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Editor's Notes

• #4: Indicative timings – subject to change Bridging The Gap = 2 hrs
• #6: 668,000 people are employed in the voluntary sector. Informal volunteering saw a sharp drop in 2009-10 (-13% for one a year and -5% for once a month) according to the Citizenship survey. We don’t know why and are unlikely to see if this was a blip as the survey has been cut by the coalition government.
• #7: Cause association is strong with National Trust volunteers – links to brand. Cause association often about place more than organisation. 40% of National Trust volunteers say they would like to Trust utilise their skills better. Skills audits can help with this but a big spreadsheet is not the only answer. Relationship building is also really important .
• #8: NB re have others things to do with my spare time => competition is not with other volunteer involving organisations but other demands on people’s discretionary time. NB re spare time, when lack of time is an oft cited reason for not volunteering. Issue not lack of time but how it is prioritised? Humans spend nine billion hours playing solitaire every year. PC gamers spend an average of 18.5 hours per week playing games. Tom McKee’s reasons people stop volunteering Number 7: No flexibility in volunteer opportunities or scheduling Number 6: Too much wasted time in useless or unproductive meetings Number 5: Lack of communication Number 4: Lack of professionalism Number 3: The feeling that the volunteer is not really making a difference Number 2: No feedback from leadership about how the volunteer is doing Number 1 reason: The volunteer manager who doesn't know how to lead DISCUSSION – WHAT IS THE IMPLICATION FOR National Trust?
• #9: Big Society Office for Civil Society and Communities and Local Government Red tape - Hodgson
• #10: Volunteer Rights Inquiry – volunteer management has become all about what volunteers can’t do not what volunteers can do
• #11: Almost one third of volunteers are in public and private sector.
• #13: Forecast based on the Government Actuary's Department principal projection Between 2010 and 2015 there will arrive an extra 731,000 people in the 66-71 age bracket – an increase of 22% on current levels – presents an enormous opportunity or challenge. Similar opportunities will exist for brands serving the late middle-age market ( an extra 935,000 48-59 year olds projected over the same timeframe ); more young adults ( an extra 1,053,000 23-36 year olds ) and more under-12s (an extra 517,000 – so long as current fertility rates hold - also indicate the changing shape of the demographic opportunity. Age brackets which will see a decrease include teenagers and youths ( 547,000 fewer 12-22 year olds ) and those in early middle age ( 855,000 fewer 37-46 year olds ). >>>>> Increasing number of volunteers will have held powerful roles in business and industry and therefore it can be quite intimidating for less experienced (often younger) managers. It is important that culturally and individual we learn to Trust ourselves to work with higher skilled / more experienced people.
• #14: ANIMATED Over 500 TV channels
• #15: ANIMATED
• #16: In 2010, 30.1 million adults in the UK (60 per cent) accessed the Internet every day or almost every day. This is nearly double the estimate in 2006 of 16.5 million. Social networking was also a popular Internet activity in 2010, with 43 per cent of Internet users posting messages to social networking sites or chat sites, blogs etc. Social networking is not limited to young adults, with 31 per cent of Internet users aged 45 to 54 having used the Internet to post messages, while 28 per cent uploaded content.
• #17: ME – Discussion – Is this our ‘Burning Platform’ or not? This is where we should relate the theory you have introduced back to our Vision for Volunteering
• #18: 2020 vision Volunteers involved in every aspect of our work All staff confident and capable of working with vols
• #21: Published earlier this year, Bridging the Gap combines a literature review of volunteering globally with primary research in Canada to help understand: What people are looking for in volunteering How orgs are engaging volunteers What steps we can take to ‘bridge the gap’ The research specifically looked at four groups – Young people, employer supported volunteers, families, baby boomers. We will look at the more general findings. I will build on these with my own reflections and some UK data.
• #22: Four areas we will focus on today
• #23: We’ve always known the if you want something done you ask a busy person. We’ve known that this trend has been increasing – between the 1991 and 1997 National Survey’s of Volunteering there was an increase in the number of hours given but a decrease in the number of people volunteering. We also know from successive citizenship surveys that levels of formal volunteering have not changed much in the last ten years. So we, like Canada, are very reliant on a small number of people for the volunteering currently undertaken. Given the traditional volunteer is older (i.e. civics generation) we are already seeing a decline in their levels of volunteering due to age, ill health and death. We need to do something about this rather than replying on those we’ve always relied on.
• #24: By far the most common reason for stopping volunteering was time, and particularly a lack of time due to changing home or work circumstances, identified by 41% of respondents. Time was also one of the key reasons identified for stopping volunteering in the 1997 National Survey of Volunteering. The second, third and fourth most commonly identified reasons for stopping volunteering in the current study were, respectively: because the activity was no longer relevant health problems or old age moving away from the area The data re non-volunteers wanting to volunteers is all non-volunteers (ex-volunteers and never volunteered) not just past volunteers. Do you know why your past volunteers stopped? Can you contact them to find out if & why they might support you again? >>>>> Point about we may have 67k volunteers but with 4m members there are opportunities to engage with far more who are already supporting the org in other ways
• #25: Across all groups people wanted to be able to volunteer with others (family, friends etc.) in order to engage in social activity, meet new people and develop business networks. “ A desire to make and/or embed social connections, meet new people and combat isolation or loneliness led many people to get involved in a collective activity. The human desire to be with others in a joint endeavour, and the strength and quality of the relationships between fellow participants that grow through belonging to a group, came through vividly in our research .” Pathways Through Participation Growing emphasis in the UK on skills based employer supported volunteering not just traditional team challenges. But not everyone who is an accountant wants to be a board treasurer. As the management of volunteering has become more formalised, especially with the development of more HR like approaches to volunteer management, so role descriptions etc. have become more commonplace. But Bridging The Gap found that people wanted to shape their roles around their own skills, experience and interests. As we’ve seen, we’re still reliant on the tradition, busy person uber-volunteer. But people want more short term, episodic, even micro opportunities to engage. “ Almost everyone we spoke to had experienced some degree of fluctuation in the levels of intensity and frequency of their involvement, depending on what was happening in their lives. Participation was characterised by ebbs and flows, starts and stops, a mix of one-offs, short- and long-term commitments…” Pathways Through Participation Marketing of volunteer programmes stands out in that it is almost always based on what we need not how the potential volunteer will benefit. Room guides?
• #26: Volunteered together Diverse range of skills but activity = clean up Self-determined roles One off task to make a tangible difference Driven by a sense of responsibility for their own community Asking how we engage these people in long term volunteering is not the right question. We need to ask how we adapt our offer to meet them half way.
• #27: Most organisations assess motivation & interests at start of volunteering relationship – and then not very well. Similarly volunteers’ availability will change due to increasingly complex lives (sandwich generation). “ Any attempt to encourage participation must take into account the differing and multiple motivations people have for becoming and staying involved” Pathways Through Participation Far more socially acceptable that volunteering is about giving and getting – probably always has been of course. Yet most organisations have an inflexible, take it or leave it approach to volunteering – these opportunities at these times etc. People want volunteering to enable them to learn new skills & share their experience with others. Yet we still have large numbers of unskilled volunteering opportunities and roles where we don’t trust volunteers to go about the work in their own way. Time is increasingly precious as we all live more complex and pressured lives. People have to be convinced that they aren’t going to waste their time volunteering with you and that they will make a difference. “ A good quality participation experience was the single most important reason interviewees gave to explain their sustained participation ” and “ people participated in order to specifically achieve something ” Pathways Through Participation Today’s volunteers are different from the duty driven legions of traditional volunteers More mobile – migration etc. Tech savvy Multiple interests and roles Lead complex and busy lives Want two-way relationships Accept change and a variety of choice Like volunteering in groups Like to use their skills and learn new ones
• #28: The Beijing vs London analogy We need to focus less on creating lots of uniform volunteering that is tightly controlled and orderly and efficient Instead be open to volunteering being more diverse, slightly chaotic, more fun and creative.
• #29: Link strongly with what National Trust know about drivers for their volunteering KPI (80% recommendation): Be organised Communicate Work as a team and show appreciation Make the most of peoples skills Show clear direction and leadership
• #31: Second discussion point – think about your experience as a volunteer as well as your experience of working in the sector.