United Kingdom

Three British volunteers founded The National Trust in the UK 1895. In 2013, the Trust celebrated the involvement of over 70,000 volunteers in this conservation charity, one that protects historic places and green spaces while opening them up forever, for everyone. In terms of volunteer numbers, 2013 was the Trust’s most successful year ever, but that success isn’t just measured in volunteer numbers. In spring 2014, the Trust began the first phase of implementing a £1.2m investment in new systems and processes to support volunteering. A senior manager outside of the volunteering team described the change in volunteering and support at the Trust over the past three years as a “quiet revolution.”

In this e-Volunteerism feature, author Helen Timbrell, Volunteering and Community Involvement Director for the Trust, identifies the key things that helped bring about this “quiet revolution” – including how the Trust approached the challenge, the steps it took, and the order in which it did the work. Timbrell also presents how the Trust operated as a team and individually. This feature article is a follow-up to last year’s e-Volunteerism story about the Trust’s “Going Local” volunteer campaign, “Thinking Differently about Volunteering: Words from the National Trust.”

Cees M. van den Bos, a pioneer in the volunteering field in the Netherlands, recently discovered that there was very little academic research on the subject of volunteering infrastructure. So he set out to investigate the establishment, development, and functioning of local volunteering infrastructure since the 1970s in these eight countries: Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States.

In this special e-Volunteerism issue devoted to Volunteer Centers, van den Bos presents his research and findings on volunteering infrastructure, and shares his conclusion that Volunteer Centers should be defined as “agencies that have the mission to support volunteers, volunteer-involving organizations, and volunteering in general.” He specifically notes that Volunteer Centers are characterized by six functions: brokerage, the marketing of volunteering, the development of good practices, the development of volunteering opportunities, and the strategic development of volunteering.

Through his important research, van den Bos provides insights and findings that he argues are “relevant for makers of volunteering policies, for people working within the volunteering infrastructure, and for countries that aspire to establish a volunteering infrastructure.” And, he concludes, the “legitimacy of volunteering infrastructure cannot be considered outside the context of the increasing political recognition of civil society and civic engagement. Political interests in the concepts of civil society and civic engagement in the eight cases investigated has caused volunteering to be rediscovered and re-evaluated.”

It’s not very likely that the barrista serving your morning latte, the receptionist checking you into your vacation hotel, or the bank manager deciding whether to approve your home renovation loan are thinking about volunteering as they go about their daily work. But their corporate employers back at headquarters might be doing just that – especially if they are one of the major global conglomerates whose products or services are prominent in shopping malls and main streets all around the world. Many of these global mega-companies coordinate volunteering by their staff as one practical way to help the communities where they do business.

Corporate employee volunteering is, of course, nothing new to organisations involving volunteers. But in this Along the Web, we penetrate the glossy Web sites of various global corporations to see what they reveal about their volunteer or service programmes. Even if the information is often hidden away and sometimes not very easy to access through page links, such Web pages can be a useful first source of information to organisations considering recruiting new volunteers from major employers worldwide. As we explore, we see how some corporations measure their programme’s social and environmental impacts; how others link volunteering to their Corporate Social Responsibility or Global Impact policies and to business goals; and how some connect their financial donations, ‘in kind’ giving, and volunteering activities. We also consider whether improving clarity and transparency would make some corporations’ Web sites more useful to recruiters seeking workplace volunteers. 

 

The production of and trade in celebrity is now a commercial strategy for all types of media organizations, resulting in a significant expansion in celebrity content across all platforms. Charitable events and activities are no exception, with one crucial difference to their commercial counterparts: most charities that engage celebrities recruit them on a voluntary basis, and don’t pay them. Celebrity patrons ranging from reality TV contestants and soap stars to sporting heroes and members of the Royal family volunteer to raise awareness and funds, attend events, and provide a powerful focus for appeals and campaigns. Publications such as Third Section offer weekly updates on the latest celebrities to lend their support.

But what motivates celebrity supporters to volunteer their services? What methods of engagement do celebrities prefer? These are just a few of the questions asked and answered in this feature story by Sean Kelly, an expert on celebrity volunteer engagement and the director of fundraising at Sparks, the UK’s leading pediatric medical research charity. In this article, Kelly presents his study of over 200 celebrities and his research to ascertain personal motivations for celebrities who volunteer and why they support particular organizations. Altruism? Egotism? Kelly provides the answers and pulls back the proverbial curtain on the star power of celebrity volunteers. 

The National Trust, a British charity founded by volunteers in 1895 to advocate historic preservation and conservation, announced in 2010 its determination to make sweeping changes, both to expand public engagement at its properties and to restructure its internal staffing and procedures.

These changes included a mandate to think differently about volunteering:

To move away from volunteering being seen as a sacrifice (“I give up my time to volunteer”) into volunteering as an active choice to use one’s leisure time in meaningful and rewarding ways.  Volunteering shouldn’t be about giving up something; it should be about having everything to gain.

Part 1 of a two-part series, this feature article presents why and how the Trust decided to rethink its approach to its nearly 67,000 volunteers in a campaign called “Going Local.”  This article includes a reprint of one of the early products of this Going Local campaign, a booklet called Thinking Differently about Volunteering. In a few short pages, the booklet outlines the importance of volunteers and presents a game plan for moving forward with volunteer engagement at the National Trust. The results of this campaign, and the National Trust’s continued efforts “toward our shared goal of engaging every household and connecting with local communities,” will be presented in Part 2 of this series in a future issue of e-Volunteerism.

Assessing learning needs, performing a skills audit and carrying out a knowledge inventory are important activities when providing effective training within organisations. How thoroughly should we extend such techniques to volunteers? How might we link an individual volunteer skills analysis with the overall aims and needs of the organisation?

In this Training Designs article, Sue Jones explores the benefits of needs analysis for volunteers. She examines the pros and cons of a range of assessment methods, and provides practical tips to adapt and apply to volunteer management. 

During 2011, a small group of volunteer managers in the UK responded to an invitation to be part of a project that would ultimately allow them to develop new skills, extend their networks and create a team of ‘Volunteer Management Champions.’ The goal was to help create a ‘buzz’ about the volunteer management profession, and to raise the profile of the valuable work carried out by managers of volunteers across all types of organisations.

In this article, authors Rob Jackson and Sue Jones present the comments and view points of some of the volunteer managers who participated in this key group. Through the use of video and audio, these volunteer managers review their involvement and reflect on their achievements. A year on, they assess both the personal and professional impact of the project, and explain why and how more leaders and managers of volunteers should contribute to the field.