Volunteers Week: Top insights and statistics

As part of Volunteers Week 2017 (1^st – 7^th June), we’re sharing insightful articles and interesting stats from the third sector.

1. Providing a great volunteer candidate experience: Is it vital?

We all know that a smooth application process is essential for keeping your applicants engaged with your employer brand and the hiring process. And it’s no different when recruiting volunteers.

“Volunteers are often the backbone of charitable and not-for-profit organisations. They bring time, energy and passion to help you extend your services further and reach more people, places, communities, animals and more.”

We discuss why a volunteer’s experience of your hiring process is equally as important as a staff member’s, and provide practical tips to improve your volunteer candidate experience.

Find out: Why volunteer candidates need good experience too

2. Are you attracting the skills you need?

In a recent guest blog with Agenda Consulting, we shared our knowledge on how to attract skilled volunteers.

“Attracting volunteers with relevant experience can help charitable organisations plug this skills gap. The question is, how can you encourage people to donate their skills to your organisation?”

From working with local business to taking a closer look at your application process, we explain how to attract volunteers with the skills your organisation needs, from your website copy to your application process.

Discover: How to attract the volunteering skills you need

3. Volunteer recruitment in action

We’ve talked about how to attract skilled volunteers, and how to keep them engaged with a great candidate experience. But do these techniques really work?

The answer is yes. We spoke to the MND Association, a charitable organisation dedicated to funding global research into MND and providing support for people affected by the disease.

“By embracing new technology, creating additional roles and streamlining its recruitment process, the charity has taken great leaps in attracting the volunteers needed to make a difference to people living with MND.”

In our case study, the MND Association shared their initiatives for attracting and engaging volunteers, including their use of the Hireserve ATS Facebook app.

Read it now: the MND Association case study

4. New research on why volunteers do what they do

What motivates volunteers to donate their time and skills?

27% of people say that ‘making a difference’ is what motivated them to volunteer. ‘Gaining experience’ and having the ‘chance to use my skills’ were also among the reasons given.

In this infographic, Agenda Consulting examines what compels a person volunteer, and what they love most about it. With research and statistics, this infographic provides an insight into the motivations of people applying for volunteering roles.

Discover: the Volunteer Motivations Infographic

5. A new business volunteering platform to match skilled volunteers with charitable organisations

We’ve donated our powerful Applicant Tracking System technology to help power a new online volunteering platform: The Volunteer Pool.

Working with two charities, Poole CVS and Bournemouth CVS, we created a platform to encourage businesses and staff to get involved with local volunteering, and also to help match skilled volunteers with charities in need of certain skillsets.

“We want to make it easier than ever for charities to promote their volunteering vacancies and for employers to encourage their staff to volunteer. With The Volunteer Pool, we can now do this.”

This was an exciting pro bono project for the Hireserve team and we’ve been delighted with the response so far from charities and businesses along the South Coast.

Explore: A new business volunteering platform

Find out more

Get to know our software, Hireserve ATS

How did technology help Stepchange transform their charity recruitment?

Meet the Hireserve team