The volunteering sector needs a more powerful representative body, volunteer managers have said in response to a survey by nfpSynergy.
The results of the survey are released in a report today entitled The New Alchemy: How volunteering turns donations of time and talent into human gold.
nfpSynergy surveyed 500 volunteer managers and found that two thirds of respondents felt they needed better representation.
Volunteer managers are “alchemists who can turn the raw human resource of time freely given into real gold”, the report says, but warned that for that to happen, volunteer managers need to be taken more seriously at a senior level.
“At its most fundamental, empowering volunteer managers means treating the post as a serious profession with a valuable and clear set of objectives and a secure mandate to focus substantively on volunteering,” the report says.
Some 63 per cent of respondents said they felt that volunteer management was considered “very important” by senior management. A further 30 percent felt that their job role was taken “somewhat seriously”.
Forty-seven per cent said they were happy or very happy with the level of support for volunteer managers within their organisation but almost the same amount, 46 per cent, felt their organisation could do more.
When asked what aspects of an infrastructure body would be most useful for volunteer managers, best practice tops the wish list at 84 per cent, followed by training at 70 per cent, the opportunity to meet other volunteer managers (67 per cent) and accessing online materials (66 per cent).
"Volunteering doesn't just happen"
The survey reports that while there are encouraging signs in terms of organisational support - with 93 per cent of volunteer managers saying that they felt senior management within their organisation viewed their job as important – just half of respondents were happy with their organisations’ support for volunteer management and half of respondents felt their organisation could do more.
One respondent interviewed commented: “It’s not enough to just get volunteers. Volunteering doesn't just happen, it’s always a managed and supported and enabled process. If we want volunteering to be successful, we need to make sure that the management, or the empowering and enabling of that process, is successful.“
The report builds on a previous survey in 2005 that found the type of volunteer was changing and charities needed to adapt to suit the demands of a new “selfish volunteer”. Charities who were able to suit the needs of younger and skilled volunteers and took the role of a volunteer manager seriously, were better able to turn the volunteer resource into “human gold”.
“The best thing your organisation can do is empower its volunteer managers and allow them a strong, secure mandate to develop volunteer capacity in their own way, the report says.
The report says that while volunteering and volunteer management have developed significantly over the past few years, with new qualifications in the field and more prominence for volunteer roles within job listings, the field still suffers the effects of shortfalls.
“With volunteer centres losing funding - the Volunteer Centre network in 2011/12 saw its lowest funding since 2008/09, with a shrinking number of funding sources and demand out-stripping capacity - it is clear that the vocation remains under-prioritised, under-professionalised and under-supported,” the report says.
