Tag: TeamKinetic volunteer

How Can Hospices Become More Sustainable… (Part Two)

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On 9th February 2022

In Hospice, Volunteer Management

Can hospices become sustainable? It’s time for part two. In last week’s post we delved into the first 5 principles, today is the final four! Hopefully this has helped you to start thinking about how your hospice can become more sustainable…

Become cost effective to be sustainable…

A threat of a severe recession and climbing competition for charitable giving could leave a lasting decrease in charitable revenue. Maintaining a grip on Hospice finances and implementing sustainable practices means there’s a chance to maximise cost effectiveness. However, it isn’t easy to develop cost effective routes. When handed a sustainable alternative, there is rarely any evidence that proves it true- but alternative practices have to start somewhere.

Stakeholders spoken to by Hospice UK want all Hospices to be aware of their own visibility. This way, they’re able to identify services which need to be redesigned for sustainability. Being more transparent about financial positions with commissioners has led to balanced financial risk in numerous areas.

Key benefits and outcomes of greater control of costs: 

  • “The operational model for each service delivers agreed outcomes and benefits.”
  • “Proactive and reactive: anticipate critical issues and plan for sustainability in advance.” 
  • “Quantify and help provide an evidence base to support decisions that require major trade-offs.” 
  • “Increased certainty in responding to current and future demand by taking a rigorous, outcome based approach.” 

Maximise your commercial revenue!

There has been a decrease in income for many Hospices, especially retail income over the past 2 years. It means that those Hospices reliant on a particular area of funding are susceptible to downturns and falling trends. So, Hospices are key in finding the effectiveness in their current revenue. The key is maximising commercial revenue.

Hospice UK has found recurring themes that Hospices could explore… Start re-thinking commercial spaces – are you getting the best out of the spaces you occupy? New revenue models, including collaborations, which has always been a strong starter that benefits multiple hospices at once. And teaming up with local third sector parties or partners.

Are you deploying the correct people around your patients?

Start reviewing the shape of your workforce. Deploy the correct people around your patients. Hospices need to start looking into how their workforce is going to look in the future due to the changes occurring across the end of life and palliative care sector. We suggest Workforce Shaping. 

Workforce Shaping can determine your team’s structure in the future and what will be required to introduce new ways of working. Hospices should be (re)considering:

  • “Consider new staffing models to better deliver care.”
  • “Embrace new roles and ways of working.” 

Shape careers of the future, sustainably…

To attract people towards a career in end of life and palliative care, a development needs to be made in order to make careers and jobs more competitive. While most stakeholders believe it wouldn’t be sustainable to match NHS pay, they do believe that improving career pathways is a clear step in the right direction. Why not start by finding out why people want to join, stay and perform for your Hospice. 

Understand and map out the journeys colleagues can take to move up within the Hospice, within their own career. Once you have this down, can you start to implement it? If you’re struggling on potential pathways, what about?

  • Managerial: Allow them to move up the ladder into managerial roles with more responsibility. 
  • Expert: Build and refine their roles based on their knowledge, skills and abilities while keeping them in the speciality they want. 
  • Mobility: For those who want to increase their knowledge, allow them to cross functions within Hospices or the NHS – they can increase their skills and abilities too!

Ways to make palliative care a place to grow a career:

  • Leadership and Culture: Culture is critical. The challenge for Hospice leaders is to connect the workforce to the ‘core purpose’- to help them see how their job everyday impacts the lives of everyone within their communities. 
  • Vision and Values: A key factor that attracts people to a career in palliative and end-of-life care is the vision and mission to provide high quality, person-centred care. 
  • Rotations and Preceptorships: There is a lot of interest across the sector for developing greater opportunities from clinical staff to undertake ‘rations’ across different providers and specialities. 
  • Devolved Decision Making: Stakeholders noted that covid-19 has helped to break down previous hierarchical structures and devolve decision making to team members closest to the patient. 
  • Diversity and Inclusion: Hospice leaders we spoke with talked about a desire to create a more inclusive culture where all employees thrive. Many noted that there was still more to be done in order to increase the representation of different diversity groups within the sector. 

And there you have it! 

And that’s that! Over the past 2 weeks, we hope we’ve been able to give insight into how Hospices can become more sustainable and rounded up The Discovery Phase of Future Vision Programme run by Hospice UK for you too.

If you’re looking for a volunteer management software that 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. 
  • Motivate and reward your volunteers with our achievement badges or create your own! 

Head over to our website and set yourself up a FREE trial!

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 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.

Should you still be working with online volunteers post-covid?

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On 13th October 2021

In COVID-19, Volunteer Management

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!

How to get young people volunteering at heritage sites…

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On 6th October 2021

In Community, Volunteer Management

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.

Volunteer Passports: Is this the future?

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On 8th September 2021

In COVID-19, News & Views

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:

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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.

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