Steve Gee's blog

I've been thinking about the future of volunteer recruitment recently and as a result, I have been struck by a simple fact.

According to Helping Out - A Survey of Volunteering and Charitable Giving (2007 - by IVR for the Office of the Third Sector) 68% of volunteers were recruited via word of mouth. All other recruitment methods are, statistically, almost irrelevant and yet, with apologies to volunteer managers everywhere, we seem to concentrate our efforts in other areas.

We think about the future as being about technology and worry about whether we need to Tweet our volunteering opportunities, set up a blog or find new ways to advertise via SMS/text. If the feedback from volunteers is to be believed, we need to ask more people to get involved, to take on a role or to help out at an event.

This is the scary part of looking at the information available. My reaction tends to be: "It may work for a community group, or other very small charities, but how do we do this on a larger scale?"

Volunteer managers, and those whose responsibilities include the leadership of volunteering programs, know that their workload will not allow them to spend time asking people, one to one, if they would be willing to volunteer and so we turn to ways of getting our message out to large numbers of people via the media, campaigns, the internet, etc. This is a logical and time efficient way of achieving our recruitment targets and of filling those all important volunteer vacancies, but are we missing the point, failing to see the wood for the trees?

I believe that, as volunteer managers, we have a unique skill set and a range, breadth of abilities that is rare even in the overstretched world of the Third Sector, so the obvious next step, of recruiting a volunteer to concentrate on attracting more people through direct, word of mouth communication, has a drawback.

Has the volunteer "workforce" changed as a result of the economic climate and if so in what way? Here's follows a number of pointers:

• An online survey on the AVM website shows that 78% of the volunteer managers who responded had seen more people volunteering (10% flat - 12% less)
• Volunteer Centres have been reporting higher numbers of enquirers
• Charities have seen steady growth in numbers of volunteers, increased offers of professional / skilled help and higher demand for office roles and flexible opportunities. Most recruitment is driven by some kind of action on the part of the volunteer involving organisation to, at least, meet the volunteer halfway.
• The new Citizenship Survey (October 2009) figures show that people formally volunteering once a month or more have remained almost unchanged since 2001 and have fallen from 27% (2007-8) to 26% (2008-9). These CS stats are the ones that the government use to measure their activity to stimulate volunteering. 43% said they had volunteered in the last year, back up to its previous level after falling to 41% in the last CS.
• The calibre / quality of volunteers is strong currently as students seek to develop their CVs, people who are out of work look for experience and opportunities to try new things. We received well over 500 applications for roles in our internship scheme with 40 posts available. Almost every applicant was a graduate. Online applications for skilled roles and speculative offers from skilled / professional volunteers have increased significantly for many, but not all colleagues say this is the case.
• There are a number of government initiatives that aim to engage people in volunteering. Some have been around a while some are about to come out (Community Task Force - due to launch in January). In certain cases they involve compulsion and so it is debateable whether they are volunteering at all. People from abroad who are applying for citizenship are to be fast tracked if they volunteer - this will have a significant impact on VMs. We will have to fill in the forms and will be liable if the information is not correct. We will be expected to develop, deliver and manage large numbers of suitable roles but there is nothing in the act that provides any support or funding for VMs and the organisations they work for. AVM consults with government as much as possible on these issues but the turnover of ministers at OTS and the constraints of time and budget often mean that these ideas do not deliver value for money invested (tax!), at least not by voluntary sector standards!

Dear Mr Hope,

I raised a question at the recent Westminster Briefing concerning the funding of training for volunteer managers.  Comparing the £4m intended to cover training for both volunteers and volunteer managers (VMs) with the amount allocated to v; I asked whether the funding for training was adequate especially as politicians and society have such high expectations of the voluntary sector.

Your answer, quite rightly stated that £4m is a considerable sum although everyone would like it to be more.  You went on to say that Train to Gain is a demand led funding stream that could yield hundreds of millions in funded training to the sector.

Cancer Research UK, the charity I work for, already accesses some T2G funding and some European funding for the provision of retail related NVQs for shop volunteers and shop managers.  I am unaware of any provision for training in volunteer management even at a basic level.  The main obstacle to accessing T2G funding for volunteer management training is that a very high proportion of volunteer managers have more than level 2 qualifications indeed degree standard is the normal level of academic education for people who manage volunteers or volunteer programs.  Most roles in volunteering seem to ask for applicants to be "educated to degree standard".  The fact that many VMs will have been educated beyond level 2 does not mean that they automatically have the skills required to manage volunteers.