SAVE THE CHILDREN
Engaging the nation through the community: a vision of volunteering at Save the Children
Introduction
Save the Children’s relationship with volunteers has a chequered past. Numbers have steadily or dramatically declined for many years[1]. We must now explore a new model for volunteering that turns on its head our structures and processes or accept a slow withdrawal from the volunteer market.
Executive Summary
Save the Children has a wonderful heritage in its established, long serving and valuable volunteer force, but this is mostly aging and declining. This is generally true of large mature charitable organisations, which have pursued a similar “professionalisation” approach. Nobody has found a perfect solution, but there are some dramatic and compelling examples where empowerment and volunteer driven cultures have achieved rapid step changes, in income and presence.
For Save the Children to do this means dramatic change of approach to our work in the community. Volunteers become the “we” not the “them”; staff become facilitators and support teams; senior staff and directors are visible, routinely listen to our supporters and run with ideas that are formed at the grass roots.
The Vision for Volunteering
In 2013 we can say…
Save the Children is one team, passionately seeking dramatic Change for Children. Volunteers are at the heart of achieving this change, supported by staff who are skilled relationship builders, oozing enthusiasm and commitment. The relationship between staff and volunteers is built on trust, honesty and transparency. The edges between a staff activity and a volunteer activity are indistinct; everything that can be is volunteer-led. By working as one team, combining skills and experience, staff and volunteers are generating millions more in income and growing rapidly to reach all communities across Britain.
Background: Volunteer Fundraising in the UK
In 2003 we had 14,000 fundraising volunteers recorded on our database. Anecdotally, there were many more in the 1980s. Historically, we were synonymous with volunteering. Currently we have 9,000 registered on the Save the Children database.
In the past 18 months we have started to redress some of the damage caused in the preceding 2 years. This ‘phase 1’ of a strategy saw a steadying of volunteer numbers as a result of improved supporter care, realignment of resources in the field, volunteers actively participating in key projects and a new focus on core activity such as Save the Children Week. But we must not be complacent.
Whilst the morale of our really engaged volunteers has improved our challenge is that the vast majority of our volunteers will have seen little change. The past 4 years have been particularly difficult, but we have been suffering from much longer term decline and this will not change unless we significantly shift our attitudes and ways of working.
Simply improving local support but doing nothing to radically change the model, is not going to deliver the fundamental change we need. We might modestly grow income in the short term, and hold expenditure increases to inflationary levels for 1-3 years, but beyond that the problem of an aging volunteer population will see attrition overtake the benefits of improved local supporter care.
Our existing volunteer model is out of date. Our volunteer mix is not diverse[2] and we have been increasingly reliant on a shrinking pool of traditional fundraising groups of volunteers (‘Branches’).These groups came to us at a time when the volunteer landscape was very different, ‘when many people had spare time to give and who they gave it to was not as important as the need to fill their days’[3]. Lifestyles are very different today and we are struggling to attract new volunteers to the branch model[4].
The New Volunteer Landscape
Phase 2 of our strategy must address the changing needs and expectations of supporters. Today volunteers have many choices where to give their precious (and pressured) time. Volunteers want to know what their role is, and want to contribute their skills. In exchange many want an ‘experience’ and want to know they are making a difference.
We have many highly skilled, intelligent supporters, capable of adding huge value to Save the Children. In most cases we do not use these skills, nor their considerable networks and yet that is exactly what many volunteers want us to do.
Volunteers do not always want to be tied into big commitments or cumbersome committees. We must offer a range of opportunities to suit their varied needs. Our volunteer network will need to include a continuum of support, from ad hoc ‘dip in, dip out’ support to longer term involvement at a much deeper and influential level. What volunteers do for us should be determined by the skills and time they can offer, not the title we give them, and both will increase dramatically when the existing team feels trust, empowerment and opportunities created.
Where are the New Communities?
The traditional sense of 'community' has changed too. Today's communities are less constrained by location, with new technologies, transient populations and globalisation linking people in new ways and on different terms. It is not unusual for us to not know our neighbours but to talk regularly with someone on the other side of the world. A shared interest or experience brings people together irrespective of where they live.
We must access these 21st century communities by bringing people together based on their shared interests and values, using new technology, and social on-line networking as well as good old fashioned face-to-face contact.
Crucially, individuals choose the community they live in; they are no longer born into it. But people still need a sense of belonging, they want the t-shirt or badge and we must offer them the community of Save the Children.
The Value of Volunteering to Save the Children
Once the ‘poor relation’ in many organisations, volunteering, and specifically community fundraising, is being reconsidered as a valuable, recession resistant and cost effective route to growth. As a fundraising mechanism community volunteering is often perceived to have a relatively low return. However, in reality the value of these fundraising streams cannot be measured in the same way. Our presence in communities enables us to access legacies, major donors, emergency fundraising and affords an opportunity for local campaigning and awareness-raising. Without a strong community presence many other important income streams would adversely suffer[5].
A New Volunteer-led Model for Save the Children
Despite our decline in volunteer fundraising, external trends demonstrate an increase in the number of people volunteering[6] which affords us the opportunity to take a new approach.
Trends like these are fuelling a renaissance in the sector with organisations returning to community fundraising activity. Save the Children’s Community Fundraising Review highlights that without exception all the charities interviewed were planning for growth over the next five years[7]. The most successful ones will be those that truly embrace a volunteer-led model.
By following the energy of our volunteers, backing their winning ideas, we can quickly and cost effectively build income. To ‘engage the nation’ from the centre and through staff driven initiatives will take too long, not have the reach and will be too expensive to do properly. We can learn from our own examples that a volunteer-led model has real power. Most of our really successful events and campaigns were all devised, developed and run by volunteers[8]. Given their head volunteers will rise to any challenge and find their own resourceful solutions to a problem. Inspire volunteers with our mission and there’s no stopping them[9].
The network could be seen as individual ‘business leaders’ who need support, rather than one or two businesses with local operatives. We will all share a goal of changing children’s lives, but the centre won’t dictate the terms. We will be united by our common values, by a passion for the cause, working ‘in harmony but not uniformity’[10].
Becoming truly volunteer-led is highly ambitious but an achievable and necessary step change if we are serious about engaging the nation. Empowering volunteers to take the lead and ceding control as a result, turns on its head decades of thinking by large mature voluntary organisations. This is a paradigm shift that has to start at the most senior level and has to be passionately and intrinsically believed by everyone. It must be embraced as an opportunity to make every volunteer feel part of the organisation, to release the energy, passion and enthusiasm of supporters, rather than viewed as a threat. This should not be seen as a purely revolutionary step, but also a reaction to the way that Save the Children has worked with volunteers over the past 30 years.
Ripples in a Pond
Our volunteers are key influencers, ambassadors and networkers. Like ripples in a pond, we want them to make an impact, to build momentum for support, reach out and engage the nation.
Our existing model simply asks volunteers to fundraise, but we also want them to bring new supporters on board, encourage others to fundraise, or give in other ways. We need to inspire our volunteers to do that, and for some volunteers this will be a more compelling and effective role. Our focus should be on supporting, developing and inspiring the ‘ripple makers’ the volunteers who, in a way similar to a business franchise, set up their own innovative, effective and highly motivated fundraising groups and networks.
Structure in a Porous Organisation
Volunteer involvement and engagement is based on a continuum of support from the one-off event participant, to the committee member to the individual speaker to the trustee. Structures, where they apply, are fluid and porous. How we work and structures we work in should reflect a supporter focused approach.
Volunteer Structure
Historically fundraising groups were represented through the organisation by a hierarchical representation structure[11] that fed directly into the board. Whilst this suited some of our traditional volunteers, it did not represent volunteers outside these groups, and served only to create a ‘them and us’ mentality across the organisation. Phase 1 of our strategy sought to break down barriers and free up structures, but we still have a long way to go. We propose closing the gap so that volunteers don’t just appear at the very top or bottom of the tree, but are natural in every activity.
In 2006 we established the Volunteer Advisory Group that facilitated a dialogue between staff and volunteers. The group works in partnership and provides a sounding board during strategy development. As we move towards more volunteer driven activity we will need to ensure we have similar dialogue and partnership with all key volunteers but well supported volunteers, who are engaged in our mission and driven by our values, do not need or want formal representation beyond having a Volunteer Trustee Board. Key volunteers, such as fundraising committees, need stewardship and involvement instead.
In the devolved nations we will need to ensure we have legitimacy before the local assemblies, have a close understanding of national law and be swift to respond to local fundraising and programme opportunities. Where appropriate, volunteer groups may come together in support of these aims. These groups will emerge based on volunteer interests, expertise and the influence they have and will be empowered to raise funds, support our programme and extend the volunteer network in country. They will not be a council for council’s sake. As in England, various groups, committees or individual volunteers will be engaged in working in partnership with us, as one team, to bring about dramatic change for children in the most appropriate way.One size does not fit all. We need to support volunteers who drive activity themselves as well as those that respond to more specific ‘asks’.
Staff Structure
Organisational structure must directly reflect the absolutely central nature of our supporters and their staff interface. No one should be miles away from a supporter; we should all have roles that directly or indirectly serve our supporters’ needs in flatter structures that facilitate this. If you are not serving a supporter, are you serving someone who is? Top heavy structures slow us down and restrict innovation and adaptability. Their role becomes primarily one of service and support.
Volunteering beyond Community Giving
Many thousands of people across the world donate time to us.
This includes supporting country programmes, campaigning, organising events, shop volunteering, fundraising (locally and targeted to HNW), sharing specialist skills and supporting other volunteers.
Next Steps
We need to firstly identify, empower and inspire our key volunteers, free them up to fundraise as they know best. Then we must encourage them to build new networks in order that we can scale up significantly. The support would grow through word of mouth, volunteer to volunteer, with staff focussed on building relationships, inspiring with core messages and vision, delivering support and absorbing feedback, not leading the fundraising directly themselves.
There will be a focus on building community fundraisers’ skills enabling them to become the most effective relationship managers. Community Giving structures and job descriptions will reflect the aim that fundraising staff should be supporting volunteers or supporting someone who supports a volunteer.
We will also need to align or adjust wider organisational communications and activity to reflect the Volunteer Vision.
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[1] In the 80’s volunteer income was circa £7m and today is £3m.
[2]92% female, 21% over 75 years of age
[3]Nfp Synergy report ‘The 21st Century volunteer’
[4]80% of today’s grandparents are actively involved in childcare
[5]31% of legacies received since 2003came from areas with an active branch and were worth on average £40K against a national average of £19K.
[6]The most recent Home Office Citizenship report highlights that 11.1 million people in the UK are involved in formal volunteering at least once a month and are most likely to be involved in: organising or helping to run an activity or event (57%), raising or handling money (54%), leading a group/ being a member of a committee, giving other practical help (32%).
[8]E.g. Festival of Trees, Tennis and Wessex Walks
[9]Who could have ever imagined we would have 500,000 knitted hats in the basement?
[10]Our campaign model refers to an orchestra, with Save the Children as conductor. Whilst we will be less prescriptive than that, the concept of shared purpose and harmony is central to both models.
[11]BASAC and the UK Forum