Professional volunteers drive

CSV has announced a new volunteering drive to get 9,000 professionals and recent retirees involved with more than 400 community groups over the next twelve months. The scheme, called the Professionals programme, has been backed by a £705,603 grant from the Cabinet Office’s Social Action Fund.

To coincide with the launch of the programme, CSV has conducted a survey on the professional skills gaps amongst 50 local and national charities involved in community activity. It found that 47 per cent have a need for skilled volunteers, in particular business skills, including fundraising, marketing, accountancy and finance and IT and web design.

Based on its research findings, CSV recommends the following actions and approaches to increase the number of professional volunteers that give their time to charities:

• Easy matching - Partner organisations and volunteers need an easy and straight forward matching process to encourage involvement.
• Diversity counts - Partner organisations value CSV’s access to volunteers with different backgrounds and skills.
• Active retirement - Businesses need to raise more awareness of volunteering opportunities in staff who are about to retire and look at including active retirement in their CSR strategy.
• Visibility - Small local organisations and groups need to increase their visibility and communication strategy amongst potential professional volunteers who are not aware of their services.
• Flexible volunteering - More flexible volunteering opportunities need to be available to suit professional lifestyles.
• Impact - Charities need to make better use of the professional skills of existing volunteers to ensure their organisations.