image, then it will fill the background with some of your chosen colours with a subtle animation effect so it will still look great even without an image.
Accreditation Improvements
We’ve standardised all the accreditation badge prints now so there will be zero variability between badges no matter how you print them.
We’ve also added the help and support menu to the accreditation menus so you can open support tickets straight from there without having to return the main volunteer menu.
The event access screen now accommodates the full 12 possible areas for each event and correctly displays access for each selectable zone.
There have also been quite a few small improvements and enhancements to the UI/UX as we harmonise it with the main application.
You can try out these features as normal on the beta site before the interim gets pushed out on 5th December. We’ll be notifying everyone and getting together some training videos and materials to make sure you can hit the ground running.
Closing Opportunities Added to Dashboard
Opportunities that are closing within 7 days are now shown to providers in their dashboard under the tasks panel.
These have been available on the administrators dashboard for a little while now but have now been brought across to the provider dashboard as well.
Happy Birthday Message for Volunteers
Just a little message on their dashboard when it is their birthday, wishing them the best and thanking them for volunteering.
We’ll be adding more life events to these notifications over time, like anniversaries of them registering, joining their first opportunity, logging their first hours etc.
Restore Recently Deleted Volunteers
We receive quite a few support tickets where administrators have accidentally deleted a volunteer, or deleted the wrong volunteer.
So we have implemented a restore feature that will work for 48 hours after the deletion. You can use the new DELETED filter in the volunteer search page to find all the volunteers that have been deleted in the last 48 hours. To restore a volunteer just hit the checkbox next to their name and then use the CHANGE STATUS bulk action in the bottom blue bar to restore them.
Once the 48 hour period has expired you will not be able to restore that volunteer. We can restore volunteers after this period for upto 30 days from cold storage backups but there is a charge.
Administators cannot restore a volunteer that has removed themselves, for obvious reasons; however all their hours are anonymised and retained.
Anonymised Hours from Deleted Vounteers Included
You can now see your anonymised hours from deleted volunteers in the quick stats area of the reporting pages. It combines the totals and highlights the total from deleted volunteers in brackets.
The date of removal is used as the hour logged date.
We have had a busy few weeks and have rolled out another interim release packed full of useful changes and updates suggested by our users.
Additionally we have also updated our infrastructure over the last few weekends with minimal distruption. All our servers and virtual environments are now on the latest server operating system and our database has also been updated to a new version. We’ve also thrown some more hardware at the application and I hope you have noticed some snappier responses.
Custom emails for opportunities
You can now add a custom email to an opportunity that is sent when a volunteer joins INSTEAD of the universal email (the universal email remains accessible and customisable as before). So if you have a special message to give to volunteers that join certain opportunities here is your chance.
It’s super easy to use and access, quick check box to say you want to use a custom email then you will see the normal editor window where you can craft the email.
Administrators can add an attachment to these emails from the normal list of email attachments you are used to seeing in the bulk email and email customisation areas.
Remember, this email is sent INSTEAD of the universal one, so be sure to include full details.
Custom email for role applications
Just as above, now when super admins are creating or editing roles they can add a custom email that is sent when a volunteer applies for that role.
It all works identically as for custom opportunity emails, and once again is sent instead of the universal email.
Close applications for an opportunity
Admins and providers can now hit a button on the APPLICANTS tab for apply first opportunties which will close applications for the opportunity without closing the opportunity. This enables already accepted volunteers to carry on as normal, and access new sessions, without attracting any new applicants.
Opportunity image enforcement option
Super Admins can now elect to switch of the mandatory upload of images for each opportunity. This option is OFF be default.
Information about the opportunity the intial role application was for
When a volunteer first applies for a role we record which opportunity this was on. We used this to enable the auto application to the opportunity if it was required, once the role applicaiton was complete and successful.
We have now started to show this information on the role management page so you know which opportunity the volunteer was originally interested in.
The volunteer also gets this information, along with a link to the original opportunity so they don’t need to hunt around to find it.
New and fixed reports
We have added a pie chart showing the proportion if volunteers on events and opportunities that have reported as having special needs or disabilities, downloadable of course.
The pie chart showing the ethnicity of volunteers on opportunities and events was not using distinct volunteers, but all the joined sessions. This has been fixed and is now accurate and the total volunteers will match the number given in the summary for volunteers.
Improved profile editing for volunteers
The layout when editing the profile for a volunteer has been tidied up and the various layouts for external volunteers, provider editing pages have also been improved.
We have split out the location aspects of their profile from their personal details, so you can update and edit independantly. This will help where location details have not been recorded properly but you still need to update other aspects of their profile.
Feedback report is now downloadable
Added a download button to the feedback report page so you can grab a full list of all the feedback at anypoint.
New filter for searching volunteers
You can now choose in the TYPE filter, to show volunteers that will and that will not receive bulk emails. A volunteer only receives bulk emails if they have opted in, have a valid email address, and have been granted access.
Faster searching
The opportunity search page speed has been improved by excluding distance calculations where possible and also using a boundary box method of finding matching opportunities rather than calculating the distance from the volunteers location and all other opportunites.
This is not as accurate but much faster and the accuracy is perfectly acceptable for this search. This means that empty or null searches, which are by far the most performed search such as;
can return the maximum 250 opportunities in less than a second.
Providers having multiple accounts is now optional
The ability for providers to create their own sub accounts for collegues to use to login is now an option. You can find it in the super admin menu > options > everything else tab.
Better ordering of completed opportunities for volunteers
When volunteers view their opportunity tab in their dashboard, completed opportunities were ordered by their start date (age). We’ve switched this around now so that the opportunities are ordered by the date of their last session on that opportunity. So the opportunity that was mostly recently completed is at the top.
In app criminal checks
We are just finishing our initial development of in app criminal checks with KnowYourPeople in the UK. This wil mean you can fill out a simple form in the app, send it off and within 24 hours or so you will have the completed criminal check details available on the volunteers profile.
They will also send the certifcate to the volunteers address and your organisation name will appear on the certificate.
We don’t have finalised prices for the each check, but we are confident they will be less than £12 per check for the enhanced version.
If you are interested in trialing this new feature please get in touch.
Now we’re heading back to ‘normal’, should you still be working with online volunteers? YES! By recruiting online volunteers from quite literally anywhere you’re expanding your reach. When it comes to volunteering: the bigger your reach, the better! Virtual volunteering slots here perfectly.
In today’s blog post, we’re outlining the ways you can make sure your virtual opportunities stand out from the rest.
Making Your Opportunity Stand Out
Your Opportunity Title. When creating your opportunity, make sure your title is compelling and attractive. A volunteer is more likely to join an opportunity that instantly excites them, so having a strong title is key. It’s also worth mentioning somewhere in the title that the opportunity is remote.
Opportunity Description. Simply, don’t post the full list of details. Searching volunteers are likely to be leading with emotion – and a long description of there duties isn’t going to entice them. We suggest giving snippets of their duties but focus on explaining the impact they’ll be making.
Jargon. For a number of volunteers, this is their first time volunteering. Any specific language or acronyms should be left out. It’s most likely going to confuse potential volunteers, so keeping it as simple as possible will get more interest from new volunteers.
Calls To Action. Give potential volunteers the ‘next steps’ for joining an opportunity. Your opportunity should always have contact details too, for any other questions or support they might require.
Image Use. The use of imagery taps into volunteers’ emotions. Using the right image can trigger mirror neurons in the brain, so the volunteer feels the emotions portrayed in an image. Your images can also show that your organisation is inclusive to all. It’s important that your imagery is right, and sends the right signals to those browsing.
Checking Your Posting. Once your post is complete, make sure to double check it. Go through and check that all the information is correct as well as looking out for any spelling/grammatical errors. It’s also worth, once posted, looking at the opportunity through a potential volunteer’s eyes – do they have everything they need to join?
Are You Screening Your Volunteers?
Now that you’ve perfected your opportunity listing, and you have a set of virtual volunteers, the screening process can begin! What should you be considering when it comes to your volunteering screening process?
At the outset, you need to find out where your volunteer will be working. Are they going to be in a pace that’s quiet and private, or will they be in a busy environment? The key thing is that they are able to volunteer effectively in the place they’ve set up.
To ensure your volunteer is working effectively, are their any supplies or training required? Ensure that your volunteer has completed their training steps, and can access everything they need to start volunteering; this check makes sure there can be a smooth process into the opportunity, because there’s no stop/starting as a volunteer doesn’t have access to something important.
Volunteers will be interacting with a number of different people – let them know the basic information on how they should interact. This can help build up a volunteer’s confidence, so they interact with the organisation and those it helps more.
Make sure that you’re frequently staying in touch with those who virtually volunteer, over email, chat or video call. You can touch base weekly or monthly, building up a relationship that keeps them returning to volunteer. Establishing this relationship is important, volunteers want to feel seen and heard, like they aren’t just on the outskirts of the organisation.
Volunteer Motivations
You can also match volunteers with other opportunities you think they might be interested in. One way you can do this is through understanding your volunteers motives. VolunteerPro teaches a lot about a set of motivations a volunteer is likely to have, and how they can be applied by volunteer managers. Their motivations are:
Values: Where in which volunteers take something meaningful from the hours they spend volunteering.
Careers: Opportunities open doors for volunteers to advance in their careers or network with likeminded people from their industry.
Social: Volunteers can find themselves in emotional and supportive environments which they can also benefit from.
Enhancement: Volunteering gives leadership development to volunteers and changes their perception of power to some extent.
Volunteers that are open and motivated are most likely to have more than one goal in mind, rather than running on one single purpose. For some, they might not yet realise what those goals or motivations are, but they want to help in any capacity.
Think it’s time to invest in volunteer management software?
You can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers!
The HistoricScot Youth Forum was established to understand how to get young people volunteering and involved in the heritage sector. Historic Environment Scotland (HES) have been involved with Young Scot, in a 24 month partnership to help expand the engagement, participation and involvement of younger generations from different backgrounds to influence their activity and decision-making processes.
In previous conversations, there has been a multi-generational issue, especially regarding younger generations. Over the past 18 months, Young Scot have been tackling this problem of the lack of young generation involvement. Their results are presented in this report and contribute towards the Historic Environment Scotland 2019-22 corporate plan.
The report is spilt into three key themes: Community and Schools, Volunteering and Work, and HES sites all with a focus on future engagement of young people within the heritage sector. These recommendations are based off results from surveys.
Community and Schools Responses
For many, school is the first time people will engage with the historic environment. It’s highly likely that those who engage with historic environments as an adult have had experiences as a child, so ensuring sites are engaged with schools is crucial.
The majority of young people nowadays find their information through online social media platforms, so if they aren’t connected to HES platforms, they aren’t going to be engaged with it. For 32% of respondents, they didn’t have a connection to historical places around Scotland, despite 47% expressing interest.
Through their research, Young Scot have created these recommendations for the future:
Start discussions with marginalised communities about how their heritage can be represented.
Create history resources that are widely accessible for young people to learn and connect with.
Develop relationships with schools and spread awareness of HES in classroom settings.
Facilitate and engage with schools who have decided to visit sites and keep them engaged afterwards.
Volunteering and Work Responses
Volunteering can be an important factor for individuals entering employment into the sector. Survey results show that 3/4 of respondents hadn’t considered a career in the historic environment but 60% of people wanted to know the ways work opportunities can engage them. Currently, the heritage sector attracts volunteers that are male around the age of 35 (according to Young Scot research).
Lack of awareness towards employment, partnered with minimal advertisements are just two of the barriers which stopped people volunteering. If no one can see the opportunities, your pool of volunteers are significantly reduced.
In regards to young people, offering roles in areas they’re passionate about provides them with purpose and will help younger generations gain interpersonal skills they need. It’s especially vital now that these generations have lost time for social encounters due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
For Volunteering and Work, Young Scot had the following recommendations:
Create an online space for young people to showcase who they are and their skills for quicker sign up or applying opportunities.
It’s imperative that those with or without the internet have equal access to opportunities.
Start promoting your volunteering opportunities on the platforms where young people are, such as Instagram and Twitter.
For new volunteering roles, tailor the opportunity’s advertisement to a diverse group of young people through language, tone and imagery.
HES Site Responses
Currently, heritage sites host a number of opportunities for specific demographics and it’s mainly families. Due to this, there is still work to be done in engaging young people. For many heritage sites, this age range is forgotten, when they should be included.
In Young Scots’ survey, they found that if sites became more technology based, or held more events, then visits would be more enjoyable for younger generations. In a separate matter, over a quarter of respondents cannot access all parts of heritage sites due to the lack of accessibility provided.
Based on the information from the survey, Young Scot highlighted gamification as a way to engage young people within heritage sites. Gamification is applying elements of games to other activities, normally completed as an online technique to keep people engaged. Heritage sites can use this as a technique to interest young people into engaging with their content.
The report created a number of recommendations for heritage sites:
Make sure that all facilities are accessible to everyone, without this, there is a barrier against those with disabilities from accessing the heritage environment.
Design new events, exhibitions and educate young people of the cultural changes within society.
Host events to celebrate minority groups and their heritage in Scotland’s history.
Make improvements to the website and the types of content it provides: specifically where people can go to learn more. One way to do this is to create hubs for different age groups. This, along with the introduction of gamification, creates an online community where young people can meet other, like-minded people.
Conclusions…
From Young Scot’s experience with engaging in the sector, there is a disproportionate underrepresentation of those from a variety of backgrounds. Heritage sites don’t reflect the diversity of the sector, the organisation, or Scotland as a whole. This barrier in particular needs to be overcome to make HES as accessible as possible for all young people.
The introduction of the latest technology can engage audiences at a younger age; paired with a strong relationship with schools, the historic environment can recharge younger generations of their love for Scotland’s culture, past and present.
Young Scot is hoping the recommendations made throughout the report can start conversations within HES on the future of younger generations in the sector. They encourage HES to continue involving young people in future plans to make a real impact.
Want to start engaging with your volunteers more?
Calling all heritage sites! We’ve worked with Volunteer Organisers Network and Historic Environment Scotland to create the Make Your Mark Portal, which can promote your heritage opportunities to new audiences and helps you with your volunteer management. You can find out more about Make Your Mark here.
If you’d like to know more about us here at TeamKinetic, and how we can help you manage your volunteers, you can access our website here.
The following round-up blog post comes from a research report commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), on Volunteer Passports that TeamKinetic helped to support.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were reminded of just how important volunteering is to communities. It’s suggested that around 12.4 million adults volunteered during the pandemic, 4.6 million of those for the first time! The pandemic has made waves within volunteering and with more and more organisations coming together to find a collaborative approach to recruitment and onboarding; there have been movements to introduce volunteer passports into organisations.
What is a Volunteer Passport?
If you aren’t familiar, a volunteer passport can hold all the verified credentials a volunteer might need in order to volunteer, which can serve as credentials to a pool of organisations. This can be called volunteer portability; this concept refers to the easing of movement across different organisations and roles. Volunteer passports can be a quicker way to apply as a volunteer as any references or training needed has already been completed and verified!
Passporting Aims…
The initiative aims to address key issues regarding volunteer recruitment, management and development…
In certain contexts, such as emergency response volunteering, volunteer passports can be a mechanism to recruit and onboard large numbers of volunteers to opportunities locally and at speed. With passporting, the aim is also to improve the effectiveness of matching volunteers to opportunities tailored to what they’re interested in, or want to take part in. It also means that volunteers can be ‘re-deployed’ onto different tasks where they may be needed. This also ensures that micro, ad hoc and event-based volunteering opportunities are supported, also known as volunteer portability.
Reducing volunteer vetting can save time and money for all parties, through the standardisation of volunteer training and management. In the past, there have been previous initiatives that have explored this locally or within a particular sector, improving the consistency of trained volunteers.
What about alternative practices?
Here’s a quick run-through of the practices that could be integrated into volunteer passports:
A number of volunteering organisations already match volunteers with volunteering opportunities they find may be a good fit, based on previous opportunities or through a skill-based match. Many volunteers started volunteering through word of mouth therefore, online volunteer passports may be deemed unnecessary. Any passporting system would have to consider how the offline side could be integrated successfully.
Volunteer profiles have also been in previous initiatives, numerous management platforms have offered volunteers a facility where they can develop and build their ‘profile.’ This can be used as an alternative to CVs or LinkedIn, which volunteers involved in the report have emphasised. Volunteer passporting could mean it addresses an aim that has already been met.
Other related schemes have been surrounding rewarding volunteers. Just like within the TeamKinetic system, schemes can provide rewards through ‘time banks’ or ‘time credits’, where a volunteer’s time is recorded, which they can then use to redeem a reward of some sort. The reward would depend on the organisation they are working with. We know how important recognising and rewarding volunteers are, so volunteer passporting has to include this, or something similar.
Key Areas of Demand
In order for volunteering-involved organisations to support volunteer passports there are some key areas of demand. The report consistently highlights that portable IDs, and DBS checks are deemed to be a core element of potential volunteer passports. This is because they benefit volunteers, organisations and stakeholders from different voluntary sectors. The introduction of portable IDs and DBS checks is welcomed by organisations as a way to reduce the admin burden that comes with mass onboarding. For volunteers, it reduces the barriers they may find when wanting to volunteer in a different sector.
Allowing organisations to have a shared pool of volunteers would help particular types of volunteering such as emergency, event-based, and micro-volunteering. This element is a way of always having volunteers on hand to offer opportunities to.
From the suggestion for portable IDs, the standardisation of volunteer training is also of interest. Standardising training will be beneficial through local volunteer portability and regarding specialist skills with individual sectors. Not only can volunteers help across different organisations in their local area, those volunteers with specialist skills, are enabled to complete certain tasks for a number of organisations within the sector.
Another element was found that there needs to be some sort of validation of volunteers’ experiences and skills. For some volunteer groups, this would be incredibly beneficial, where volunteering could become a potential route to employment, the validation of skills can be added to a CV etc. This aspect was also thought to offer benefits in terms of supporting social integration and the well-being of different marginalised groups.
What Does Each Sector Think?
The research for the report presented some experiences and views from each sector regarding the introduction of volunteer passports and how they might be used.
The health sector has seen a rise in volunteer passporting over the past couple of months, and the expectation is for the demand to grow. The sector has found that passporting ensures agile and efficient emergency responses along with the integration of statutory and non-statutory services. The demand has also increased in the community action sector; portability at local level of training and skills has already been introduced, so there is potential to build on existing initiatives to deliver a comprehensive passporting system in local areas.
Regarding the culture sector, museums and heritage sites perceived passporting as beneficial. Specifically highlighting the portability.
Portability allows for volunteer learning and skill exchange, reducing administrative burden. There has been interest in developing a shared volunteer training standard within the sector.
In some areas, the sector has found they have been oversubscribed with volunteers. Therefore, standardising training and easy portability means volunteers can be moved into new routes while staying in the sector they’re interested in.
While there is strong demand in certain sectors, the sporting sector has seen very little demand for a passporting system, with the exception of portable DBS checks. The report shows that demand is low as volunteer recruitment is mostly organic, so there’s little interest in the digital brokerage of volunteer passports. Along with this, for individual sports, qualifications are already there in terms of training, and therefore the standardisation of training has been met and recognised.
So How Will it Work?
How might volunteer passports work moving forward?
Commonality: Volunteer portability is more likely to work when there is a common denominator between organisations whether this be locally or sector-based. This commonality between organisations may be essential to building a ‘federation of trust’ aligning volunteer standards and processes.
Sustainable? Stakeholders have concerns that passport initiatives may not be sustainable. This is due to the temporary nature of funding, and a lack of resources. To overcome these issues, volunteer-involved organisations have stressed the need for passporting initiatives to be developed in a realistic way, building this into a long-term strategy for volunteering.
Credibility: The Credibility of passport schemes is incredibly important for volunteer engagement and organisations. Some examples of the ways individual volunteer passporting schemes have been credible have included: endorsements from national councils of volunteer organisations and local authority and government institutions.
Data Standards: This is a strong requirement from digital platform providers and organisations who explain that any volunteer passport system would only work if it was developed with open data standards.
Control? Various organisations have emphasised how important it is for volunteers to be the ones controlling their data. For example, in previous initiatives, there have been options for volunteers to pause notifications at times when they were busy or wanted to stop volunteering for the moment.
Access: There is an element of exclusion and barriers for small organisations due to a lack of digital infrastructure and skills to join in on volunteer passporting for those who work for their organisation. Where are smaller organisations going to find and retain their volunteers?
Expectations of Government Support…
There are areas where central and local governments can support volunteering in the context of volunteer passporting, including:
Raising awareness of current possibilities to make DBS checks portable and improving their portability.
Providing legal clarity over certain issues curtailing volunteer portability or any other elements of passporting.
Working with the voluntary sector to support greater standardisation where appropriate through funding for resources and infrastructure.
Encouraging volunteering by making sure other government policies do not pose barriers to volunteering.
Where Does TeamKinetic Fit In?
As mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, TeamKinetic helped support this report we’d like to thank the DMCS for inviting us to help! We’re intrigued to see how volunteer passports and passporting develop in the next couple of years. We’re currently looking at ways we could introduce volunteer passporting, or elements of passporting, into our system.
If you’d like to know more about us here at TeamKinetic, you can start a free trial of TeamKinetic on our website. This will let you check out all our features for 30 days. If you like what you see, contact us to book a demo and see how we can help your organisation manage your volunteers!
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
At the start of 2020, The Whitworth made the leap to take on TeamKinetic as their volunteer management software provider. They made this change just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning working from home gave them the perfect opportunity to understand and implement the system.
The Whitworth Gallery is described as historic, contemporary, academic, and playful. Founded in 1889, the first English gallery in a park has been transformed by a £15 million development in 2015. As part of their volunteer programme, volunteers are able to contribute across the gallery. This includes supporting artists, textile care, art gardening, digitising their collection, cataloguing their library, assisting in the delivery of workshops, and much more.
Fiona Cariss, volunteer manager at The Whitworth says,
“We chose TeamKinetic as they’re a local organisation to our gallery and already supply the volunteer system for Manchester City Councils Volunteering opportunities.
The Whitworth is in partnership with Manchester Art Gallery, along with Manchester Museum too, so it means in the future we could look at sharing our volunteers and opportunities across the partnership through the system.
In a way the past 18 months has been a perfect time to implement the new system with TeamKinetic, as we’ve managed to test it with our volunteers whilst everyone has been at home- it helped us reach out further to our locality making it easier for them to register their interest and hear about the volunteering opportunities straight away. The data and reporting aspects of the system has and will definitely help in combining everything we need when we’re evaluating the programme and reporting back to various funders.
So far all our volunteers have found it easy to register and it’s a very usable system, in which you get a lot of support from TeamKinetic too. The Whitworth Volunteer Programme is looking forward to working with TeamKinetic further in the future when we have more volunteering opportunities coming up.”
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
Much of the work we will refer to in this paper is based on figures collected from May 2020 until present as this reflects the period where the MCR VIP project went live to the public. We will be explicit if we are referring to data from beyond that time.
It
is also worth noting that much of the activity on the MCR VIP system
was either stopped or severely limited during the COVID 19 response.
This was in part due to the difficulties associated with face to face
volunteering.
The
City Council did not use TeamKinetic initially in it COVID response
and as such the figures do not fairly represent the time as for a
large period there was little traditional volunteer activity being
undertaken which was being tracked or recorded in TeamKinetic
Implementation
The
project got underway in late 2018 with a plan to identify and train
service leads from Libraries, Galleries and Culture, Parks and Green
Spaces, Sports, Neighbourhoods.
The
initial implementation saw the formation of a project board. The
initial Project Manager was Adam Neill but he left shortly after the
formation of the project board. Other members of the board included
Programme Manager Trevor Roberts.
Strategic Lead – Neighbourhoods Mark Rainey, Project
Manager – MCRVIP Elaine Mills, Physical Activity Officer and
previous leads officer for MCR VIP Craig Abel and ICT Business
Analyst Liz Avison. Other people who had input during the initial
planning phase included corporate communications.
The
initial rollout of the project saw a training plan developed that
would train and support the “admin” users of the site. Volunteer
leads were identified in each service area and a combination of
onsite and virtual training days delivered. 22 MCC staff were
trained as potential admin users of TeamKinetic.
In addition, it became apparent that to our support of the Admin users there was also a need to provide additional training to what was referred to as Providers. We ran training workshops for Provider level users across the services who engage volunteers. Over 70 officers were trained to act as Opportunity provider within the system, as well as undergoing additional training on how to work with and engaged volunteers both using the system and in the real world.
This
work was delivered through a combination of speakers and events and
was devised to raise the profile of volunteering amongst the various
services and to provide basic “how-to” information for officers
who may not have had much experience in managing and working with
volunteers.
It
also provided opportunities for system users to provide feedback on
their experiences directly to TeamKinetic to support the ongoing
development of the product.
Our
soft launch target date with international volunteer’s week
20th-26th May 2019 though some activity had
started before that date as the system was still being used across
Sport and Events.
COVID-19
COVID-19
had a significant impact on traditional volunteering across
Manchester as such activity on the system dropped to almost zero in
April to June and has stayed way below the previous level since then.
It
is also worth noting that much of the activity on the MCR VIP system
was either stopped or severely limited during the COVID 19 response.
This was in part due to the difficulties associated with face to face
volunteering. TeamKinetic was used extensively across the UK in
response to COVID-19 and continues to be used to support communities
across the UK and TeamKinetic were recipients of an award from NHSx
and NHS England concerning their community support features for at
risk communities called TechForce-19.
The
City Council did not use TeamKinetic initially in it COVID response
and as such the figures do not fairly represent the time as for a
large period there was little volunteer activity being undertaken
which was being tracked or recorded in TeamKinetic.
It
has been discussed with Elaine as to how the TeamKinetic COVID
Community Task features could be explored for use across other civil
contingency and resilience planning situations and as part of the
ongoing COVID-19 and in specific response to mass testing and
vaccinations when rolled out.
Data
Usage
A total of 1732 people signed up to the MCR VIP system since the 20th May of which 417 have gone is to become active, which is a rate of 24% for the year. If we only look at the year from May 2019 until March 2020 we see that rate is actually much closer to 44% so we can again assume COVID has had a significant impact on the activation of volunteers.
We normally expect to see in a TeamKinetic system for Local Government a rate of about 40-55% of volunteers who register become active within 12 months of registration.
Active means they have signed up and completed a volunteering opportunity and have had hours logged against that opportunity in the system. There has been a reduction in conversion rates this year again as a result of COVID-19.
Location and Economic Breakdown of MCR VIP Volunteers
The heat map below shows your volunteer density across the city and the surrounding boroughs. The bulk of the volunteers since May 2019 are Manchester residents but you can see pockets of activity across the all the neighbouring areas.
Heat map showing the volunteer density in Manchester city and surrounding boroughs.
Volunteering by Index of Multiple Deprivation Rank (IMDR) for all volunteers registered since 20th May 2019.
This chart includes all volunteers including those who reside outside Manchester.
The Graph shows the number of volunteers by decile. That is the number of volunteers with a home postcode that is ranked using IMDR.
1 = bottom-ranked postcode area in bottom 10% ranked area of England
10 = top-ranked postcode area in the top 10% ranked area of England
This data is interesting as volunteering is perceived to be a traditionally middle-class activity and this is generally supported by research from NCVO and Community Life Survey Data undertaken by DCMS.
What can be seen quite clearly from the MCR VIP data is that across Manchester and its surrounding areas Volunteering is very well represented in the areas of highest deprivation. This is of course impacted by the fact Greater Manchester has more areas that fall into the bottom 50% according to the IMDR rank, but I think it is also compelling that the people of Manchester demonstrate that poverty is not a defining factor in their willingness to volunteer.
This finding is even more important when you consider the following question.
‘Does volunteering in the UK contribute to increased personal wellbeing and health?’
Yes, it does. This question was the central topic of the Happy Days Report, published by State of Life in 2019. The report provides “the most robust quasi-causal estimates to date of the impact that volunteering has on an individual’s life satisfaction and self-perceived health.”
The paper finds that having volunteered in the last 12 months is associated with an increase in life satisfaction of 0.034 on a 1-7 scale in the first differences model. This corresponds to 0.057 on the ONS endorsed 0-10 scale if we apply a linear transformation. This effect is roughly comparable to living in a less deprived neighbourhood and also roughly equal in size to one-sixth of the increase in life satisfaction associated with full-time employment vs. being unemployed.
The Happy Days report shows that alongside life satisfaction, robust quasi-causal positive associations were also found between volunteering and self-reported general health, mental health measured by the GHQ index. There is also a positive association with the other ONS-endorsed measure of ‘feeling that things in life are worthwhile,’.
Volunteering is shown to have a positive impact on trust in all demographics and particularly those who start with a trust deficit (in the UK this is lower socioeconomic groups – ‘A Bit Rich’ 2019).
Mixing with people from different backgrounds is important and the 2019 ‘A Bit Rich’ study found that volunteering has a positive role to play on trust and social diversity/mixing:
• Volunteers have around two-thirds higher odds of reporting trust in people living in the neighbourhood, compared to non-volunteers.
• 44 per cent of all volunteers reported having mixed with people from different ethnic backgrounds or religions in the past 12 months, compared to only 31 per cent of the general population
The key finding of the research quoted above is that the evidence from the 2019 work on the diversity of income and ethnicity in volunteering (A Bit Rich and ABC of BAME) shows that the wellbeing and health benefits of volunteering are considerably higher for marginalized groups compared to other groups.
Age
The age profile of the MCR VIP volunteers is interesting as again it does not reflect national trends or patterns. Volunteering is often found to be a pursuit of older individuals, this often as a result of them having the time. The employment of a digital system such a TeamKinetic reduces barriers to entry especially for younger volunteers who are digitally engaged. It speeds up the process of volunteer recruitment, a significant factor in younger people volunteering.
Another significant consideration is that the MCR VIP system works seamlessly with Manchester University Sport and Manchester Metropolitan University Student Union system which are also powered by TeamKinetic. This ensures MCR VIP always has its opportunities available to young, motivated student volunteers.
Ethnicity
Volunteering on the MCR VIP system is as multi-cultural and diverse as the city the volunteers represent. Volunteering across the UK tends to be thought of as a predominantly white activity but it’s clear that this is not the case in Manchester with over half of the registered volunteers described themselves as non-British White.
It is widely acknowledged that volunteering, under non-pandemic circumstances, is more widespread in the upper socioeconomic groups L1 to L10 and in the white ethnicity groups. It would appear that this is not necessarily the case during the pandemic. It does seem clear that the use of technology to recruit volunteers lowers barriers to entry for BAME individuals.
To volunteer traditionally would be heavily influenced by issues of social network and social capital. Many BAME individuals and communities do not have the same access to opportunities, as they are not often linked into the established networks to enable them to take advantage of the opportunities available.
As discussed earlier, there is strong research to suggest that volunteering can play an essential role in developing Social Trust and building better social cohesion. Volunteers tend to have more interactions with individuals who have a different ethnic background to theirs than non-volunteers.
Gender
Data from across the voluntary sector would normally suggest a 60%/40% gender split in favour of women to men.
Sports Volunteering is often the reverse of this with a 60%/40% split in favour of men to women. So the results of the MCR VIP gender spilt are quite surprising.
There is some quite compelling research that suggests that volunteering has a stronger impact for UK women than for men, thus being a potentially useful instrument in fighting gender inequality. As reported in the Happy Days study in 2019.
The report also highlights higher wellbeing increases associated with volunteering at the extremes of the income distribution, but particularly for the lowest income category – suggesting that ‘volunteering can be promoted as part of a policy intervention aimed at improving the quality of life of vulnerable groups in society.
Opportunity data
Volunteers recorded 2256 hours of volunteering in the system from 20th May 2019. These hours took place over 277 opportunities.
The top 10 most popular opportunities regarding the number of hours undertaken by volunteers are:
1
Festival Of Manchester 2019
2
The Manchester Trophy 2019 – General Volunteers
3
The Manchester Trophy 2020 – General Volunteers
4
Nature and Chill a.k.a let’s grow fruit, veg and mushrooms or DIY
5
Manchester International Swim Meet
6
Family workshop Summer Volunteers 2019
7
The HSBC UK | National Track Championships 2020
8
Manchester Digital Champions
9
Packing food bags for families in Greater Manchester – Help us feed families
10
Help Teach English in an Informal atmosphere,
The variety of opportunities in the top 10 says something to the variety of Manchester’s volunteers and the diversity of the offer MCR VIP has developed since its relaunch. Events, as you can see, are always popular due to their short-term nature and volunteers tend to find them exciting. We can also see opportunities that are ongoing and have more challenging criteria for entry such as Manchester Digital Champions in the top 10. To see these types of ongoing opportunities in the top 10, especially taking into account lockdown shows how volunteers can provide ongoing, regular services. This type of volunteering could be argued has the highest impact for the residents of Manchester.
Safeguarding
It appears that no volunteers have had a DBS recorded in the system during the period from May 20th. We did see the Identification Verification system used 18 times as part of a project to support members of the public during COVID-19.
MCR VIP has not used the more advanced safeguarding features and this may be an area that could be explored further in the future. These tools can be used alongside Volunteer photographs and Volunteer ID badges that are produced in TeamKinetic with embedded QR code technology. This allows TeamKinetic to be used when managing opportunities with a higher risk profile such as Adult Social Care.
Application Analytics
MCR VIP has seen the following web traffic since 20th May 2019.
1,251,940 site visits
These visits have been across all devices and have used most browser technology. We have seen a significant increase in mobile access to the site, and this now accounts for 62% of volunteer site traffic. This is why TeamKinetic is proactively developing with mobile responsive design and continue to develop our iOS and Android native offer which should see new apps available in late Q1 of 2021.
Economic Impact of MCR VIP volunteers
Volunteering is a rare, universal, and valuable good that unites us all. It is the glue that holds our societies together in everyday life and at times of crisis. Volunteering is helping each other out of free will. It is arguably why we have survived and succeeded as a species – our ability to collaborate and support one another. Volunteering is millennia old and all religions have at their core a message about volunteering – helping those less fortunate than yourself is a key philosophical teaching we try to impart on our children. As a result, we think volunteering is a sleeping giant in our economy.
Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist at the Bank of England, estimated volunteering to be worth between £50 and 200bn , approximately 2.5% and 10% of UK GDP. This calculation also included several extra layers or concentric circles of value. Haldane described the circles of value as layers of an onion. The figure below depicts the ‘Halo’ of value that stretches out from the volunteer. This model represents a step by step approach to valuing volunteering and it halo effect that we have adopted for the reporting of impact for this project. We are still lacking some of the data we need to undertake this level of evaluation, but I want to take this opportunity to outline what is possible using TeamKinetic.
To calculate the value of the volunteer’s hours, which in the diagram above is represented by the central circle, we have opted to use a cost replacement approach. For simplicity we have applied a single wage replacement rate based on a domiciliary healthcare assistant, midpoint, band 2 agenda for change :
£9.89 per hour + 25% (NI / tax employer £2.47) = £12.36 per hour
These are lower hourly rates as normally a staff provider would need to add on their ‘oncosts’ in addition which range from 10-33%. I would then remind you to apply a potential (+) variance of up to 33% on the final figures. Based on these numbers we can demonstrate the following.
2256 hours X £12.36 = £27,884
I think we could make a pretty strong case that had COVID-19 not occurred we would image this figure to be considerably higher and maybe even 3 times higher if the bulk of the volunteering had not stopped.
Using the Concentric Circle model, my next suggestion is that to further this work we would need to undertake some additional data collection to understand the direct wellbeing effects on the volunteers themselves. This work can be done using a simple survey that would allow us to capture some data on how volunteering makes your volunteers feel. We can use this data alongside data sets such as the British Household Survey and the Census to evaluate our volunteer population against the general population. Where this work had been undertaken before we have seen a consistent effect that volunteers tend to be healthier and happier, this type of work would enable you to say to what extent they are happier and healthier and what value does that have.
The next circle of the evaluation would focus on the recipients of the volunteers time. We would look to develop an economic model that allows you to calculate beyond cost replacement what the value and impact the volunteer have on those they support. An example might be a Digital Champion Volunteer may actually help 12 other people; it would be really useful to understand what that help is worth to those people who are beneficiaries of that volunteering. This way we can estimate which type of volunteering generates the greatest social impact and use this information to invest in the volunteering that makes the largest impact on Manchester residents.
The final stage of the evaluation would be to explore the less tangible benefits such as social trust, social capital and community cohesion. The impact on and reduction of social isolation and loneliness. These concepts are often quite difficult to measure at an individual level but very useful at a population level.
TeamKinetic is a powerful volunteer management tool with a huge amount of functionality to suit every type of organisation. The key to maximising its impact on your volunteer programme is the configuration options. This training session covers a basic introduction to the different types of users and how to set up your TeamKinetic system to work specifically with your organisation. Do you want external organisations to be inducted before they can create opportunities? Do you want external organisations to be able to register at all? All these types of settings will be explained in detail during this extensive configuration training session.
Who Should Attend?
Either new administrators OR existing administrators who would like a full refresher on the configuration options available within TeamKinetic.
Document hub (Adding files for access by other users)
Reporting and Data
Setting up custom geographical areas for reporting
APIs and Widgets
Customising achievement badges & award badges
Other general settings
All the other settings that are available and what they mean for your organisation and programme.
Questions and Workshops
Any questions will be answered and workshopped in the final segment, helping you to apply what you have learnt to your own unique programme.
How do I sign up?
You can access this training from your HELP > EXTRA TRAINING menu. Purchase the number of credits you need and then click on the BOOK button and select your dates.
You can check the latest training dates from within your system. Just go to ‘Help & Support’ → ‘Extra Training’
March 23rd 2020, Boris Johnson addressed the nation to declare the first Lockdown in the UK. At this moment many people, myself included, believed this lockdown would only last a few weeks and we would be back to normal before we know it. Little did we know, 10 months later we would be 3 weeks into our 3rd Lockdown.
The Evolution of Lockdowns
Let’s start from the beginning. Lockdown 1 begins on the 23rd March. People are told not to go to work and others are told to start shielding. Here begins the volunteering boom! The vulnerable are having to shield to protect themselves from the virus but are unable to go shopping, collect prescriptions or get any other essentials. This is where the efforts of locals began to show, people took charge creating mutual aid groups to protect and help the shielding. Irene Cree from Glasgow Life agreed that ”Mutual aid groups reacted really quickly, in many respects much quicker than the public sector did.” They reacted so quick in fact that according to the report Communities Vs Coronavirus: The Rise of Mutual Aid, in July it was recorded 4,000 of these groups were formed since the beginning of the pandemic, with as many as three million participants.
The solidarity of our country showed the support we had for one another, but when another lockdown hit us in the midst of winter, there were the initial signs of burnout to be seen!
Lockdown 2 was hard, a month of rain and cold in the lead up to the busiest time of the year. This lockdown I know for myself was a struggle and like many, the urge to volunteer was decreasing. Mutual aid groups were still doing their thing, but with limited support from stake holders like local authorities, their efforts were struggling. It cetrianly felt harder to protect those they had up to this point.
Technology has played a signifcant role and for some mutual said groups has been a main ingredient to their success in the pandemic, however many mutual aid groups were trapped in a non-digital hell hole trying to manage all of their volunteers and tasks from spreadsheets and whats app.
Fast forward to today and we are 3 weeks into lockdown 3. Fatigue is very real and obvious and we can only image how hard it must be for mutual aid groups this time round.
Technology still offers real opportunity for many mutual aid groups. Many have survived through the strength of will and chacter of their main participants but to keep on going they will need to use technology to ensure the organisational resliance and data security are in place to enable them to carry on. They also need lots of support from their local stakeholders in health, local government and the community if they are to keep this community solidarity going.
Can you Help Mutual Aid Groups?
So, how can you help? Back in August 2020 we spoke with Nivvi Morales, a member of COVID-19 Kenilworth Support, about their time using TeamKinetic to manage their volunteers. Their need for “a volunteer management system where we could communicate efficiently, assign tasks, track tasks, and keep our data safe.” was met, as we were able to provide the support and security they required.
“Mutual aid groups are based on volunteers acting on their own free will. Local authorities must encourage and promote mutual aid groups for what they are – the social capital of a neighbourhood. A strategy that promotes mutual aid should be light touch, work with existing community partners, and focus on facilitating rather than directing activity. Mutual aid groups should always retain the ability to decide what they do and how they work.”
Being able to support these groups is crucial and a way to do this is through technical guidance. Helping them find a secure and manageable system will keep them in control of their volunteers and opportunityies and tasks whilst ensuring individuals feel safe, valued and enaged.
TeamKinetic
Improves communication, creates easy reports automatically, keeps sensitive data secure, options for DBS checks and provides more opportunities to recognise volunteers’ efforts. Sound like the ideal features these groups need? Well, we have you covered. TeamKinetic allows for all of these and can provide impeccable support as seen with COVID-19 Kenilworth support “the ability to raise a ticket if they had an issue with the system, which would then be supported straight away.”
Our community task function was specifically designed with mutual aid groups in mind. These allow for volunteers to pick up tasks such as, picking up shopping, collecting prescriptions and delivering these to the shielding person. Claire Redford-Kerr from St Helens and Halton VCA has spoke about how they have used the the community tasks dashboard and how “our volunteers [can] very quickly pick up tasks on there [and] they can chat to one another on there. So being able to text them or email them as a group or a specific cohort of volunteers, it’s really important for us and helps us to manage the way, when and who gets involved.”
If you would like more information about our system please visit our website or call on 0161 914 5757. You can also set up a 30 day free trial to test out all of our features!
Lockdown 3.0 is here in the UK and we are bringing to you the guidelines given by each government in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on how to volunteer safely. Below are each government and links to guidance on how to volunteer during this lockdown… Keep reading and stay safe!
England
A ‘reasonable excuse’ for leaving your home includes volunteering – you can also leave home to provide voluntary or charitable services, where it cannot be done from home. For further guidance, see below:
Examples of reasonable excuses to go out include to provide voluntary or charitable services, but only where that cannot be done from your home. For further guidance, see below:
The new rules allow volunteers to go out to provide care or help to a vulnerable person, including emergency help. This includes getting food and medicines for them. For further guidance, see below:
Where possible, you should volunteer from home. If you cannot do so, you can volunteer outside your home, if you are able to meet the regulations and guidelines applicable at that time. For further guidance, see below:
Fiona Cariss, volunteer manager at The Whitworth says,
