Get Ready for Recruitment!

by Denise Hayward, Chief Executive, Volunteer Now

Over the next few months Volunteer Now is planning to focus on recruiting and recognising volunteers in the run up to Volunteers’ Week through our Give It A Go campaign.  We know there is a need to focus on recruitment to support rebuilding volunteering in many organisations.  Volunteer Now has a campaigns group, drawn from our members, to help us plan this part of our work, if you are interested in taking part in this group, please contact Jane.Gribbin@volunteernow.co.uk.  The next meeting of the group will be on the 14 March at 10am.

The Big Help Out

I also wanted to let you know about the Big Help Out which will be a UK wide promotional campaign to encourage more people to get involved in volunteering.  This will be linked to the coronation of King Charles and will focus its promotional activity in early May.  Groups locally may wish to get involved with activities as part of the campaign and we know that the Big Help Out will have a substantial media reach in Northern Ireland as well.  So we need to be prepared to respond if people see the publicity and step forward to volunteer.  We will keep you up to date with more details about this campaign as they become available but we anticipate a launch date of the 20 March.

Volunteers’ Week

Planning is already well under way for Volunteers’ Week itself which we will launch in March and this year it is likely to also carry messages around recruitment and recognition to build on the Big Help Out campaign.

Next Steps

So now is the time to get ready, review your opportunities, consider if they are flexible and appealing and whether they are attractive to a wide range of people, do they still meet the needs of your organisation?  How will you process the applications which come in, are you set up to respond?  Are your opportunities on Be Collective so that we can link them in with campaigns as they go live?

If you need a bit of help with any of this preparation then please contact one of the Community Engagement Team in Volunteer Now for support.

I will keep you updated about both of these campaigns as they develop in the coming months and I would encourage you to join the campaigns group to help to support this part of our work.