Finding skill based volunteers to support your charity
05/31/2023
Most small charities are powered by a band of volunteers who roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. Many charities would not be able to operate without them. They bring their time, commitment and expertise to make a difference.
Charities also use volunteers to support operational aspects of their work. From IT projects to strategy planning, resolving legal issues to building a marketing campaign; a volunteer can bring their expertise to help to solve a problem or accelerate a project.
Designing roles
Janet Thorne, CEO of Reach Volunteering which specialises in helping charities and people who want to volunteer their expertise to find each other, told us: “This is a boom time for skills-based volunteering! In contrast to surveys which report a reduction in volunteering, we are seeing record highs. I think people really want to use their professional skills and expertise to do something good. People aren’t just dipping in, but volunteering to take on substantial and meaningful tasks”. Charities can involve volunteers in this way to make real progress, to innovate or experiment.There are risks but if you design and describe the roles well, these can be avoided. Here are a few tips for charities that are looking to do something like this:
- Design projects so they don’t have single points of failure. People’s circumstances can change or they might take on a role knowing their expertise only covers one area. Chunking a project down into
- smaller bite-sized bits can help to reduce this risk. You might recruit for a group of people or a series of volunteers to work on different stages of a project.
- Avoid asking volunteers to do time critical or mission critical projects. This adds unnecessary pressure to the project and volunteer.
- Volunteers shouldn’t be managing paid staff or asked to take sole responsibility for anything too burdensome.
- Be careful not to create an exploitative relationship. For example, expecting people to intern for free because they need a job, or asking people to contribute their lived experience for a charity without any recompense.
- Avoid making tasks boring or repetitive. Volunteers generally want to be able to see the impact they are making.
- You can ask for niche skills or experience. The rise in online or remote volunteering means you can find that person. Platforms like Reach can help you find people you would never be able to reach through your own networks.
Janet’s favourite quote from a charity recently was “in two hours the volunteer did well what we would have taken two weeks to do badly”."
Where to find specialist volunteers
The term pro bono is commonly used to describe volunteering within certain professions such as the law and management consultancy. Specialist organisations broker relationships between charities and volunteers.
Ed Mayo, CEO of Pilotlight told us that: “Seven out of ten charities say they would benefit from support in the form of professional skills. But only four out of ten say they find it. There are around thirty organisations like us which offer skilled volunteering support.”
Here’s just a few:
- Pilotlight offers long-form support from business experts
- Pro Bono Economics offer data first aid amongst their services
- Cranfield Trust give support with strategy, business planning, financial management, governance, and impact reporting
- ICAEW connect charities with finance professionals
- Law Works provides free legal assistance to eligible organisations
- Media Trust matches charities with media, digital, tech or communications volunteers.
Hayley Nock, Head of Not-For-Profits Programme at Law Works shared the following tips to help charities thinking about using their services. “If you think you might have a legal issue but are not sure what legal advice you need, that's okay! We can help. It is better to act sooner rather than later as it is generally more straightforward for a solicitor to get involved with a legal issue at an earlier stage. The more information you can give about the issue and your charity, the better. This helps us place cases and match you with a volunteer solicitor who understands about the charity and your mission.”
Adding local value
Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland nurtures giving and philanthropy across the region. It matches generous people with important community causes. Colette Harrison whose job title is
Development Officer, Sector Support, matches volunteers offering professional skills with charities seeking their expertise.
“In addition to our trustee matching service, we broker pro bono guidance from businesses across the region to strengthen charities with a current focus on digital literacy. We are working with Software City and VONNE (Voluntary Action Network North East) to bring charities and digital experts together. Charities can benefit from group training, organisation-specific mentoring and task-specific support to help them create websites, data systems and social media strategies.
It is a privilege to make connections between individuals and organisations. The charities really appreciate the help that volunteers give them. And supporting a charity is a fantastic learning opportunity for volunteers. For them it is immediately rewarding to see the impact they are making in the region.”
Find support
If your charity needs help with an operational task or is looking for new insights into strategic activities, an expert volunteer could help. There are lots of people who are willing to give their time in this way and organisations which can help you to find them.Related articles
- Insights from Digital Candle which offers one-off 1-hour support from digital expert volunteer
- 3 top tips for working with volunteers
- Employee-supported volunteering and the changing workplace
