It’s been a busy fortnight of learning for the Volunteer Centre. We welcomed a delegation from the Seoul Volunteer Centre on 24 October, and delivered our Good Practice in Volunteer Management Training on 27 October.
These activities came just ahead of two important dates in volunteering Trustees’ Week on 3 -7 November and International Volunteer Managers Day on 5 November. Our colleagues from Seoul gave us a real insight into volunteering in a completely different cultural context. While they were keen to learn about volunteering in the UK (we were just one tube stop on a tour of many incredible London infrastructure organisations), we inevitably felt we’d learnt more from them when they had left. The visit left me thinking about how ubiquitous volunteering is and why making the case for volunteering is not just socially valuable but necessary for civic engagement.
On the commute back home, and while working on my final additions to our training materials for Monday, I caught myself reflecting. How much do we overlook the fact that individuals who manage volunteers are doing so with a more varied skillset than some of the best-paid professionals? Volunteer managers juggle responsibilities that rival those of professionals, including delivering training, compliance, event planning, and even social work, often without the title or pay. Reality for many small but ambitious organisations is that they rely on committed volunteers to deliver for their clients and communities. Whether that’s helping an isolated older person out of their house once a week, or providing hard-working families with a way to feed their children.
Good volunteer management isn’t nice to have; it’s something to be celebrated and to be supported professionally. Our training and workshops are about just that, recognising that managing volunteers well isn’t just about keeping people happy. It’s about designing systems that ensure people feel connected to your mission and that volunteering is safer and sustainable. Volunteer managers are the professionals who make this happen, turning good intentions into real outcomes.
If volunteer managers don’t get the recognition they deserve, the same is true of trustees. Often responsible for incredibly complex legislation and strategies on a shoestring budget without the training to fulfil their roles. Yet they still persevere to make tough decisions for the organisations they govern. Many people don’t understand what trustees do and forget they are volunteers too and deserve the support other volunteers receive, even if their role gives them more power and responsibility.
Both our volunteer managers and trustees are underrecognised, but the best organisations value their volunteers so much so that they believe volunteers deserve both clued-up trustees as well as well-trained specialist volunteer managers. Our friends from Seoul left us in little doubt that if you invest in volunteering, from trustees to committed staff to the volunteers themselves, then organisations deliver more than just their mission. They tie together different, isolated, disparate groups in society and boost economies by an estimated 2.4% global GDP (according to the UNDP)
As Trustees Week draws to a close, consider how you can contribute, whether that’s stepping into a governance role or helping the vital work of the voluntary sector to continue through excellence in volunteering.
– Sean Turnbull, Head of Volunteering and Operations
