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I'm interested in pursuing a career as a volunteer coordinator but don’t know where to start. Currently, I am in Iceland taking part in an European Voluntary Service project which will end soon. Since graduating from university, I’ve volunteered for charities and worked with other volunteers, so most of my experience is in the not-for-profit sector. I would be most grateful if you could give me some advice. Natasha Waas, director of Charity People, answers: Since 2006, the Year of the Volunteer, more and more charities are looking towards volunteers as a new way of bridging gaps in service provision. This is great news for you since it means volunteer coordinators are in high demand. Your voluntary experience certainly counts for something: if you’ve thought like a volunteer and worked as a volunteer for at least a year or so, you should be able to persuade a recruiter that you have what it takes to co-ordinate other volunteers. Skills needed include patience, common sense, the ability to motivate and persuade others, leadership skills – plus the all-important empathy, crucial to understanding the reasons behind what makes a volunteer. Charity People and forum3 often carry volunteer co-ordination roles, as do charities such as Victim Support and others which regularly rely on heavy volunteer usage. Kim Hawkins, volunteer coordinator at the Naz Project, answers: My personal “route in” came through volunteering - getting involved with lots of volunteering at uni, then in South Africa for eight months working on a youth sexual health education project. This led directly to my present job, as a Volunteer Coordinator(VC) for the Naz Project, working with young people on sexual health issues. Although VCs effectively work in HR, charities still want experience in the issues they deal with. Working out what kind of charity you want to work for (health, campaigning, office-based, phone helpline etc) and getting experience in what they do is a good start. Getting volunteer experience that’ll get you connections with other organisations is particularly good. You may need to apply for positions that fit your current strengths and once you’ve got a bit of experience, skip sideways into the sector you want. Applying for VC positions outside the charity sector might be an easier way to start. There'll be competition from others with voluntary experience looking for their first charity job. So try and get voluntary experience specific to the role. Many charities will require the VC to project manage, requiring budget good time management/organisational skills. If you don’t get a VC position straight away, try applying for other charity positions, such as admin roles or working on reception, and keep on volunteering on the side. Ralph Tingey, volunteer coordinator at ScotsCare, answers: I became a volunteer coordinator eight years ago whilst managing an evening club for people with learning disabilities. I was completing an MSc in organisational psychology at the time and was looking for a topic to write my dissertation on. A number of people, including clients, had expressed an interest in volunteering for the charity I worked for so I combined the two and carried out research into setting up a volunteer programme. A good volunteer coordinator has the ability to recognise and to “fit” the operational style of the volunteer programme to the culture of the organisation they work for. Volunteer programmes can, on the one hand, be highly structured with a high level of staff supervision, like the Victim Support system, or they can operate mostly by themselves, like Neighbourhood Watch. So the methodology used by the volunteer coordinator can vary from the more institutional to the more personal. If you are considering becoming a volunteer coordinator then I’d advise taking a few courses in volunteer management. There are lots of day courses around nowadays. I would also suggest reading Essential Volunteer Management by Steve McCurley and Rick Lynch. It presents a definitive standard of all aspects of volunteer management by two of the worlds experts on the subject.
Charity People forum3 Victim Support Essential Volunteer Management Scotscare
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