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| Finders
keepers |
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organisations dependent on volunteer support, practical mechanisms
for recruiting and retaining volunteers need to be in place.
David Adams examines how to effectively attract, manage and
maintain a voluntary workforce |
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Why
is it that with government and the private sector so eager
to praise the value of charities to society, charity volunteers
so often feel under-appreciated? Why, after years of pledges
from politicians to increase the percentage of the population
who volunteer, do so many employers still seem unwilling to
help their staff to do so? Worse still, why, although there
are still plenty of people who do want to give up their time
and energy for free, are some charities still so bad at recruiting
and retaining volunteers?
In some cases, a lack of imagination may be to blame. “If
old tried and tested methods like word of mouth are bringing
in a steady supply of volunteers then it can be easy to sit
back and rely on it, but that doesn’t bring in a more
diverse group of people,” says Mark Restall, head of
information at the volunteer development agency Volunteering
England. “It is important for charities that are supposed
to be helping the community to ask themselves ‘are we
reflective of the community?’ You’ve got to find
ways of reaching all groups of potential volunteers. One reason
many people give for having volunteered is that someone asked
them to.”
The way people are asked is also very important. “You
must make sure you’re getting across attractive messages
about the volunteering opportunity, about what people will
be doing, who they’ll be helping,” says Restall.
“It’s also got to be inclusive, you’ve got
to make sure that there’s nothing in the wording that
might make someone think it’s not for them.”
Many charities are changing the way they find and work with
volunteers. Save the Children recognises the need to keep
adding to its 10,000 unpaid staff, without whom it could not
exist in its current form. It is tailoring the way it advertises
some volunteering opportunities to fit more easily with the
lifestyles of the people it believes it needs to attract.
For example, one current campaign to find new staff for its
shops is based around searching for ‘fashion gurus’
and ‘bookworms’, and for people who enjoy working
with the public, rather than shop assistants. It has also
put more resources into its website, including a revamped
section for potential volunteers.
Save the Children is not just looking for the young internet-literate
professional. A series of coffee mornings at its shops have
been designed to try and recruit young mothers, whose children
have just started school, as volunteers. And some of the older
marketing media are still very effective. “Advertising
in the local press and in the shop itself always has a big
impact, because people want to support their local community
first of all,” says Sally Brighton, community giving
director at the charity.
Although changes in the way we live are causing some previously
reliable sources of volunteer labour to dry up, it is perfectly
possible to make new social conditions work in an organisation’s
favour. Girlguiding UK is currently trying to overcome a shortage
of volunteer guide, brownie and rainbow leaders. In 2004 the
organisation launched a new campaign, Project 50k, named after
the 50,000 girls and young women who want to join the guiding
movement but are unable to do so because of the leader shortage.
The problem is not recruitment, but retention, as Jean Bell,
a senior volunteer guider in Aberdeen and chair of the Project
50k Working Group, explains. Although plenty of new leaders
join the guiding movement each year, almost as many are forced
to leave as family or work pressures make it impossible to
continue attending weekly unit meetings.
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Girlguiding UK is considering various possible solutions,
including a rota system that would mean some leaders only
need attend meetings every second or third week; and some
units changing from having weekly meetings to longer monthly
meetings. The movement is also trying to take advantage of
those people who would like to help in some way on a voluntary
basis but don’t have the time to become leaders. “We
know there are people who can’t be leaders but would
be very happy to help,” says Bell.
Getting these volunteers to take up some administrative duties
would also help make the leaders’ lives easier. The
movement has also launched the 12 Hour Challenge, which asks
other interested individuals to give up just 12 hours of their
time across a year to help guiding, by carrying out maintenance
work on a campsite, for example.
Many charities now also benefit from the various internet-based
volunteering initiatives, such as do-it.org, where young people
can search through volunteering opportunities posted by different
organisations. Lesley Bourne, partnerships director at YouthNet,
the online charity that runs do-it.org, says that although
there is now a better understanding of how to recruit effectively
online, some still run into problems when it comes to accepting
offers of help.
“Because the internet is so instant, people send off
an application and expect an instant response,” she
says. “Of course, that might not be possible, but they
need an acknowledgement, and a timeframe about when an answer
will come back. People often tell us they applied then didn’t
hear anything so gave up.”
YouthNet is currently working with Volunteering England on
developing some best practice guidelines for online volunteer
recruitment to be made available on its website later this
year.
The internet is certainly a useful way to reach younger age
groups, now a focus across the sector, with the government
having set up the youth volunteering charity V to try and
recruit a million new young volunteers over the next four
years. “We would like to see more organisations that
have a good record in involving adult volunteers develop their
strategies to extend the opportunities to more young people,”
says Terry Ryall, chief executive at V. “If organisations
actively seek to involve young people in shaping the organisation
and the volunteer experience then both parties are more likely
to have a high quality, mutually beneficial relationship.”
Volunteering England’s Restall gives such enthusiasm
for youth a more cautious backing. “It’s nice
to see that there is money going into this, but if you focus
too much on recruiting from one particular group there is
always a danger that you end up neglecting other age groups,”
he warns. “If there’s a perception that funding
streams are there for volunteering opportunities for young
people we may even see organisations chasing the money. I’m
not saying that will definitely happen, but I just think maybe
it’s something that people need to bear in mind.”
Once volunteers have been recruited there is more that most
charities could do to improve the experience they have. Restall
believes getting the basics right is all-important, noting
that many charity volunteers often complain that their work
has not been well organised. “Get a structure in place,
get lines of communication open, and make sure people have
named supervisors,” he says. “It’s about
making the simple things work.”
It’s also important to maintain strong links between
fundraising networks and an organisation’s work in the
field. At Save the Children, staff who have been involved
in overseas projects regularly come to meet volunteers in
the charity’s shops to tell them about the work their
efforts have helped to fund. One to one direct communication
with volunteers also reveals how they would like to be thanked
for their work, whether through a public display, award ceremonies
or parties, or just a quiet thank you.
Other charities could also pick up some tips from VSO, which
has to train its volunteers thoroughly before they embark
on what is usually two years abroad, then support them when
they return. It also has to find them in the first place.
The challenge is not just to recruit skilled individuals suitable
for roles specified by the charity’s partners overseas,
but to find people willing to give up two years of their lives.
VSO’s volunteer marketing team finds and targets potential
recruits through promotional events that bring them face to
face with current volunteers, some of which take place in
workplaces such as hospitals. This is in conjunction with
advertising in national and trade-specific media.
VSO also tries to maintain a relationship with people who
decide the time is not right to work with them in case their
circumstances allow them to consider volunteering again at
some point in the future.
Even with this advanced recruiting and support network in
place, VSO would still like more help from other quarters,
such as employers. “We need employers to appreciate
that volunteering work while on a sabbatical is not time out
of your career; it can help people learn many new skills,”
says Neera Dhingra, head of media at VSO. “It’s
clear that more people would take sabbaticals if they thought
employers would look positively on their time overseas as
part of their professional development, rather than as an
extended holiday.”
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VSO is also trying to propagate the idea that not only does
volunteering go a long way to helping organisations meet CSR
objectives, but it is also a good way to find and retain good
staff. The charity has partnered with a number of employers,
including the management consultancy Accenture, to offer staff
the opportunity to take a sabbatical with VSO as an employee
benefit.
Changes in employers’ attitudes might also help bring
in younger volunteers. “Research shows that 52 per cent
of young people would be persuaded to volunteer if they knew
it would help improve their skills or get a qualification,”
says V’s Ryall. “We would like to see more organisations
recognising the value of volunteering as experience worth
having in the workplace.”
Girlguiding UK is trying to point out to employers how much
difference it could make to someone who wanted to work as
a guide unit leader if they knew they would definitely be
able to get out of the office in time to get to a meeting
each week; and how even small gestures, like letting a volunteer
do some photocopying using company equipment, can make a big
difference.
Employers could also be more proactive. Girlguiding UK is
working with a few employers prepared to allow unit meetings
on their premises.
Even after so many different government initiatives of varying
success, the demand for more help from politicians at a local
and national level is unceasing. “I think government
needs to recognise that volunteer work can be about getting
people back into the workforce,” suggests Save the Children’s
Brighton. “Maybe there could be a bit more support in
terms of the expense involved in that.”
Meanwhile, earlier this year Volunteering England expressed
fears that raising the retirement age could deprive charities
of another useful source of volunteers. There’s no doubt
that the politicians are trying to help, it’s just that
some of the things they do elsewhere can undermine their good
intentions.
Government could also be blamed – in part – for
aspects of the way the voluntary sector now operates which
may hinder volunteer recruitment and retention. The short-term
nature of many funding arrangements does not encourage organisations
to attempt long-term strategic planning, and funding structures
can also distort planning priorities.
“We all understand that many funders require outcomes
to be measured, but a lot of those outputs and outcomes at
the moment, I feel, are about quantity and not quality,”
says YouthNet’s Bourne. “I think more thought
is needed there. It’s great if funding can create new
volunteering opportunities, but volunteering is about getting
the experience right, and if you want people to be ambassadors
on your behalf then the experience and how they feel is very,
very important.”
Even if the sector can’t solve this problem on its own,
it could be doing a bit more to help itself.
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