As Volunteers' Week 2015 draws to a close we look at how Marie Curie, the Children’s Society and Rethink Mental Illness have used social channels to celebrate and thank their volunteers.
Marie Curie #BeAStar on Vine
Marie Curie has created a Vine video to highlight the range of volunteer opportunities at the charity.
The Vine links to Marie Curie’s the volunteering roles section of the website, which currently lists more than 1,000 available roles and has more information about the work involved.
It has also collected a number of blogs from volunteers giving insight into their experiences.
Why we love it: the fast moving visual gives the impression that there is lots of different options at Marie Curie and makes it likely to catch people’s eye when they are scrolling through Twitter or Vine.
Rethink Mental Illness’ inspirational quotes
Rethink Mental Illness often shares inspirational quotes from well-known people on its Twitter page, and this week it shared one from Winston Churchill, but also jumped on the #VolunteersWeek hashtag to reach a wider audience. The tweet was retweeted almost 60 times.
The charity’s digital team also posted an interview with a volunteer on its blog. It also asked its Facebook fans what they wanted to know about volunteering to encourage discussion among its supporters.
Why we love it: By using the #VolunteersWeek hashtag with something the charity was already doing it was able to increase the number of people it reached with minimum effort.
Children’s Society applaud its volunteers
The Children’s Society posted a message for its volunteers on YouTube. It’s a montage of its staff and young people around the country clapping and cheering.
Like many other charities it has also shared volunteer stories on its blog and its chief executive, Matthew Reed posted a personal message on YouTube.
Why we love it: What better motivation to continue volunteering than actually being cheered, and the best thing about a virtual cheer is that it can be played over and over again.
NCVO co-ordinates Volunteers Week every year using the hashtags #VolunteersWeek, and #iVoluneer Twitter handle @NCVOvolunteers, and has a number of resources on its website.
