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TeamKinetic 2022 Round-Up

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On 20th December 2022

In News & Views

The end of 2022 is fast approaching – what better time than now to look back at the past year with a TeamKinetic 2022 round-up?

It’s been another challenging year for everyone, but the amazing work done by volunteer-involving organisations continues.

We have had a year full of development, with regular updates and one major release. We also had a few staff highlights, like Rolf’s volunteering-filled trip to Borneo and Alex seeing England take home the Women’s EURO 2022 trophy.

January – March

In January we started our own podcast! Chris had been wanting to start one for a while, but at the start of the year we finally took the plunge and TeamTalk with TeamKinetic was born.

We kicked things off with Season 1, featuring Willowbrook Hospice, The Pankhurst Trust, Manchester City Council and the Association of Volunteer Managers.

Find and listen to all our current episodes below.


We also brought out a 2.1.1 Interim Release that included new features like email failure reports, more sortable tables, and a refresh to the news feature.

April & May

In April, the Kindocoin SBRI project officially launched Phase 2. TeamKinetic is one of two companies developing and evaluating our prototype solution in a real-world setting. You can read more about what we’ve been working on here, along with more information from Health Innovation South East Scotland.

In May, we attended Volunteer Expo – a fantastic event that connects communities and brings together many sectors under one roof to celebrate what it is that unites us. There were a range of interesting talks held at the event, but one that really caught our eye was the launch of the Vision for Volunteering.

There are five threads of the launch:
1. Awareness and Appreciation,
2. Equity and Inclusion,
3. Experimentation,
4. Collaboration
5. Power

For each of these themes, the Vision for Volunteering highlights their ambitions and what volunteering should be like 10 years from now.

June

In June we said hello to our new Marketing Coordinator, Isabella! You can read her introductory blog here.

However, that meant we had to say goodbye to Katie as she returned to her final year at university to finish her degree. We wish Katie the best of luck and hope to continue seeing her at occasional TeamKinetic socials!

As is always the case with new arrivals and staff members leaving, we had to go on a little work social. We made our way over to Roxy Ball Room to have a few games of shuffleboard and crazy pool – along with a few drinks of course!

@teamkineticuk

did we know the rules of shuffleboard before this? no. do we now? …still no.

♬ FEEL THE GROOVE – Queens Road, Fabian Graetz

July and August

In July, we restarted the TeamKinetic Masterclasses! These seem to have been well received and hopefully, we can continue them into the new year.

If you have any suggestions for topics you might like to see covered in the future, please let us know. Either reach out via email or through our website’s live chat.

You can see most of our Masterclasses over on our YouTube channel by clicking here.

In August, we announced our next major update, the TeamKinetic 2.20 Major Release. We invited our users to start beta testing to iron out any remaining bugs and received lots of helpful feedback.

September

September saw the return of the TeamKinetic annual conference! This year we brought a range of exciting speakers from across the third sector together, all tying into our main conference theme:

‘Volunteering to 2030: What might the future look like?’

Day One took a deeper look at the TeamKinetic system as it stands today and how it could change in the future. Day Two focused on the third sector as a whole. Our speakers shared their views on best volunteer management practices and how managers may need to adapt for the future.

If you couldn’t attend the conference, don’t worry, you can catch up on some of the sessions in this playlist.

 October

After the warm reception for Season 1, we decided to refresh the format of our TeamTalk Podcast. Season 2 saw the introduction of a co-host: Imogen Greatbatch! Chris and Imogen delved into the world of sport volunteering together, talking to a range of people from organisations such as Sport England, British Blind Sport, and Formula E.

Who knows what’s in store for season 3… If you have any suggestions or would like to be in an episode please do let us know by contacting either Chris or Alex.

November

In early November, after meticulous testing and taking in all user feedback, we rolled out the update across all sites. The new update included:
– A new system for creating opportunities.
– Better sharing options via LinkWide & the national Scottish system MILO.
– Bulk email scheduling.
– Reporting improvements
and much more!

We also headed out on a work social. We got some drinks, ate some pizza and headed over to the lovely Albert Hall to play some Bongo’s Bingo. I think it’s safe to say some of us played more bingo than others…

December

And here we are now, in December. We just rolled out two exciting new features: Admin Chat and Bulk Actions on Sessions.

The Admin Chat gives all our admin users a space to interact with each other. Whether it be a general chat or sharing your volunteer management hints and tips. The new Bulk Actions on Sessions allows you greater control over editing multiple opportunity sessions in one go.

It’s been an eventful year, one we can really build on in the future. We hope to continue to grow as a company and make the TeamKinetic system the best it can be.

Thank you for coming on this journey with us.

All that’s left to say is Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate. And, finally, have a Happy New Year – we’ll see you in 2022! 

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! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

Our Round Up Of The Year 2021

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On 22nd December 2021

In Christmas, Community, News & Views

With t-minus 3 days until Christmas Day, we wanted to look back at our 2021 with a round up! It’s been another tough year for everyone, but we’ve managed to find some light in moments this year. From award shows to blossoming partnerships, 2021 has been a year of developments for TeamKinetic.

Let’s have a look at our year in numbers.

January – March

The year started very much as this one is finishing, much to everyone’s frustration.

Volunteering was still very much on the agenda as we saw vaccination programs in full swing across the country. We were really proud to support a whole range of organisations mobilising an amazing army of volunteers.

People talk about the Anti-Vax brigade but we can tell you first-hand the Pro-Vax crowd are amazing and were out in force at the start of the year, and we take our hats off to each and every one of them!

March brought some wonderful news when we were honoured to be awarded ‘The Partner Excellence’ and the ‘COVID-19 Response Recognition’ awards for our work with Halton and St Helens Voluntary Community Action at the iNetwork awards. It was a huge achievement for TeamKinetic and our partners and a milestone we won’t be forgetting – especially for the recognition of our efforts throughout COVID.

March round up

The key achievements from our work with Halton and St Helens saw 1,744 volunteers registered and together they offered 8,688 volunteering hours. Our volunteer support economic value offered £80,796 during the first six months of the programme. For those feeling lonely or isolated, we were able to support 16,161 telephone calls to make those feel a little less lonely during repeated lockdowns and restrictions. Overall, we were able to support 32,993 in such a short amount of time and we can’t be more proud of the project.

We can’t thank Halton and St Helens VCA and St Helens Council enough; along with every single amazing volunteer for your commitment and drive, you make it all worthwhile. If you haven’t seen their short video on how important volunteers were during COVID, spend a couple of minutes and check it out.

May and June

Moving onto May, we held our first online conference, focusing on COVID-19, and what happens next. We’d like to say thank you to all our speakers and to those 140 people who attended. With talks from the likes of Gethyn Williams, Dr Jurgen Grotz, Kathryn Palmer-Skillings and our own Chris Martin, the conference was a success!

We do have a quick wrap-up video that you can check out here.

In June we said some hellos! We welcomed Alex back into the fold. Having already completed her placement year at TeamKinetic, we welcomed back a familiar face. You can read her (re)introduction to TeamKinetic life, here. 

Coming back to TeamKinetic has been great! I’m grateful to the team for offering me this position straight out of university and I’m looking forward to what we can achieve next.

Alex

We also welcomed a fresh face to the team: Katie. Along with Alex, Katie also wrote an introductory blog post which you can read here.

It’s been a whirlwind of a time since I joined in June and I can’t wait to see what comes next in the next six months.

Katie

With new welcomes, we said some goodbyes at the start of July. We said goodbye to Chloe and Sammy, who were our 2020/21 placement students. They took charge of the TeamKinetic conference and supplied you with dog pictures on our Twitter. Alex and Katie are more cat people, and so our pet content has changed significantly over the past couple of months (much to Chloe and Sammy’s dismay).

Both Chloe and Sammy are well underway with their final year at university. We’re wishing them the best of luck seeing out the rest of their degree.

July and August

Rolf, Steve and Chris on the Razzle

July saw us return to the office full-time as we thought the world was getting back to normal.  It also saw the return of the legendary TeamKinetic staff night out, I must apologise to Chloe, Sammy, Katie and Alex as the night was so messy this appears to be the only surviving picture of these 3 ugly mugs!

August saw the launch of TeamKinetic 2.0 the latest all-singing and dancing version of TeamKinetic. Unlike previous updates, this one was a monster with more new features and controls than anything we had done before. Not only that we had updated and replaced all the old legacy code with a new and improved code base.  Steve and Rolf worked day and night to get it ready and after it launched to find and fix those pesky bugs.

This new code base has set us up to be able to continue to improve the service quicker and hopefully will ensure you guys have the very best technology available for the next few years. 

September

In September, we were so proud to announce our partnership with the Association of Volunteer Managers. Founder, Chris Martin, detailed our hopes for the next 12 months, some of which we’ve started on already… 

Over the next 12 months, we will be working with the team at AVM to develop some accessible resources and materials that you might find useful if you are thinking about how you might use digital. We will be exploring what type of member offers and benefits you might like from us to make it easy and affordable for you to look at digital volunteer management and most importantly we hope to get to know you all a little bit better.

Chris

You can watch Chris and Ruth at AVM discuss the new partnership below. We’re excited to see what can become of this partnership with AVM heading into 2022.

We also worked with the guys in Scotland to help them launch their first ever cross-sector heritage volunteer campaign called Make your Mark. The ambition of the campaign was fantastic, how can they recruit a new generation of heritage volunteers and how can they broaden inclusion and accessibility to a whole group of new people. We were really happy to be part of the program and that TeamKinetic was to be used to drive the recruitment campaign. You can watch their launch video here, it’s pretty cool.

 October

October brought Halloween and our sponsorship of AVM’s annual conference. The two-day conference opened up insightful conversations with speakers that really got us thinking! It was our first time sponsoring the event and it was really nice to support something we have attended for so long.

It was also really lovely to catch up with people and see a number of faces we hadn’t seen in a while, even if it was just over Zoom, who knows what next year might look like but fingers crossed for catching up over the buffet or a glass of wine.

October also brought the first of our talks regarding digital volunteer management with the Charity Retail Association. We really wanted 2021 to be the year we looked at how we could better support the wider sector and working with both Charity Retail and AVM were key decisions that would enable us to share our knowledge and support the wider sector.

If you were there, I hope our 30/40 minute talk was insightful for those attending, and we hope we will be doing more of these in the new year.

November Talks:

November round up

We had a quick start to November with the Local Government Chronicle Awards. Once again, we were nominated in two categories, for our work over the past year with Halton and St Helens. The categories were Campaign of the Year and Technology. While we didn’t win, it was an honour to be nominated. We have to thank everyone at Halton and St Helens and the volunteers for creating such a successful project.
(Chris also enjoyed a night away in London maybe a little too much if his hangover was anything to go by!) 

We also were honoured to be asked to talk at COP26. The invitation came from the team running Make Your Mark in Scotland. We also heard from the likes of Chester Zoo, the National History Museum and Rob Jackson. It was another insightful day, which Katie personally enjoyed live tweeting her way through.

Volunteering, like every sphere of human life, needs to look at its role in climate change and it was really inspiring to hear what is happening and what you can do to make a change.

If you missed it why not check it out here:

The middle of November meant it was time to head down south for the day. Jumping on the train to London, we met up with the Charity Retail Association for their People Management Group – a successful hybrid event we spoke at. This was the first hybrid event we’ve attended, and we wanted to highlight the work put in by the team to make sure everything ran smoothly. While half of the attendees weren’t in the room, it never felt like they were anywhere else (apart from the leftover lunches!) We want to thank the CRA for including us in multiple of their events over 2021, and we hope to be continuing this into 2022.

Being back in person at an event was great and it felt like it was all going to be plain sailing moving into 2022, little did we know what was about to change everything!

December Celebrations:

In December, the Health Innovation Network (HIN) on behalf of NHSX released an evaluation into the value of micro-volunteering applications during the global pandemic. We were really excited to be a key contributor to the findings. The findings were also positive towards TeamKinetic and our approach to localised Micro-volunteering community response.

Through the use of these applications, over 100,000 individuals carried out 1.5 million tasks for the vulnerable during the global pandemic. Evidence suggests that micro-volunteering engages a willing volunteer force and addresses unmet community needs. It was also clear that the pandemic drove interest into the value of these platforms.

You can access the full evaluation summary report by clicking here.

We also managed to squeeze in our Christmas party and our annual Christmas jumper day which was fun.

December has not quite turned out as we would have liked. There are refreshed calls for Volunteers to support the booster campaign. It’s all starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day as we find ourselves back in a COVID-induced crisis.

It’s been an uncertain year at times. While we’re still waiting for the days we can ‘go back to normal’, we think we’ve managed to have another successful year and that we have helped to make volunteering that little bit easier and more accessible.

If we have learned anything from 2021, it’s that you can’t plan too far in advance. You should enjoy the simple things in life and take the small victories where you can find them. You just can’t be sure what’s around the corner.

All that’s left to say is Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate. And, finally, have a Happy New Year – we’ll see you in 2022! 

Christmas Volunteering

Christmas: Volunteering is needed now more than ever

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On 15th December 2021

In Charity, Christmas, Community, News & Views

“It’s Chrisstmaasss!” For many this festive time of year is to relax and enjoy time with friends and family; but, for many, Christmas is a time of sadness, loneliness and stress. 2021 has been another tough year for charities, and those that they help. At Christmas time, charities rely on volunteers, donations, or fundraisers to help them through this festive season. With at least 3.5 million people not looking forward to Christmas this year for a myriad of reasons, It’s time to unleash your inner elf, and start volunteering or fundraising in your local community.

Befriending Services 

According to Age UK, more than 2.5 million older people have no one to turn to for help and support. The charity’s network of local groups means there are a number of opportunities available for you to engage with- they aren’t limited to just Christmas, but maybe Christmas is the best time to start.

These opportunities also include their befriending scheme, both face-to-face and through telephone calls. Partnering with The Silver Line, Age UK offers free phone friendship services, meaning you’re able to comfort someone over the phone, from your own home. At many Age UK branches, you can become a befriender volunteer and visit an older person in their home or accompany them to doctor’s visits or the theatre. You can hear more about the befriending services through Rose and Sarah’s story here.

Age UK isn’t the only charity who offer these types of befriending services, Independent Age and Royal Voluntary Service offer similar services, open to volunteers just like you.

Befriending services are across the country this Christmas. No one should feel lonely.

Crisis at Christmas

Charity Crisis has been helping those take their first steps out of homelessness since 1967. Christmas donations of just £29.06 helps provide a place that’s safe to stay at, hot meals- including a Christmas Dinner, companionship and year-round support such as training and education to help someone end their homelessness for good.

Crisis this year has setups in London along with multiple other regions across the country, including our very own Manchester. In London, Crisis will be providing accommodation during the Christmas and New Year period to those who would alternatively be spending Christmas on the streets.

They’ll also be opening their day centres in the capital along with their other sites across Britain delivering hot meals and providing advice, health and wellbeing services. For those who may still be cautious to volunteer due to the pandemic, Crisis will be continuing to provide their volunteering opportunities in a socially distanced way. If you’d like to know more about Crisis, and the ways you can help this Christmas, have a look here.

Crisis at Christmas: Together we will end homelessness.

Local Community Based Organisations:

Local volunteering opportunities are just a few clicks away, and you’re likely to find an opportunity that fits you perfectly. If you’re struggling to find opportunities, head to our TryVolunteering site, or look for national schemes set up specifically for this time of year.

Why not look at opportunities that focus on helping young people within your local community. For those less fortunate, it can be a confusing and frustrating period. With around half a million people, including 200,000 children being pushed into poverty by the universal credit cut, volunteering, fundraising and donations may be needed more than ever.

Become a Secret Santa and raise money to help bring food, love and warmth to vulnerable children this Christmas. Last year, Santa’s across the UK reached 604,000 young people and their families. Supporting these children is now more important than ever- start your Santa journey today, here. 

What Are You Waiting For This Christmas? 

Volunteering this Christmas doesn’t just have to help those in need, there can be benefits for you too. Volunteering, fundraising and even making a small donation can make you feel good and  positively impact your mental health. You might even learn a new skill along the way! 

So, what are you waiting for? Start helping to make a difference to those in need, so everyone can enjoy Christmas this year. 

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:

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.

Will Volunteering Come Out Stronger After Covid?

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On 2nd September 2021

In COVID-19, News & Views

Coronavirus has introduced so many new challenges for communities over the past 18 months, but it’s also presented foundations to build a stronger community. Moving out of the pandemic means the focus is now on building the relationships between volunteers and organisations; along with renewing that drive to volunteer in the first place. This could mean we have to rethink the roles within volunteering moving forward.

Remote Volunteering? 

The use of remote volunteering over the pandemic has been phenomenal in helping those who’ve really needed it. Due to this, there is a larger market for this kind of volunteering, as so many people have volunteered in this way lately. In order for virtual volunteering to continue, volunteers must be attracted to your organisation’s missions as the social aspect towards volunteering has been stripped back. Communicating that their small contribution will make a difference will keep them involved and feeling positive for helping the community.

The pandemic has also increased the amount of online recruitment. So how have organisations found and kept in touch with their volunteers? It feels inevitable that recruiting volunteers online is something that will carry on far into the future. For organisations, their next steps may be to solidify their presence online. This is where a volunteer management system would come in handy; with TeamKinetic you can recruit more volunteers than ever before, and have constant contact to keep them informed. 

Flexibility…

To create a more accessible volunteering route, there needs to be flexibility. For those who cannot commit to certain dates and times: flexibility allows for no obligation to return. It also means that volunteers can now access the risks beforehand (because they haven’t committed to a continuous role). Despite saying we’re coming out of the pandemic, people still have to assess the risks before going out (coronavirus included)! While it becomes more of a challenge for organisations to be flexible, breaking down roles into smaller opportunities is a way to include more flexibility.

Looking towards the future

There is a feeling that volunteering has taken a strong leap forward over the past 18 months. There is a renewed purpose to help those who really need it: we’re more aware of our communities’ vulnerabilities. Volunteering has increased massively over the pandemic and as a result we have to focus on preserving the positive changes that we have seen.

Interested in TeamKinetic? 

Why not come and try our system for free! 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 also follow our social media pages: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Volunteering made safe with TeamKinetic

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On 25th August 2021

In TeamKinetic Features

TeamKinetic are always here to make sure their clients and any volunteers are protected. We ensure the highest security as we know many organisations may work with young and vulnerable people. TeamKinetic have created a system which allows for safe volunteering and volunteer management. Take a look for yourself below.

Criminal Checks

TeamKinetic understand that many organisations work with young and vulnerable people, so we know that criminal checks need to be completed before volunteers are accepted. With our system you can fully customise volunteer registrations by allowing criminal checks before they can be accepted. 

If you only have specific opportunities which need these criminal checks you can customise the opportunity to do these checks when a volunteer joins. This makes the process easier for you when criminal checks need to be done on your volunteers. 

Roles

Roles have been created to allow organisations to enable a prescribed on-boarding process for volunteers. Roles are a great feature for organisations that have regular opportunities that are undertaken under the same set of compliance, training, or on-boarding rules.

Community Tasks

Community tasks were set up in response to the COVID-19 crisis. They are small tasks designed to provide community support to people who are unable to leave their homes. These tasks differ from the usual volunteer opportunities where the opportunities might have set hours etc… With community tasks it is usually one volunteer helping someone in the community who cannot go shopping, or pick up their medication and so on.

These tasks are secure that whenever a volunteer signs up for a task they must be full approved before they can get any personal details of the task. Any personal information will be hidden and only available to the task manager until a volunteer is approved for the task.

Community tasks have been able to help many during the pandemic and have allowed communities to provide support for one another in a safe environment. Don’t believe us, read our case study from COVID-19 Kenilworth Support who have been using our community tasks since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Accreditation System

TeamKinetic created an accreditation system for the Rugby Super League Grand Final in 2019 and more recently have set up the same system again for the Rugby League this year.

Mainly this is used for major events and sporting events and will allow for the safe management of any person at the venue on the day. The system records the identity and health checks of every personnel. They can then be given badges which include the zones they can and cannot enter to ensure security in each zone. 

It is a great piece of software which helps to keep venues secure and personnel who arrive will have to show there ID to ensure entry. 

Want to Try for FREE?

Why not come and try our system for free! You can try out all of the above and so much more which will help safely organise and manage volunteers. You can also get in touch with us via our website or call on 0161 914 5757. 

Visit our social media pages to find out more information about TeamKinetic and some tips on how to use the software. You can find us on: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. 

How to get your volunteers to log hours

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On 19th July 2021

In News & Views, TeamKinetic Features, Volunteer Management

Volunteering at its core is an entirely selfless activity completed by people with no expectation of acknowledgement. Despite this, we believe volunteers deserve to be rewarded for their hard work. But how do you do this without them logging hours? 

Why is logging hours so important?

In short, data. This data is key to your organisation to:

  • Measure success. Logged hours can represent the amount of work your volunteers are doing for their community or particular cause. 
  • Track your audience. Knowing which volunteers are continually volunteering and which ones aren’t could be incredibly insightful. Is there a particular demographic volunteering more than others? Is there a demographic that is hard to retain? This data could uncover aspects that need to change, leading onto our next point…
  • Make improvements. No volunteering programmes are perfect, but the best ones regularly review and make changes to improve. If there’s a particular demographic that isn’t returning, why?

So how do I persuade volunteers to log their hours?

  • Show them how easy it is. Showing volunteers how quickly they can log hours might help them 
  • Incentivise! Offering rewards can be a great way to get volunteers logging their hours. However, the best way to do this is to offer low-value rewards as often as possible. 
  • Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Imagine this: you offer one big prize (e.g. a hoodie), after a volunteer has logged 100 hours. They log hours as a way of reaching that prize, but once they reach those 100 hours they lose motivation to log future hours – or worse, return at all. (Extrinsic motivation)
    However, if you offer small rewards such as thank you messages they will be consistently motivated by the positive way the act makes them feel. (Intrinsic motivation)

Intrinsic motivation is all about making your volunteers continually feel good about the work they’re doing and the difference they’re making, rather than working towards one particular reward. 

So how do you keep up this motivation? Giving them nice feedback is a great place to start! This will show how much you value them and will mean more to them than you may think. 

Utilising TeamKinetic to Incentivise Volunteers

Leaving Feedback

TeamKinetic allows you to leave feedback when logging a volunteer’s hours. If you forget or don’t have time to personally thank your volunteer at the end of their session, this section gives you the chance to do so. It also lets the volunteer log their own hours and leave feedback about the opportunity they joined.

Ask anyone who has volunteered – receiving feedback is a great feeling and can push volunteers to return and continue volunteering for you.

Achievement Badges

This incentive is a great way to push your volunteers to log more hours. Once a volunteer logs their hours, they will add together to create their total volunteer hours. A small way to help increase volunteers’ hours is to have achievement badges when they reach certain hour milestones.

TeamKinetic has achievement badges automatically built into the system. The achievement badge pictures and names can be customised. These badges are a great way to incentivise volunteers and get them to keep on volunteering so they can reach the next milestone.

Custom Badges

Have you ever thought about starting a ‘volunteer of the month’ award? To give your volunteers an extra incentive to volunteer more or make them feel appreciated? Yes? Keep reading, you may like what you see…

TeamKinetic allows you to create custom award badges for your volunteers. These could be ‘volunteer of the month’ or ‘volunteer of the year’. They can be absolutely anything you want and look however you want, with the fully customisable option! Once you have assigned the award to a volunteer, they will receive an email with the award in it to congratulate them. Again, this recognises the efforts your volunteers put in, helping you to retain more volunteers and hopefully gain more.

Logging hours with TeamKinetic

Logging hours with TeamKinetic is easy – as it should be on any volunteer management system. See below for the full process laid out in less than 25 seconds!

And if that’s not clear enough you can check out our full tutorial videos on logging hours as an opportunity provider and logging hours as a volunteer! 

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!

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.

Lockdown 3.0 Volunteering Guidelines

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On 11th January 2021

In News & Views

Another day, another lockdown. Lockdown 3.0 is upon us and we know the volunteering world are just waiting to read about the new guidelines from the government. We have found some useful information in regards to volunteering during this lockdown. Each is relevant per country…
 
As this is a fast changing situation, please make sure you are checking for latest guidance from your national government and/ or infrastructure body.

England

A ‘reasonable excuse’ for leaving your home includes volunteering – you can also leave home to provide voluntary or charitable services, where it cannot be done from home. For further guidance, see below: 

Scotland

Examples of reasonable excuses to go out include to provide voluntary or charitable services, but only where that cannot be done from your home. For further guidance, see below: 

Wales

Tthe new rules allow volunteers to go out to provide care or help to a vulnerable person, including emergency help. This includes getting food and medicines for them. For further guidance, see below: 
 

Northern Ireland

Where possible, you should volunteer from home. If you cannot do so, you can volunteer outside your home, if you are able to meet the regulations and guidelines applicable at that time. For further guidance, see below: 
 

Champions of Europe, Champions of Volunteer Management…

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On 17th June 2020

In News & Views, Sport

…Champions of England?

All football fans are aware of the current quality of Liverpool FC – a team that won the Champions League earlier this year and looks well suited to win the Premier League now that football is returning.

But away from the pitch, they’re true champions of volunteering. The LFC Foundation has used TeamKinetic’s volunteer management system since May 2018, and we’ve seen first-hand how great the work they do is!

LFC Foundation, volunteers, volunteer management software, volunteer management system, volunteer management, TeamKinetic,

A bit of background info:

The LFC Foundation is the official charity of Liverpool Football Club. Building on the Club’s work in the community over the past 20 years, the charity was formed in 2010. The Foundation delivers 24 community programmes across their three impact areas; Wellbeing, Skills and Communities, every week.

We’ve loved helping the LFC Foundation recruit, retain, and manage their volunteers. We’ve even volunteered with them ourselves! You can find all our LFC Foundation blogs by going to this link.

LFC Foundation, volunteers, volunteer management software, volunteer management system, volunteer management, TeamKinetic,

Liverpool FC dedicating so much time and energy to their foundation volunteers is admirable. Now, of course, other clubs have foundations and recruit volunteers, but do they see it as a focus? It appears that most do not. The work done by the Liverpool FC Foundation gives people from all walks of life a chance to do what they love – play football. When we volunteered there in August, it was great to see how happy everyone was. That happiness was mostly made possible by the LFC Foundation staff and volunteers. We salute you!

A quick look into Premier League teams tells you that not many other clubs place such a focus in their volunteer programmes. In fact, LFC might be the only ones investing in a volunteer management system for their foundation. Is this because other clubs don’t see volunteering as a focus? We hope not! We prefer to believe they just aren’t aware of the benefits of having a volunteer management system yet.

Let me tell you about the benefits of a volunteer management system

Oh, here we go. Another company trying to sell something. While, yes I am trying to sell you something, I’m also trying to save you countless hours and effort you already waste on your current volunteer management processes.

First of all, volunteer management systems help you recruit volunteers more easily. When they sign up to your system, they’ll see all active volunteering opportunities instantly. Beats sending your contact details into an abyss, doesn’t it?

Secondly, a volunteer management system can aid volunteer retention rates. The system will display all ongoing volunteering opportunities, even allowing you to invite volunteers you think will be interested. Meaning that they won’t have to wait for you to contact them about the opportunities your club is hosting. This is likely to encourage your volunteers to keep on volunteering with you for a long time.

Finally, any good volunteer management system should make managing your volunteers a piece of cake. With the ability to communicate with all volunteers through a chat room, create groups, and analyse your volunteers through our reporting features, our volunteer management system should give you all the tools you need to become a champion volunteer manager – and make your life easier!

Want to become a champion too?

Here at TeamKinetic we can help with all your volunteer management needs. Go to our website to create a demo site – it’s completely free! You can also call us on 0161 914 5757 with any questions.

Don’t hesitate to reach out on social media, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also go to our YouTube channel to see some examples of the features we have to offer and some of the people we already work with.

Volunteers: The Backbone of Political Campaigns

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On 25th November 2019

In News & Views

“You’re joking not ANOTHER one?!” The viral video from the last General Election still stands relevant today only two years later. In a time where Brexit has had more dates than most of the British public, we’re back awaiting yet another General Election.

There have been six elections in my 20 years on this Earth and four of them have happened since 2010.

That’s four elections in nine years.

If we were sticking to how often elections were actually supposed to take place we’d be waiting for our second election since 2010 right now… I think it’s fair to say our current government is quite unstable.

Anyway, I digress. The real reason for this blog is to highlight how these election campaigns would be nothing without the hard work of volunteers. Work that is probably made even harder with the rate we’re having these elections at.

  • labour volunteers, campaign volunteering, volunteer management software, volunteer management, volunteer management system
  • green party volunteers, campaign volunteering, volunteer management software, volunteer management, volunteer management system
  • snp volunteers, campaign volunteering, volunteer management software, volunteer management, volunteer management system
  • plaid cymru volunteers, campaign volunteering, volunteer management software, volunteer management, volunteer management system

Campaign volunteers for all parties work tirelessly to traverse through neighbourhoods, talking to residents and giving out leaflets that will probably just end up in the bin. (If you do bin them at least recycle… Especially if it’s a Green leaflet you’re binning.)

Without the work of these volunteers, politicians from all parties would not be able to get their messages out as quickly and reach as many people across the country. In some places, volunteers even offer services to help people get to their polling station, giving everyone as much chance as possible to vote.

What can volunteer managers learn from political campaign volunteering?

Flexibility

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The flexible nature of campaign volunteering could inspire the structure of other volunteering opportunities. For many people, volunteering is too time-consuming and structured to fit around their busy schedules. What campaign volunteering does well is it allows the volunteer to choose when they give their time, with no real commitments. This opens up the opportunities to a wider range of people who are willing to help out.

Another thing is the range of activities volunteers can choose from. A quick visit to any party’s website shows you that you can do a range of activities. From knocking on local residents’ doors to inputting data and answering phone calls in offices. Flexibility like this is likely to encourage more people to sign up and volunteer.

If volunteer recruitment is what you’re after, maybe look to campaign volunteering for some tips.

Use of Technology

Technology is used massively in elections. Especially in today’s society where we seem to go no longer than five minutes without our phones. In particular, parties make use of social media to both rally supporters and attack the opposition.

Hopefully, more general examples of volunteer management don’t involve attacking anyone online. We can still learn a thing or two from the use of social media platforms to communicate with volunteers and get them enthusiastic about opportunities.

Making information about opportunities more accessible, i.e. posting about them on social media, will encourage volunteers to sign up. Posting about experiences of other opportunities – perhaps with pictures/video from the day – can also help new volunteers feel more comfortable deciding to work with your organisation.

Take a look at this tweet from the Labour Party. Here, they recognise and show the work of their volunteers. This would certainly make me more comfortable with the idea of doing some campaign volunteering!

How can TeamKinetic help?

We offer volunteer management software for organisations of all sizes. This includes tools to recruit, manage, and reward volunteers.
For more information on how we can help you, feel free to contact us on social media (Twitter/Facebook), visit our website, or give us a ring on 0161 914 5757.

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