This week's episode features Mark Lever, former CEO of three leading charities: Helpforce, Royal Voluntary Service, and the National Autistic Society. Mark brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of the volunteer landscape. Our conversation delves into the crucial topic of demonstrating and maximising the impact of volunteering—a core focus of Time for Impact. We also discuss the power of local community action and the vital role of grassroots volunteering. Mark's thoughtful insights offer valuable lessons for anyone involved in or interested in the world of volunteering.

Learn more about the organizations Mark has led:

• Helpforce:https://helpforce.community/

• Royal Voluntary Service:https://www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/

• National Autistic Society:https://www.autism.org.uk/

Tune in for this engaging and informative discussion!

We hope you enjoy our discussion on volunteering in Northern Ireland, volunteering Infrastructure and the international volunteerism profession as much as we did.

We discussed the role of community sport and faith in volunteering, the role of infrastructure in boosting the profession, and the centrality of volunteerism in citizenship, democracy and the civic fabric. We discussed the changes in volunteering behaviour and the link between flexibility and inclusion.

Do check out the great range of insightful research papers on the Volunteer Now website

https://www.volunteernow.co.uk/publication-category/research/

We also referred to the latest household survey data on volunteering in Northern Ireland and some recovery since Covid. https://datavis.nisra.gov.uk/communities/experience-of-volunteering-by-adults-in-northern-ireland-202324.html#Definitions__technical_notes

We were delighted to be joined on the Time For Impact Podcast by Michael Phillips, Head of Volunteering at the great homelessness charity Crisis.

Crisis have some really exciting and truly ambitious plans to work in collaboration with the communities in which homelessness exists, with business, government and other charities to end homelessness in the UK.

They recognise that they cannot do it alone as an organisation nor as a staff body and that they need to be the convenors of a coalition of people united behind this shared purpose.

You can read more about their strategy here https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/plan-to-end-homelessness/

More information on volunteering at Crisis can be found here https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/

In the midst of the discussion we reference the ‘Time to Change’ - you can read about them here https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/about-us

We mentioned the social media backlash to supermarkets selling Halloween costumes that stigmatise people with mental health issues. You can read more about that here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24278768#:~:text=Supermarket%20chains%20Tesco%20and%20Asda,its%20%22psycho%20ward%22%20outfit

As always we hope you enjoy the podcast. Please do follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

If you like what you hear, please give us a nice rating, and tell your colleagues about our show. We would really appreciate that.

We are always interested in ideas for future guests or subjects so do contact us via www.TimeForImpact.co.uk with suggestions and feedback.

And remember Time for Impact can always help you with your strategic volunteer thinking and demonstrating the impact of volunteering. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode of the Time for Impact podcast Chris and Matt discuss the newly released ‘Digital in Volunteering Toolkit’ with Gethyn Williams.

The new toolkit is a useful tool for new and experienced volunteering professionals alike and completely free. So we think it is precisely the kind of innovation that fellow professionals may wish to hear more about.

In our usual style of course, we delve beyond the immediate practicality of the toolkit itself and muse upon future needs and developments. We hope you enjoy the discussion!

Read more about the Toolkit:

https://teamkinetic.co.uk/blog/2024/12/digital-in-volunteering-toolkit-launch/

Watch the Digital in Volunteering launch back in full:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtTzfH_W6kg

Download the Toolkit and join the Community of Practice:

https://volunteermanagers.org.uk/resources/uncategorized/digital-in-volunteering-toolkit/?utm_source=teamkinetic&utm_medium=blog

On Friday 15th November 2024, Chris Wade, Helen Timbrell and Rob Jackson held a unique event kindly hosted by the National Trust at their HQ in Swindon.

The event, started to address the long evolving trend of volunteering functions being housed in combined People functions of HR and Volunteering professionals.

We felt that the sector discussion on this is long-overdue. HR professionals are increasingly asked to take on such leadership roles or work in combined teams, often without much in the way of support or preparation, and less still in terms of helping exploring the many possible options for integration.

This sometimes leads to disgruntled volunteering and HR teams jockeying for space and influence, and sometimes difficult change programmes without an understanding of the benefits and challenges of volunteering.

Our approach was and remains to provide a supportive environment to help HR professionals gain insight into some of the challenges, context and skillsets needs related to developing volunteering. We recognised that there are many and varied ways of exploring the benefits or otherwise of integration, and we felt that this could be the beginning of building a supportive network to help people professionals on this potentially new journey. We feel that such a supportive environment will help HR and volunteer professionals alike and ultimately our volunteers and our causes too.

So, in this podcast, able chaired by Matt, Rob, Helen and Chris explore reflections on the day, implications for the sector and possible next steps on this journey.

I hope you find the discussion stimulating. Please leave your thoughts in the comments or contact us direct at podcast@TimeForImpact.co.uk . We are sure this debate will continue.

Chris Wade

In the podcast we reference Rob and Helen's 2023 podcast conversation on Advancing the Profession. You can access that here....

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3K76Eh90TYEg4mGXwxffvC?si=XwrVEyCwQtybDW0vJXSg3g

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/season-2-episode-4-helen-timbrell/id1556641117?i=1000606011872

There is mention of my article on curating volunteer experiences that you access here....

https://www.timeforimpact.co.uk/blogs/our-blogs/dont-manage-curate

Both Matt and I are big fans of Parkrun; not just the running but the volunteering too. We've long been impressed at their simple yet efficient, well organised and inclusive volunteering happens with a relatively small staffing body.

To get the inside track on how Parkrun grew from a small local running event to a global phenomena this is essential listening. You will learn about how volunteering grew as an integral part of Parkrun, and about the culture and values that drive this amazing organisation.

The aim of this podcast series is to capture and share interesting activity across volunteering; so that we can all learn and constantly improve our practice. This episode is a great example of that.

If you'd like Time for Impact to help you review, develop or improve your volunteering practice and strategy, or help you demonstrate the value and impact your volunteers deliver please do reach out to us via our www.TimeForImpact.co.uk and we can offer a range of consulting, mentoring and learning solutions.

Chris Wade

For those exploring corporate or employee volunteering this is a must-listen episode.

Kishma is responsible for employee volunteering across Wellcome, one of the richest charities in the world, and a significant employer in the UK.

Wellcome's ethos and culture means that they see employee volunteering as a key ingredient of staff wellbeing.

Tune in to hear a perspective from an employer, about what we need to do to partner effectively with them to build successful partnership between our causes and their employees.

In the episode Matt quotes some statistics about skills based volunteering. These comes from https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2024/03/06/volunteering-a-proven-way-to-improve-employee-well-being/

To read more about Wellcome go to https://wellcome.org/

Enjoy the episode.

Janet Thorne CEO of Reach Volunteering joined Chris and Matt to discuss how Reach Volunteering has had enormous success recently in recruiting volunteers where others have struggled.

We discuss their citizenship focussed approach to recruitment and involvement.

We really encourage you to read Reach and Janet's writing on these subjects. Links provided below.

#ChangeTheStory campaign https://reachvolunteering.org.uk/changethestory

#ChangeTheStory bloghttps://reachvolunteering.org.uk/blog/let-s-change-story

#VolunteerForClimatehttps://reachvolunteering.org.uk/volunteer-for-climate

Please also do take a look at our own website and see the range of work we provide beyond this podcast.

https://www.timeforimpact.co.uk/

We always welcome feedback on the podcast and are seeking ideas of guests that we should interview. Please get in touch via the website.

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