Can skills-based volunteering work for teams?

ANGELA SCHLENKHOFF-HUS, DEVELOPMENT MANAGER FOR EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERING

We recently launched our Talent Matters programme, which offers employee volunteers an opportunity to work with charity leaders on a one-to-one basis and share their professional expertise. We know that this peer mentoring model can bring about excellent results for charities and the professionals who offer their time.

However, we are confident that skills-based volunteering can work for teams too.  We have developed a menu of team skill-based volunteering opportunities that harness the skills and expertise of teams to benefit communities.

To develop these opportunities, we spent time thoroughly researching the marketplace. We had in-depth conversations with charity partners about their needs, and collected feedback from employers and employees about their skills, interests and expertise.

We collated and analysed all the data we collected, and considered how we could put it to good use. Our ambition was to create excellent opportunities that enable employee volunteers to engage with communities, use their professional skills and have a productive and enjoyable experience.

The result is a broad range of half or full-day skills-based volunteer opportunities. Some of them focus on ‘hard skills’, such as impact measurement for charities, numeracy and budgeting skills. Others focus on ‘softer skills’ such as aspiration-raising and character development in children and young people, tackling barriers to employment, mental health awareness and ecological awareness.

These team skills-based volunteer opportunities enable employee volunteers to help a wide range of people, including charity staff and trustees, adults and young people who are experiencing long-term unemployment, migrants and refugees.

If you and your team are interested in working with a community organisation on a skills-based volunteering project – please do get in touch. Similarly, if you are a community organisation and would like to receive support from an employee volunteering team, let us know and we’ll do our best to match you!

 

Please contact Employee Volunteering Project Manager Joe Flack on  020 3780 5918, or email joe.flack@volunteeringmatters.org.uk, for more details about our skills-based volunteering opportunities.