voluntary groups

voluntary groups

This section outlines all the services we can offer you to help you develop volunteering within your group. 

What services do we provide to voluntary community groups?

Helping you find volunteers
If you would like to involve volunteers within your organisation, you can advertise your vacant roles with us. We will promote your volunteering opportunities to potential volunteers by putting them online on the national volunteering website http://www.do-it.org.uk/, individual advice sessions and outreach. Please click here to find out more about our brokerage service

Setting up a volunteer programme
Is your organisation or community group new to involving volunteers or are you formalising your volunteer involvement? Starting up a volunteer programme can seem quite a big piece of work and there are various things to consider. Volunteer Centre Southwark has a dedicated Good Practice team which can support you in putting robust structures and processes in place to ensure that you volunteering experience is a good one for both you and your volunteers. For more information please read more in our “new to involving volunteers” section and our “resource section” on our website.

Volunteer Charter and Good practice development
Part of our role is to promote good practice and support organisations in working with volunteers in the best possible way.  In collaboration with other central London volunteer centres and Greater London Volunteering, we have developed a Volunteer Charter as a quality mark of good practice in volunteer management. This outlines the basic principles of good practice and shows your commitment to volunteering. There is a variety of support and advice available for your group to achieve our quality mark

Support in Volunteer Management
Managing and supporting volunteers can sometimes throw up difficult situations or leave you wondering what the best way to proceed may be. Whether you have queries around legal issues, support needs or other issues around volunteering, we will support you by either phone or email advice, individual meetings or tailored training. Find out more here

Resources
To enable to you to implement good practice easily you will find a variety of resources on our website, such as our good practice guide, templates and useful links.

Volunteer Management Forum
Every quarter Volunteer Centre Southwark organises a Volunteer Management Forum, which offers networking, informal training, workshops and peer support to anyone working with and supporting volunteers in Southwark.

Support for small, informal and volunteer-led groups
We also offer targeted support for smaller groups run entirely by volunteers with up to one paid member of staff including training courses, networking meetings and individual support on volunteering best practice.

Employer Supported Volunteering
The Involve project is well known for running team challenges throughout Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham. From a community group’s point of view, the biggest benefit to you is that our services are FREE!

Training
Volunteer Centre Southwark provides a range of training courses covering all areas of volunteer management/ involvement. For more information please visit our training page