Building Skills to Involve Volunteers

by Denise Hayward, Chief Executive, Volunteer Now

4 in 10 organisations do not have enough volunteer to meet their primary objectives, while 3 in 10 have seen their volunteer recruitment increase in the past year.  This is a finding from the Nottingham Trent VCSE Barometer in May 2024.  This report has been followed in August 2024 with a further report showing that the demand for charity services across the UK has been outstripping supply and part of that challenge is the struggle to recruit enough volunteers.  This most recent report reflects the need to build skills in the charity sector particularly following the challenges of Covid and the cost of living crisis.

So, at the start of September when our minds feel ready for new things, I would encourage you to think about volunteer management training to support staff and volunteers to develop the skills needed to recruit and involve volunteers.

Some resources to help you are coming up in the next few months:

September  →  Recruitment, Selection and Management of Volunteers Working with Children & Adults at Risk: an entry level course to support recruitment and involvement of volunteers working with vulnerable groups.

October  →  ILM 3 in Management of Volunteers: this accredited course will help you to further develop your skills in managing volunteers.

November  →  Measuring the Impact of Volunteering: this course helps organisations tell the story of the difference volunteers are making.

At any time you can access our on demand training covering topics such as Attracting & Selecting Volunteers and Managing & Motivating Volunteers.

If you need to organise a tailored training course specifically for a group of staff or volunteers, please get in touch at training@volunteernow.co.uk.

Involving volunteers is a skill and we cannot expect volunteer numbers to recover if we don’t invest in developing the skills needed to do this well.