Skilled volunteering is a great way for people to share time in a way that really helps community work to grow. If someone works professionally in a job doing things like: HR, digital skills, marketing, PR, project management, etc. they might not even realise that spending a few hours each week helping a charity with a skills gaps, could amount to £1,000s worth of specialist help to work toward their objectives.
LinkUp LDN works across London to match skilled volunteers to charitable organisations, and being based in Battersea they have a long standing in the Wandsworth community.
Wandsworth Care Alliance recently recruited our first skilled volunteer from LinkUp LDN, and this article shares some answers to questions you might have about how it works.
What kind of skills are available?
LinkUp’s website asks for people with all skills including marketing, HR, strategy, communications, social media, legal, finance, data collection / analysis, research, writing organisational development, systems design and much more. We decided to recruit for a PR strategist and got a volunteer who could help us with advocacy too!
How do I know I’m eligible for a skilled volunteer?
LinkUp have a useful and easy form I recommend filling in even if you aren’t eligible. It will help you to reflect on your needs and ability to support a skilled volunteer. LinkUP will let you know the results with a friendly follow up.
How do I decide exactly what I need?
LinkUP have a several stage process for matching organisations, first the qualifier form, then a meeting, they will take you through the reasonable project timelines in a clear and informative way. In our 1-2-1 LinkUP really helped us to look at our wider needs and decide on priorities. They helped us to narrow down the volunteer specification to write an appealing advert, they then sent it back to us for feedback before posting.
How long does it take to recruit?
Recruiting volunteers varies depending on the skills and interests of prospective volunteers but they aim to make a match in a month. There is a big audience and it was very reassuring to hear that our volunteer found out about the programme through a friend who did a placement and enjoyed it. The programmes are popularly growing through word of mouth so there is plenty of potential to recruit.
How many volunteers can I recruit and for how long?
LinkUp limits each organisation to one active project at a time and the projects can last up to 3 months. The plausible commitment from a volunteer is 1-3 hours per week, you can discuss the pattern with them in a call but this is what they have found works and we trust it.
What will my volunteer be like?
LinkUp are great for bringing volunteers and organisations together but from that point on the organisation is responsible for making a volunteer agreement like any other volunteering route. It’s worth noting that a lot of skilled volunteers will be offering their time alongside a full time job so they might require contact out of office hours and its worth doing everything you can to engage them and thank them for the commitment they are making.
LinkUP do a great job however of checking in to make sure the project is progressing well and once you meet your volunteer in an online call between LinkUP, your volunteer manager, and the prospective volunteer you will be guided to decide what the work pattern and term could be. We work very flexibly with our volunteer, planning short weekly catchups as we would rather them spend their limited time on the project work. Each organisation will inevitably be different.
If you’re interested in advertising for a skilled volunteer, visit https://linkuplondon.org/ to find out more.
If you want to recruit general volunteers you can also advertise on our volunteer Wandsworth website too. Contact Jummy@wandcareall.org.uk to find out more or click here to register.