Tag: Volunteer management system Page 3 of 34

Review and Refresh your Volunteer Management

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On 24th January 2024

In News & Views, Volunteer Management

As we embark on a new year, you may be feeling that it’s time to refresh your volunteer management style. Whether you do or do not currently use TeamKinetic, there is always room to improve your process and maximise volunteer management opportunities.

Digital Deep Dive

Are you making TeamKinetic work hard for you? With a wealth of features and regular updates, it is easy to overlook certain areas! Setting aside time to review your use of TeamKinetic will save time in the long run. Booking a session with our implementation manager will help you directly address the redundant areas of your system. Or, attend free masterclasses to address specific areas. For example, if you want to improve your use of transactional and bulk emailing, our ‘communicating with users’ masterclass is coming up! Simply go to Help and Support > Extra training in your system.

If you are not a TeamKinetic user, that does not necessarily mean you don’t do anything digitally! Reviewing your current volunteer management will reveal the areas for improvement. For example, a disorganised scheduling or rota system. Knowing your current sticking points is a great start if you decide to streamline your volunteer management. This can help frame your volunteer management software search.

Networking

Touching base with other organisations in your local area or network can also be insightful. Peer-to-peer learning is a way to test whether your volunteering patterns are also being seen by others. Together you can tackle these issues and even become part of a region-wide volunteering network. For example, TeamKinetic users in the Liverpool City Region have joined forces. As a result, volunteers can access opportunities from across the region. If you are currently a TeamKinetic user, through referral you can build your network and experience the benefits of a wider volunteer community. 

Are you Listening to your Volunteers?

Encouraging your volunteers and admins to leave feedback on volunteering opportunities is a great way to stay on track. As with your other volunteer data, feedback can be monitored and tracked within your TeamKinetic volunteer management system. Responding to the feedback is the most crucial step. Think of your volunteers as a part of your team, providing clarity and direction. Do you periodically send out volunteer surveys? Surveys can also be distributed from within TeamKinetic. Surveys will help to paint a broader, more long-term picture of the impact of any amendments you have made in response to feedback.

This may have made you wonder where there is any record of what your volunteers think! A lot of volunteering opportunities rely solely on verbal communication. Of course, in-person recognition and feedback are very valuable. However, when it comes to reviewing your volunteer programme, this can cause difficulties in providing substantive evidence of the volunteer experience. Consider implementing digital methods of recording volunteer feedback.

Communicate with Colleagues

Don’t assume that others in your department use TeamKinetic in the same way as you. Check in with your other admins to discover how they make the system work best for them. Booking on to one of our free open training sessions as a group is a great refresher and can help your team to regroup and align your efforts. 

Equally, if you do not have a volunteer management system in place, you must work together. Initiating talks over the positives and difficulties of your current volunteer management is part of the review and refresh process. You may be unaware that another of your colleagues is struggling to collect volunteer references, for example.

Refer to Standards and Frameworks

Our upcoming Digital Toolkit in partnership with the AVM is set to be a go-to for organisations looking to improve their digital volunteer management. We are working to help Volunteer Managers and Leaders to consider and adopt the digital tools, systems and approaches that are right for them. If you have any questions or requests please contact Gethyn Williams, here. This a toolkit shaped by those who will benefit most! 

Adhering to some Third Sector processes and accreditations can help boost the standard of your volunteering programmes. For example, ‘Investing in Volunteers’ or Volunteer Scotland’s ‘Volunteering Charter’.

Key Takeaways

Volunteer feedback, attendance, page visits and much more are logged within TeamKinetic. Don’t just collect volunteer data, review it! The third sector is a big community, make the most of this through networking and accessing the resources available to you. Similarly, communicate effectively within your organisation to ensure you are making the most of your current tools. If you would like a more formal refresh or extra training, TeamKinetic are always on hand to help! If you are not a TeamKinetic user and would like to see the system in action and discuss tailoring TeamKinetic to your needs, get in touch through the live chat pop-up here.

Ensure you follow us on our social media pages to receive regular updates about the voluntary sector and learn more about the TeamKinetic system.

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

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

TeamKinetic Best Practice: What Makes a Successful Site Launch

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On 10th January 2024

In News & Views, TeamKinetic Best Practice, TeamKinetic Features

We’re delighted to welcome any organisation to TeamKinetic. Besides creating software that works best for you and your volunteers, we want to help you make all aspects of your site launch successful! From pre-go-live communications to additional training, make the most of your site launch with the help of the following pointers.  

Pre-go-live Comms 

Communicating features and integrations is a valuable part of your overall communications strategy before your site goes live. Create a pre-go-live checklist to ensure that you spread maximum awareness of your launch. In your Implementation Guide, there is a checklist for optimising your TeamKinetic site, but you may want to go the extra mile. Include both volunteers and admin in your campaign. Span your communications across email, social media, your website and location. This will create a smooth transition for your admins and build anticipation amongst your volunteers. A new-found potential for volunteer impact is an inspiring message! Draw attention to the issues that you sought TeamKinetic to solve, in particular the issues that will resonate with your current volunteers. For example, difficulty notifying volunteers about shift changes.

Outlining Features and Integrations

If you have our enterprise package, you can fully customise your site with a unique set of features and integrations. Other versions are also customisable, just to a smaller extent. TeamKinetic works with your specific organisation and volunteers in mind. There is no doubt that your volunteers will want to know about the improvements to their volunteer experience! 

Our Tempo Time Credits and First Advantage integrations are other talking points. With Tempo, as your volunteers log hours on your TeamKinetic site, they will be granted real-life rewards. Rewards include activities, products or services. With volunteering taking somewhat of a downward turn due to the cost of living crisis and people’s lack of ‘free’ time, tangible rewards are a fantastic motivation.

Additional Training

Another way to make the transition to TeamKinetic smooth for your volunteers is to provide training sessions. We suggest having up to five admins. These admins can all join a TeamKinetic online training session at no extra cost. New admins are free to join our quarterly open training sessions. Or, address any additional training requirements with a one-to-one training session.

Running a similar form of training for your volunteers will help ease the transition to TeamKinetic. This is especially true for those who are not as accustomed to the online world. An optional training session in the run-up to your site launch will benefit you and your volunteers in the long run. You could even pre-record a show around of your TeamKinetic site or create a ‘cheat sheet’ for volunteers to access at their convenience. Let volunteers know about training or any additional materials during your pre-go-live communications. 

Using your Online Voice

As part of your pre-go-live communications, create a social media campaign that showcases integrations, use-cases, and promotes your online training sessions, for example. Your audience will become familiar with the idea of your new volunteer management system and be in support of the benefits. If you utilise social media, you may also gain the attention of those who have yet to volunteer with your organisation. 

If your TeamKinetic site is in partnership with multiple organisations within your area, the same goes for providers. As we explore in our ‘4 Ways to Attract More Volunteers’ blog, if all partners post about opportunities hosted on your TeamKinetic site, reach is maximised. You may choose to execute a cross-channel campaign that is contributed to by all organisations within your partnership. Showing provider profile pages will make it clear who volunteers will be engaging with. This strengthens the credibility and distribution of your content, and, in turn, your TeamKinetic site.

The same goes for linking to your main organisation’s website. Pre-launch, many volunteers will be used to going to your website for volunteering-related information. Ensure that they are appropriately redirected and informed about the purpose of your new TeamKinetic site. We explore this further here.

Helping the More Traditional Volunteer

Alongside running training sessions for those who might be less digitally savvy, it is helpful to have some computers or tablets at your organisation’s location. Volunteers may want to sign up and navigate your TeamKinetic site for the first time with help to hand. Of course, if you have the means, it would benefit certain volunteers if computers or tablets were constantly available. Our new app further simplifies the volunteer experience on TeamKinetic. 

You can invite your existing volunteers to your TeamKinetic site and volunteer opportunities with the ‘invite’ feature. This is another way to create a smooth transition to using TeamKinetic. For those who may not have been exposed to your online pre-go-live campaign, including signage at your location could be the catalyst for less digitally savvy volunteers to sign up to your TeamKinetic site.

Next Steps

Share why you’re excited about TeamKinetic with your volunteers! The period leading up to your site launch is transitional. Knowing what to say, where to say it, and to who to say it to is the foundation of a successful site launch.

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

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TeamKinetic 2023 Roundup

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On 20th December 2023

In News & Views

We’re quickly closing in on the end of the year and approaching 2024, so what better time than now to take you all on a walk down memory lane with our TeamKinetic 2023 Roundup?

January – March

At the start of the year, we created some new user guides to support everyone on TeamKinetic. This included a new volunteer guide and a new provider guide.

We also published a new episode of TeamTalk with Richard Evans and Danielle Hogan from England Netball. Chris, Imo, Richard and Danielle had a great discussion about how organisations can improve their accessibility and inclusion for everyone, including volunteers. Listen below.

April – June

AI was dominating the conversation early on in the year, so we started to discuss how tools like ChatGPT can help volunteer managers.

We had our first minor release of the year with version 2.3.0. This brought new search filtering options, the volunteer action log, printable opportunity PDFs, and more.

We closed out season 2 of our TeamTalk podcast with a thought-provoking episode with Piers Martin. Piers is Head of Leadership and Academy Workforce Development at the Premier League and the Chair at UK Deaf Sport. Chris, Imo, and Piers discussed a variety of aspects of the current state of volunteering and beyond, including accessibility and the importance of having representation at the board level. Listen below.


In May, we were treated to a home Eurovision. Taking place in Liverpool, we were honoured to be a part of the event as we provided our tools for the Eurovision team to manage their volunteers.

In June, we celebrated Volunteers’ Week. Every year we acknowledge the contribution volunteers make to society. But of course, we should remember to thank volunteers every day, not just one week a year!

We also released another TK update. In our 2.3.1 Minor Release, we made reporting on volunteers easier, more search filters, and more.

July – September

We kicked off Season Three of our TeamTalk podcast with a visit from Rob Jackson. They spoke about Rob’s career in the sector and how volunteer management and engagement are changing due to the influence of external factors such as the cost of living crisis and new advancements in technology.


In late July through to the end of August, Alex (that’s me!) jetted off to Australia to watch the Women’s World Cup. It was an incredible event led by thousands of volunteers – over 5000 to be precise. They even got a shoutout before kickoff at every game!

England made it to the final, but it wasn’t to be as Spain emerged as the champions of the world. Even so, it was an amazing experience.

In September, we hosted the 2023 TeamKinetic Conference. This year, we brought together voices from across the sector to discuss the changing world and its potential impact on volunteering. Once again, thank you to everyone who attended, spoke, and contributed to discussions. It was a fantastic event and we hope to see you all again next year.

October – December

In October we attended the Why Sports conference in London. The conference highlighted some great work being done to improve health and increase activity amongst the general public.
Chris also hosted a panel debate titled: We Can’t Keep Doing the Same Things and Expect a Different Result! How volunteers hold the key to a sustainable revolution in how we deliver for our communities.
This panel brought together Bryony Hudson, Lee Malkin, and Leila Bendrimia to discuss what volunteering means to their organisations. Read more on this here.

Next, we put our longstanding plans of developing a Digital Toolkit for volunteer managers into practice with an online roundtable discussion with volunteer managers from across the sector. The discussion was hosted by Gethyn Williams, facilitated by AVM, and brought up some great points to think about as we start to put together the toolkit. We hope to have more information for you on this in early 2024.

So what’s next?

We have a few exciting developments in the works, you’ll all be pleased to hear that we expect the new and improved TeamKinetic app to be ready for early January. We’ll be in touch with more information when we properly come back to the office in 2024. We also have some exciting new integrations with Tempo and First Advantage that we will bring you as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we hope you have an amazing break over the holidays and a very happy new year!

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.

4 Ways to Attract More Volunteers

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On 13th December 2023

In News & Views

It can be difficult to build a volunteer base. Even if you have an established group of regular volunteers, more are usually needed! With the help of some inspiration, you can begin to attract more new volunteers to your organisation and volunteer programs. 

Create a Buzz

If you can add an element of fun, through a competition or a family event day, for example, this will generate excitement for volunteers. Although handing out leaflets is an effective way to portray information, there will not be much intrigue. A build-up to an event or prize draw encourages involvement and discussion. Fostering a sense of community is crucial for many volunteer-involved organisations. 

Competitions are a great way to discover new volunteers. Competitions can be lighthearted or more meaningful. A competition that relates to your organisation’s purpose can be a form of volunteer induction, helping them to understand what, why and how you do what you do. For example, if you are a museum, you could run a photography competition for your museum and its collections. Potential volunteers will be inspired to visit and take an interest in what your organisation has to offer. Congratulate your entrants on their competition efforts and they will be more likely to offer their time as a volunteer. 

Inventive Opportunity Titles

Keep it simple with a funny or interesting opportunity title. For volunteers who are already navigating your TeamKinetic site, this will break up their browsing by attracting attention. Pique their interest and provide a sense of the opportunity, then give clarity through the opportunity description.

See the difference for yourself under the opportunity summary! Measure the click rate of opportunities with more versus less inventive opportunity titles.

Build your Brand Image

Sustaining a reputable name for your organisation takes maintenance! Ensure that your organisation has a personality and voice both online and offline. With an effectively communicated brand image, your organisation will stand out and become recognisable to prospective volunteers. 

Let people get to know your existing volunteers. Case studies, volunteer ‘profiles’ or interviews are a great way to show appreciation for your existing volunteers whilst connecting with potential volunteers. This humanises your organisation and gives credibility to your volunteering opportunities. Honesty and transparency are key!

Create conversation on social media. Pose questions or give advice for your audience to engage with. Social media can be far-reaching, as your community responds, their connections will be exposed to your content, and so on. Your social pages are also a great place to feature volunteering opportunities. After creating an opportunity on your TeamKinetic site, there is an option to ‘Share’ to multiple channels including your organisation’s social media accounts under the ‘Promote’ tab on the left-hand toolbar. If your opportunities are reflective of your organisation, your social media accounts will also accurately portray your brand image. As a result, you will attract the right kind of volunteers. For more advice on signposting your TeamKinetic site via social media, click here.

Develop Partnerships

Working with external partners helps to attract more volunteers. For example, the Liverpool City Region Volunteering Hub uses its TeamKinetic site to link volunteers from across the Liverpool City Region. Partners include One Knowsley and Halton and St Helens VCA. All the above tips can be used, just on a wider scale! Every organisation within your partnership can engage with new and existing volunteers. 

If you are not currently in partnership with other organisations, you can link out of your TeamKinetic provider page. Link with local community groups and organisations and attract more volunteers to your TeamKinetic site. Volunteers who currently engage with your partnered organisations will be exposed to your opportunities too.

Before you can recruit volunteers you need to find them! These simple tips can boost your community and volunteer base.

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.

Setting Volunteering Objectives

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On 29th November 2023

In News & Views

As discussed in our previous blog, setting volunteering objectives helps to motivate your volunteers. Clarifying the volunteering purpose and approach can aid your opportunity creation process and eliminate any uncertainties that cause barriers to volunteering. If you want a quick-fire method for pinning down your volunteering objectives, read on!

For your volunteers

Volunteering objectives depend on the volunteering opportunity. Some objectives are more easy to define than others. However, the danger of a seemingly simple volunteering objective is that it is not communicated to the volunteer. Do not assume that simple objectives are obvious to someone who is not directly involved with your organisation. 

Outline your volunteering objectives within your opportunity description. Volunteers can then evaluate how well the opportunity aligns with their lifestyle, interests and intentions. Objectives also help give the prospective volunteer a sense of who you are as an organisation. 

For your organisation

Setting volunteering objectives is also a useful exercise for clarifying the purpose of an opportunity for you and your organisation. If you implement objective setting in your opportunity creation process, your objectives are more likely to be successful. It is more effective to have fewer attractive, well-organised volunteering opportunities than many undefined, therefore unattractive, opportunities. 

The Method

You may be familiar with using the SMART method in professional or academic settings. For the reasons outlined above, it is also beneficial to create specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound volunteering objectives.

Combine the following 5 elements and you will have a SMART objective. For example, ‘To distribute 5000kg of food donations to households in Manchester by 1st January 2025, helping improve the wellbeing of the community’.

Specific – The objective is focused and clearly defined.

Upon applying or joining an opportunity, volunteers will be certain about what the volunteering opportunity entails. 

Measurable – Volunteering efforts can be quantified. 

This does not have to be numerical but it is useful for there to be a method for determining the success of your volunteering opportunity.

Attainable – The objective may be aspirational, but it is realistic. 

An achievable goal is essential for motivating volunteers and clarifying what success means for your organisation.

Relevant – This objective is consistent with the purpose of your organisation.

Volunteers will be able to make the connection between volunteering and making a contribution to the broader goals of your organisation.

Timely – There is a time frame given to achieve the objective.

This can be a rolling or set deadline. It is important for volunteers to be aware of the level and length of commitment that is expected.

Be SMART!

For the benefit of you and your volunteers, set SMART objectives. Help to streamline your volunteering opportunity creation and recruitment process. The opportunity description is the perfect place to inform your volunteers and make sure they understand the opportunity objective or objectives!

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.

Motivating Busy Volunteers

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On 22nd November 2023

In News & Views

When someone has very little spare time, motivating them to volunteer can be especially difficult. This is not always due to a lack of desire to help, but because of an inability to commit and a long list of other priorities. If you would like to widen your volunteer base and help with motivating busy volunteers, try and incorporate one or more of the following strategies. After all, if you want something done, ask a busy person!

Clear Goals

Establish the purpose of your volunteering opportunity. Whether this is simple or more complicated, volunteers must be aware of the desired outcome. This way, volunteers can decide whether they can volunteer whilst maintaining their other commitments. Be positive yet realistic. 

The opportunity description is the first port of call for opportunity information. Ensure this is filled out with detailed yet clear information as to the purpose of the volunteering opportunity; not just what the opportunity involves.

Recognition

Remind volunteers of their impact! If a volunteer is unaware of the difference they are making, they may be quick to lose interest. Follow the achievement of a pre-defined outcome with recognition. Without recognition, volunteers may lose sight of the volunteering opportunity’s purpose and their achievements.

With TeamKinetic, a volunteer’s ‘achievements’ are visible to the volunteer within the system. As an admin, you can see impact reports of whole volunteer groups. It’s worth using this data to help recruit additional volunteers.

Examples

Don’t just tell volunteers what success looks like, show them! If a busy person sees a real-life example of a volunteer that they can relate to, they are more likely to volunteer. Showcasing real volunteers also adds credibility to your organisation because volunteers can trust that their needs will be accounted for. The same goes for attracting volunteers from minority groups.

Utilise images during your opportunity creation process. A visual representation can be compelling. The chat feature can also be used to communicate with other volunteers. Volunteers can identify their similarities and discuss how volunteering fits into their lifestyle.

Know your Volunteers

With TeamKinetic, you can invite volunteers to opportunities. This is a great tool for saving both you and your volunteers time. However, if sent inappropriately, busy volunteers can be discouraged from continuing volunteering with your organisation.

Create a ‘group’ for volunteers who have expressed that they only want to volunteer a certain amount of hours per month, for example. This way, you can avoid spamming busy volunteers with invites to opportunities they are most likely unable to attend.

With our recent poll showing that 18% of volunteer managers want to engage more working professionals, it’s time to start motivating busy volunteers. Steer away from the stereotype of volunteers as elderly people with an abundance of free time. Your organisation can welcome all types of volunteers!

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

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

How the Culture Pass could revive event volunteering

How the Culture Pass could revive event volunteering

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On 8th November 2023

In News & Views, Volunteer Management

It’s no secret that volunteering numbers have taken a hit as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Culture Pass has been introduced into European countries to try and revive young people’s interest in the arts, but could it also kickstart a boost in event volunteering?

What is the Culture Pass?

Young people across various European countries are being offered a “culture pass”. In general, the pass is offered to people turning 18 years old.

The pass gives young people the opportunity to experience music, theatre and arts for free.

Italy

Introduced in 2016, giving 18-year-olds €500 to spend. Data shows that the majority (83%) have spent their money on books, followed by music products and concert tickets. The system will be reformed in 2024 so that vouchers are only given under certain conditions. Passes will then be given to 18-year-olds from low-income families (income below €35,000 per year) and those who achieve top grades in school.

France

Launched in 2021 to give 18-year-olds €300 to spend within two years. Their app-based pass encourages spending on art experiences, books, musical instruments, online subscriptions and more from French companies/publishers. Following success with 18-year-olds, the scheme was extended to give those aged 15 – 17 money towards cultural experiences too. Each year, 15-year-olds receive €20, while 16 and 17-year-olds receive €30 through the app.

Spain

Starting from 2022, 18-year-olds were given €400 to spend within a year.

Divided into three sections:

  • €200 can be spent on live arts.
  • €100 can be spent on physical cultural products (books, magazines, newspapers, etc.).
  • The remaining €100 to be spent on digital media/consumptions.

Cinema, video games, shows and books were the biggest areas of interest for people using the vouchers. There are calls for the voucher to offer a bigger % of the total to spend on books.

Germany

Brought in from 2023, giving 18-year-olds €200 to spend across two years. Singular purchases are limited in value to encourage a variety of experiences. The pass can only be used on experiences provided by German suppliers, e.g. online platforms such as Amazon and Spotify are not included. The scheme could be extended to 15 to 17-year-olds if successful, like in France.

How can they help?

These passes were mostly introduced to battle the negative impacts of the COVID pandemic on the sector and young people’s lives. Many people were deprived of cultural experiences as a result of lockdowns and this pass aims to introduce them to a variety of arts – especially those who may not have the financial means themselves.

It has been argued that young people making use of the passes will just stick to what they know and favour experiences such as live concerts and video games. However, it is suggested that a large percentage of purchases using the vouchers are going on books from local booksellers, creating a new generation of readers. Furthermore, this is still a valuable resource to offer, giving young people an opportunity to develop a lifelong appreciation of culture, no matter what they choose to spend it on.

If you’re not in the habit of going to see a play or a film or an exhibition in your late teens and early twenties, then you’re not likely to prise yourself away from the couch to go out to cultural events later in life.

Maureen Kennelly, director of the Arts Council

Aside from this, it is also true that the arts sector has struggled, almost coming to a standstill during the pandemic. In Spain and Germany, the cultural vouchers were specifically implemented as a way to assist the cultural/creative sectors. They experienced substantial setbacks due to reduced customer traffic and revenue during the pandemic, but these vouchers have no doubt injected life back into the sector.

But is their success something that we can replicate in the UK?

The case for a UK Culture Pass

While the UK offers universal free admission to national museums, there is no sign of a widespread ‘culture pass’ being introduced for young people. This doesn’t mean no effort is being made on a local level. In Cornwall, they’ve created a ‘Culture Card’, offered to young people (11 – 25) who have been in care at any stage in their life. This card gives free access to various cultural sites across Cornwall, such as museums, art galleries, and national trust sites.

The success of these schemes is clear across the four countries mentioned throughout this post. We have four different examples to look at, learn from, and adapt to suit the UK – it seems like a no-brainer. Of course, the financial investment from the government will be a large barrier to implementation, but the support it will provide to the sector and general economy, and the improvement to people’s wellbeing will surely balance this investment.

Boosting Event Volunteer Engagement

Giving young people a chance to not only have new cultural experiences, but to build habits around the arts, opens the door to boosting the sector in the long-term. In addition, it would provide a gateway for them to get into volunteering within the arts.

Diverse Volunteer Pool

The pass might also attract a more diverse audience to cultural institutions, which could lead to a more diverse pool of potential volunteers. A broader range of backgrounds and experiences can enrich the volunteer community. These volunteers are also likely to be more diverse as there will be no financial barriers, allowing people to get involved regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Enhanced Volunteer Recruitment

Cultural organizations may find it easier to recruit volunteers when more people are engaged with their activities. The pass can serve as a gateway to introduce potential volunteers to these institutions.

Generally, one of the large barriers to volunteering is a lack of free time. This barrier is likely to be lessened among young people. They also have encouragement through external ventures such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which requires a certain amount of time spent volunteering.

Do you think the UK should implement a culture pass? How would you structure it? And what would be included? Even without the implementation of a culture pass, it’s worth thinking about how we can make events more accessible to young people.

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

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P.S. 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.

Third Sector Climate Impact

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On 1st November 2023

In News & Views

In light of recent news concerning the UK’s climate-related government policy, it is fitting to draw attention to the third sector’s climate impact. This blog will also explore the ways that your organisation can reduce their climate impact and the climate benefits of volunteering. Armed with this knowledge, the third sector can push for more sustainable volunteer practices and progress towards Net Zero. 

The Third Sector / Climate Connection

The climate crisis is an all-encompassing issue. The climate situation’s impact on global factors including health and inequality means that the climate crisis is extremely relevant to the third sector. Irrespective of governmental decision-making, the third sector can make systemic changes that will impact a number of climate-related issues.

There have been several reports by influential sector voices including Charity Digital. Similarly, Reach Volunteering has taken responsibility for raising awareness of the connection between climate impact and volunteering. Reach Volunteering’s #VolunteerForClimate campaign works to spotlight many environmental and climate organisations that are facilitating volunteering opportunities. 

Your Impact Potential

Besides educating yourself and your organisation on the findings of industry and climate reports, or getting involved in third-party initiatives, you are probably wondering what climate-related measures can be directly implemented in your organisation. Charity Digital’s research found that 88% of charities are concerned about climate change, but 52% are unaware of the actions that other organisations are undertaking. Ways to limit your organisation’s climate impact include:

Divesting from Fossil Fuels

Making a commitment that your organisation will not make new investments in fossil fuels in the next 3 to 5 years is powerful. NCVO’s ‘Fuelling Positive Change’ campaign supports education and implementation of fossil fuel divestment. Since 2012, almost 1600 organisations from all sectors have committed to divesting from fossil fuels. Even Amnesty International have pleaded their support to the ‘Fuelling Positive Change’ campaign. Krystal is an example of a tool that helps your organisation to divest entirely from fossil fuels. With Krystal, 100% of your organisation’s web hosting can be powered by renewable energy.

Social Investments

As a volunteer-involved organisation, you are likely already investing in charitable purposes. Consider causes that can positively impact the climate. Community infrastructure that pushes for renewable energy, for example, can help achieve climate goals. 

Working Together!

Become a part of the third sector’s collective climate initiatives. For example, ACEVO has a climate crisis working group and NPC has the Everyone’s Environment programme. If a member of your organisation were to get involved, climate-related sector information can be passed on and utilised. Speaking out on your organisation’s platforms under Reach Volunteering’s hashtag #ChangeTheStory, for example, brings awareness to the climate crisis amongst fellow volunteer-involved organisations.

Climate Impact from the Volunteer’s Perspective

Running your own climate-related volunteering opportunities is beneficial for both the environment and your volunteers. Increasingly, people are reporting that they feel ‘climate anxiety’. This anxiety is often due to an awareness of the climate crisis yet feeling powerless to make a substantial difference. Rosemary from Bradford has experience of working within sustainability and chose to volunteer to share her skills and feel connected to her community. Rosemary feels that volunteering has helped to keep her climate anxiety at bay.

There are so many challenges, perspectives and types of action related to climate. If you’re thinking about volunteering, there will definitely be an organisation which will be the right fit for you.

Rosemary

Take Action Now

Foundational to the third sector’s climate impact is sharing information and resources. Join forces with other organisations either as an educational or practical way to positively impact the climate. Involve volunteers where possible; this will boost your climate impact and community well-being. As articulated by NCVO’s Alex Farrow when speaking on the ‘Fuelling Positive Change’ campaign:

“The impacts of climate change will make everything our sector does harder. Our campaign is a rallying cry to take collective action on one of the biggest challenges we face.”

Alex Farrow,  NCVO

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

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

TeamKinetic 2.4.1 Minor Release

By

On 25th October 2023

In News & Views, TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

The latest minor release is out in the wild now. Here are the big things to watch out for in the new TeamKinetic update.

Tempo Time Credit Integration

This is super exciting and we will be covering this in some other posts and communications.

If you join the Tempo Time Credit scheme, your volunteers will be able to exchange hours they log in TeamKinetic for real-world rewards in their local area. It’s a fantastic way to reward and recognise your volunteers.

The process is fully integrated and volunteers can register and exchange hours from right within the TeamKinetic app. You can find out more on the Tempo website.

Please fill out this form if you’re interested: https://forms.gle/ryvW7cs3yGJGNnV26

TeamKinetic update: screenshot showing Tempo Time Credits integration

First Advantage Digital Check Integration

Another first for volunteer management software. We have integrated the First Advantage digital and criminal check service right into the TeamKinetic app.

As an admin, all you need to do is select the volunteer whose identity you want to check or perform a criminal check on and hit a single button! The volunteer will be contacted to download an identity check app to their phone, proceed to verify their identity, and then the criminal check will be performed and the results fed straight back into TeamKinetic. We expect most checks to be completed within 48 hours.

It’s also possible to perform in-person identity checks and just use the service to complete the criminal check if you are satisfied with the documents presented.

If you’re interested in integrating your identity and criminal checks directly into your volunteer programme, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ryvW7cs3yGJGNnV26

TeamKinetic update: image showing the integrated criminal check process

Gender and Birth Sex

We have now successfully decoupled our gender and birth sex questions. Previously we collected the birth sex answer as part of the gender question and you might have noticed that Female/Male was always appended to your own gender list.

We used this answer to define a birth sex of female or male so that if opportunity creators restricted an opportunity by sex we could correctly identify those volunteers that matched.

We’ve been monitoring the usage of the sex-restricted opportunities and it has been going down and down so we decided it was the right time to break this a little so we can get our gender/sex position correct.

You’ll see two new options in the Super Admin Settings > Options menu under the registration section that you can use to switch on/off the Birth Sex and Gender questions. If enabled the questions will be asked at registration and also within the volunteers profile.

If your organisation has no sex-restricted opportunities then the birth sex question will be switched off. We have also retained the female/male responses in your gender lists, but they are now editable, and if you wish you could remove them and use cisgender or whatever your organisation prefers.

Screenshot showing changes to the sex/gender questions in the registration form

Disability and Support Questions

We have also split up this section into two optional registration questions so you can choose to ask if a volunteer considers themselves disabled and/or if they have any extra support issues. We know that for some organisations it is not appropriate to ask or record if a volunteer is disabled but it’s still useful to know about any support issues you can help with.

These options can be found in the REGISTRATION section of the Super Admin Settings > Options menu.

Along with the now optional sex and gender questions you can now have a really minimal registration page which we would always advocate if you don’t need the extra data.

Screenshot showing the volunteer registration form without any gender/sex questions

Auto Deletion of Volunteers

We recognise that storing old data can be an issue, both for GDPR and reporting. It has always been possible to delete volunteers based on a filter like login activity but it was manual. We have added a new feature where you can switch on auto deletion and enter the period of inactivity after which to remove the volunteers.

Matching volunteers will be marked for deletion if they have not logged in within the period you specify, which is 12 months by default. Then after 48 hours, they will be removed and their hours saved in the usual way for deleted volunteers.

Recording No-Shows

For some of our customers, no-shows can be a real issue and while it has been possible to check volunteers in via the day schedule report page, and for volunteers to self-report as a no-show, we’ve not supported an admin method to record the no-show.

You can now do this for single or multiple sessions in the past from the Log Hours section of the opportunity management page. This data is being recorded and once we have some more to work with we will be reporting this data back via the reporting pages and volunteer management page.

Screenshot showing how users can record a no-show volunteer within TeamKinetic now

Volunteer Status

In the past we have had three possible statuses for a volunteer; newly registered with no access, access granted, and access revoked. We have extended this to include a retired status, a revoked due to safeguarding issues, and an under-review status. These status changes have also been added to the webhook actions so your connected applications can be notified when a volunteer’s status changes.

Screenshot showing the different volunteer access options

More Automated Notifications

We’ve added a few more email notifications to try and streamline the pre and post-session operation.

If you utilise the custom opp joining email to let your volunteers know more details about the opportunity once they have joined, then we will resend that email the day before a volunteer’s next session, just to remind them!

We have also added an editable post-opportunity period setting so that you can control how long after a volunteer’s last session on an opportunity they receive the post-opp reminder email (or you can switch it off entirely). If the opportunity has a post-opp survey or document this will be appended to the email.

Screenshot showing the TeamKinetic settings for Email Notifications

The eagle-eyed amongst you will also notice in that screenshot that you can now also choose to include or exclude events in the weekly email newsletter that is sent every Friday.

There is of course, as always, the usual bug fixes and small changes that we hope make your day-to-day interaction with TeamKinetic better and better.

Many thanks to all our customers who open support tickets and new feature requests that helped shape this TeamKinetic update…keep them coming in!

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

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on G2, we’d really appreciate it!

Halloween Volunteering Opportunities

By

On 25th October 2023

In News & Views

For alternative ways to fundraise, attract new volunteers, and excite existing volunteers, add a bit of seasonality to your volunteering opportunities! With Halloween just around the corner, it’s not too late to create volunteering opportunities on your TeamKinetic system. Take inspiration from the following Halloween volunteering opportunities and you’ll have a volunteer-involved event organised in no time!

Spooky Movie Screening

Some fundraising opportunities can be hosted entirely by volunteers! Hosting a screening of a Halloween film is minimal effort but can generate a significant reward. Guests will pay a small fee for an evening of frighteningly good entertainment. Whether this is a family-friendly event or a super scary horror night; consider what will be most appealing to your organisation’s audience and volunteers. Simply provide seating and project your film of choice. As an additional fundraising opportunity, include a Halloween bake sale or tuckshop.

Trick-Or-Treat QR Codes

Encourage your volunteers to take home stickers with a ‘scan to donate’ QR code or QR code linked to your TeamKinetic site. Stickers can be placed on buckets taken out treat-or-treating or placed on a bucket containing your own treats for treat-or-trickers to take from. Volunteering has never been so easy! Besides donations, this is also a great way to raise awareness of your organisation. QR.io is a useful free tool for generating QR codes.

Halloween Sweet Treats

A Halloween bake sale can be a stand-alone event or incorporated into a larger volunteering opportunity like a games night or movie screening. Encourage people to bring along Halloween-themed treats and the hard work will be done for you! Be sure to indicate that all proceeds will go to your organisation’s worthy cause. Task volunteers with running the stall or even making or preparing items for sale. Click here for some fun Halloween baking ideas!

Now it’s your jack-o’-lantern!

Don’t give up the ghost; engage with seasonal events! Halloween is perfect for fundraising events that are also great volunteering opportunities. Remember to signpost your Halloween volunteering opportunities at your organisation location and across your website, social media and TeamKinetic site itself. This is essential to boost volunteer registrations in a short time period!

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

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

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

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