Steps to get started for organisations

A quick guide on how to structure listings on Volunteer Bucks

Getting the most out of the Volunteer Bucks platform can help organisations save time and costs when recruiting and managing volunteers. Once you know the basics, familiarise yourselves with the advanced features so that you can raise your organisation's profile, promote your opportunities effectively, and reach more potential volunteers. Here are some of Volunteer Bucks' advanced features: 1) Invite registered users to follow your organisation You can directly notify Volunteer Bucks registered users about your new volunteer opportunities or general updates if they are members of your organisation on Volunteer Bucks. To use this feature, simply invite them to become a member - read the How do I invite people to become a member? guide. Unlike moderators or administrators, members are not able to make any changes to your organisation profile or create opportunities (unless you specifically allow them to). 2) Display your Volunteer Bucks opportunities on other websites Increase the reach of your volunteer opportunities by embedding them on your own website, on social media, or on other websites that can share opportunities. This will also save you administration time as you will not have to rebuild custom posts for each website. Read this step-by-step guide to find out how. 3) Use data and analytics to manage users, opportunities, activity, and visualise your impact Data and analytics can help your organisation's administrators and team leaders identify trends in volunteer applications, member engagement, and other metrics. It can also help with reporting and checking how your organisation's profile is performing on the platform. Using the data tables, you can use your organisation page as your own customer relationship management (CRM) tool. It can help you to manage your organisation's interactions with past/ current/ new volunteers, or as a portal to export information to be used separately. Using analytics, you can generate reports on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis on a range of criteria. Read Best practices: using data and analytics to see how your organisation could access insights into your account. The Activity Reports and Impact Hours feature gives organisations the ability to not only find volunteers through the platform but also to measure the impact they are making with the help of those volunteers. 4) Streamline your onboarding process using forms To gather more information about the volunteer when they apply, add custom forms to your activities or opportunities. You can also use one form for multiple activities or opportunities. Read this guide about adding forms. 5) Request files from volunteers You can ask a volunteer to upload a file when they apply for your opportunity/ role in cases where you need specific information. For example, a CV, drivers' licence, or application form. Find out more by following this guide. Our Advanced Features webinars go through all these tips for organisations in more detail and give the opportunity to ask any questions. To book your place at the next available date, visit our Webinars for Groups page.

BucksVision is a registered charity whose staff and volunteers support those with sight loss in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. Why do you use the Volunteer Bucks platform? BucksVision had been using the Buckinghamshire Volunteer Matching Service to find volunteers since 2022 with some success, so we were keen to have a presence on the Volunteer Bucks platform which replaced it as soon as it was announced. As with other charities, finding volunteers is increasingly difficult but we have found Volunteer Bucks is a great system which allows us to get our roles out to a wider audience who are actively looking to take on a volunteer role. How easy is the platform to use? We started using Volunteer Bucks after attending a very helpful webinar on how to use it and how to get started as an organisation. We've found the platform is user friendly and easy to navigate. It takes about 30 minutes to add a role to the platform - mainly due to getting the knack of uploading the images but it gets easier when you have completed a few. How do you use the platform to communicate with potential volunteers? Volunteer Bucks has a number of useful functions which has definitely helped us to communicate with people who are interested in our roles. We use the chat function to make initial contact with the volunteer and then use emails to send applications forms and to respond to any queries. Have you encountered any challenges or difficulties while using the platform? The main challenge we have is the time it takes to follow up with the numerous applications we receive. Some people who have said they are interested in the role do not respond after we make contact with them, but this is something we have also experienced through our other recruitment methods. How has the platform impacted your ability to attract volunteers? In just three months, we have successfully recruited seven volunteers through the platform: three administrators, three drivers, and one be-friender. This is fantastic given the short time the platform has been live. The interest in some of our roles is higher than usual - for example, we received seven applications for one admin role! We are looking at starting a new recruitment campaign soon to attract volunteers between the ages of 18 and 25. We will be using Volunteer Bucks as part of this as we feel it will help us reach new potential volunteers from across Buckinghamshire.