Volunteers and active communities
"Volunteering" has a long and honourable history in British society, and is at the heart of the popular understanding of the term 'voluntary organisation'. Many if not most voluntary organisations depend for their very existence upon the work of volunteers, and organisations such as councils for voluntary service usually include the placing of volunteers (often through a volunteer bureau) among their key activities. Nevertheless, the notion of „volunteering‟ itself includes a wide range of different roles, and is also only a part of a wider pattern of community involvement.
Why do people offer as volunteers?
People offer as volunteers for a range of motives, and their motives in volunteering will affect their suitability for any specific role. For example, an organisation seeking to recruit a volunteer treasurer – a post that requires sustained commitment over a considerable period of time – would be unwise to appoint someone who is wanting to fill a few hours during a period of probably short-term unemployment, and whose involvement is unlikely to continue once another job has been found.
What does an organisation gain from volunteers?
To community organisations, volunteers may well bring a wealth of local knowledge and insight that employed staff from elsewhere could take months or years to learn – or, in some cases, would never manage to acquire. This will often include information and contact with other people through involvement in other groups and through participation in numerous networks, both formal and informal.
Maintaining volunteers’ motivation
The relationship between volunteers and the organisation for which they work is a relationship of trust and commitment on both sides. Nothing guarantees that volunteers will continue in their commitment to their work, but there are numerous factors that contribute to maintaining and developing that commitment.
'Job satisfaction' is a term usually applied to the situation of paid workers, but job satisfaction is equally important to volunteers – perhaps, even, more so in that paid workers will often continue to work in intolerable circumstances simply because they need the money. Conversely, however, volunteers have often accepted situations which paid workers would never have tolerated. The commitment of volunteers is maintained by intangible factors.
- Use of a range of skills;
- Scope for seeing tasks through to completion;
- Freedom to make one’s own decisions;
- A friendly atmosphere and good relationships with colleagues;
- Opportunity to take part in new initiatives;
- Career opportunities;
- Unoppressive supervision;
- A sense of being valued;
- Receiving recognition for good work;
- Being neither over- nor under-worked;
- A pleasant physical environment;
- Team working.
Volunteers who experience factors such as these are likely to maintain their commitment over a period of time, and, it may reasonably be hoped, will develop and increase their commitment.
Managing volunteers
The ways in which volunteers will need to be managed will vary according to the various circumstances of their work. These circumstances will include:
- Their level of responsibility;
- The amount of time they offer;
- The period of time to which they have committed themselves;
- Their level of skill in relation to the work they are doing;
- Their special support needs (e.g. mental health needs or learning difficulties).
Management processes will need to be appropriate to these circumstances. Short-term and/or casual volunteers may in some respects need more support than more regular volunteers, but in general will probably need only brief one-to-one sessions to ensure that they are delivering what has been agreed, that they have the facilities necessary to do so and that their general work environment (including relationships with other people) is appropriate for their needs.
Committee members as volunteers
It should not be forgotten that committee members (whether charity trustees or the members of the committees of non-charitable voluntary and community organisations) are themselves in that capacity volunteers. Many also volunteer within the organisation in other capacities.
Where committee members are elected rather than appointed, it will not usually be possible to apply the criteria otherwise appropriate for appointment of volunteers.
Nevertheless, equal opportunities principles may be applied, for example, by asking each candidate for election to supply information in a standard format which may be circulated at (or in advance of) the meeting at which appointments are to be made, and induction procedures may be offered to newly elected members.
For more information
To find out more about recruiting, managing, paying and assessing volunteers, select the links below to download our set of publications.
If you would like to talk to one our advisers, call our advice service on
0845 847 4253 from
09.30 to 13.00 on Mondays and Thursdays. Alternatively, you can email us your
question and we will get back to you. Submit your
enquiry here...
Download Online Guidance and Advice
Click on the following titles to
download support:
Specimen documents: