Joe Saxton and Tim Harrison Byrne

If there was a sector-wide strategy for the development and promotion of volunteering overall, what would it look like? In the first year of a Labour government, it’s worth trying to flesh out how the charity sector could pull together a strategy for volunteering. In our view, any actual strategy would need to contain a number of elements. We set these out below in no particular order.

Element 1: Embedding the use of technology in volunteering

It’s clear that technology has a growing role in the recruitment and retention of volunteers. The role of technology in recruitment is fairly obvious, even if less universal currently. Smartphone-based apps are an obvious way through which people who are keen to volunteer can seek out volunteering opportunities. Currently there are around a dozen possible apps or websites that people could use to find opportunities. There is no clear market leader, or market leaders – equivalent to the market dominance that Just Eat or Deliveroo have in home deliveries of take-away food. Without one or two market leaders who have widespread public recognition it is difficult to see how apps can increase the overall number of the public who want to volunteer, and the ease with which people can find volunteering opportunities.

Element 2: Senior support for volunteer management

Talk to many volunteer managers and they will say that their support for volunteering from senior leadership is somewhere between patchy and non-existent (though some will also say their support is great). The comparison between volunteering and fundraising for senior support is telling. Almost every charity that wishes to fundraise extensively will have a Director of Fundraising on its senior management team. Yet there are many many charities who use volunteers extensively but don’t have a Director of Volunteering on the senior management team. There are many CEOs who are supportive of volunteering, but warm words butter no parsnips. 

Element 3: Passporting of volunteer DBS checks and experience

Ask any enthusiastic volunteers and the slow speed of the journey to be a volunteer from signing up is a source of frustration, and another is the need for repeated or unnecessary DBS checks. These are two separate issues here.

The first is that many charities in an act of caution ask for DBS checks, when they aren’t really necessary. Do trustees really need DBS checks in any but the smallest organisations? The second problem is that individuals who sign up for multiple volunteering opportunities can be asked to get multiple DBS checks. The DBS check should be about the individual, not about the role. If this was achieved, then a DBS check could be like a driving licence and last for an agreed amount of time and universal for all roles.

Element 4: Development of recruitment campaigns and strategies

It is no good having the best volunteer management in the world if we aren’t recruiting new volunteers. Unlike fundraising, which tends to be very charity and cause specific, there is greater ability to promote volunteering as a concept. Any volunteering strategy needs to look at how to persuade people to volunteer, not only through individual national campaigns, but also by looking at structures that encourage volunteers. Duke of Edinburgh Awards, UCAS applications and university volunteer programmes such as at the University of Manchester have all had a role in increasing the level of volunteering among the under 35s.

Element 5: Creating marketing strategies for different volunteer audiences

Not all volunteers are motivated by the same messages, the same marketing channels or the same types of volunteering. Nor are the barriers to volunteering the same for different demographics, or the cause that people want to volunteer for the same. All this means that if we want people to volunteer, we need to devise campaigns that address those barriers and motivations for each different audience. This is another way of saying that one size doesn’t fit all, any strategy to boost volunteering will need to carry out audience-based marketing, underpinned by great marketing. 

Element 6: The creation of a volunteering infrastructure body for England and appointment of a volunteering czar

It is striking how many of the interviewees for our forthcoming report, mentioned the need for an overarching volunteer body in England. They lamented the loss of ‘Volunteering England’ over a decade earlier and pointed out how the co-ordination and development of volunteering in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland worked so much better, because of the existence of an effective volunteering body. So England needs a new volunteering infrastructure body. We also believe that having a volunteering czar to champion and act as a focal point for the development of volunteering would be effective.

Element 7: Development of volunteer management training and qualifications

If volunteer management overall is to improve then the type of training that volunteer managers get is a key element. At the moment the breadth and depth of training courses for volunteer managers is much poorer than it is for fundraisers. Given that for charities, the giving of time is just as important as giving money, then the training that underpins both should be of comparable quality. In time, this development of training should lead to the development of more formal volunteer manager qualifications.

Element 8: Clear ownership of a volunteering strategy

If a strategy like this is to be created it needs to be clear who will own it. Indeed, at this stage it’s not even clear who would draft it. But when that drafting is done, shepherded by a working party of engaged volunteer managers and other stakeholders, then the finessing, the marketing and the engagement of other parties can be carried out. But without the ownership of a strategy by a team committed to making something happen, it almost certainly won’t.

Element 9: Measuring progress of the strategy

Measuring the progress of a strategy to improve volunteering is critical. It is no good having a great strategy, if it is not easy to know whether it is, or isn’t working. Which elements of the strategy are motoring, and which left stranded on the strategic hard shoulder. The details of how to measure the progress will need to be incorporated into the strategy itself.

This is an edited and shortened version of one section of the forthcoming nfpResearch report on volunteering – Time for Good. For more information contact Tim Harrison Byrne on tim.harrison-byrne@nfpresearch.com