Involving Volunteers
Community groups involve volunteers in a variety of ways. Some are comprised entirely of volunteers. Some organisations inherit volunteers by default. Others simply cannot get enough volunteers to undertake all the tasks their organisation needs to run. Not every group or organisation will be happy about involving volunteers.
Involving volunteers
For any group or organisation to build a successful framework which engages and supports volunteers, everyone from the Trustees (who after all are volunteers themselves) to a paid member of staff (who may not have any contact with volunteers) needs to understand the reasons why involving volunteers is a positive thing and how it can help your group.
Why would your group involve volunteers?:
Helps forge strong links between the group and the community
Means your group can use them as ambassadors for your cause
Engages supporters/funders/stakeholders
Offers a different and unique relationship with your clients that paid staff may not be able to (such as mentoring or befriending)
Relieves staff pressures
The benefits of having volunteers
Understanding the benefits that volunteers bring, can really help everyone in the group understand why volunteering is so important.
Benefits of involving volunteers might include:
Enhancement of your services
Ability to provide a more flexible service
Support for staff to provide more services
Support with events – such as fundraising and awareness raising
Bringing diversity to the organisation
Bringing a new perspective to your group or organisation
When it is clear why your group involves volunteers and what benefits that brings, it is important to reflect this in your group’s core values and aims:
Is the value and benefit of involving volunteers reflected in the purpose and mission statement of your organisation? If not should it be?
Are you communicating the importance of volunteers to your paid staff, committees, volunteers, users and the general public?
You may wish to consider reflecting these values in your practices, publicity and written materials produced by your organisation: for example, annual reports, strategic plans, publicity
Why not schedule 10 minutes at your next board meeting to ask your Directors or Trustees these questions?
