Table of Contents 2
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Project Objectives 3
2. Methods and Procedure 4
2.1 To research the volunteer market and draw up a recruitment strategy: 4
2.2 To design and produce new high-quality recruiting publications for different target volunteer
groups and to make contact with relevant agencies, companies and organisations: 4
2.3 To develop and to test a variety of established and new, innovative methods of volunteer recruitment: 4
2.4 To increase the number of ‘high calibre’ volunteers who are recruited, trained,
screened and matched with families, so that in turn more families and children can be supported: 4
2.5 To encourage growth and development in the volunteers and encourage them to use the Home Link
pathway to take up training and learning opportunities: 5
2.6 To develop, adapt and extend the role of the VRO: 5
3. Findings 5
3.1 Effectiveness of employing a VRO 5
3.2 Effectiveness of each volunteer recruitment method 6
3.3 ‘High Calibre’ Volunteer Befriender Profile 7
3.4 Benefits for Families 8
3.5 Benefits for Volunteer Befrienders 9
3.6 Developing and adapting the VRO Role 10
4. Conclusions 11
Appendix 1: Report on Volunteering 13
1.
Introduction
Home Link is a voluntary
service dedicated to offering quality support to families with at least one child under the age of five. Many of the families who use the Home Link service are among the most disadvantaged and socially excluded
and will rarely use any other local services or activities. Most of the Home
Link families have a wide range of complex problems and Home Link offers them a package of support including: careful assessment
of their needs; matching them with a trained and supervised befriender; advocating on their behalf and encouraging them to
access other appropriate sources of support. Over the last 19 years, Home Link has supported over 1000 families in Edinburgh and Midlothian.
The purpose of the current
Home Link Project was to test the effectiveness of creating a discrete post and employing a part-time Volunteer Recruitment
Officer (VRO). Up
to July 2003 local volunteer recruitment was part of the job remit of the part-time project workers and city-wide recruitment fell to the Manager and Administrator,
all of whom are part-time workers. Following a consultation/capacity building
exercise, Home Link decided that effective volunteer recruitment requires a temperament, aptitude and skills that belong to
a discreet post. They also agreed that employing someone specifically for this
job would mean that project workers’ time could be more effectively used, whilst at the same time increasing the number
of much needed volunteers.
1.1 Project Objectives
To evaluate the effectiveness of employing a VRO, the project had the following main
objectives
(1) To research
the volunteer market and draw up a recruitment strategy,
(2) To design and produce
new high-quality recruiting publications for different target volunteer groups and to make contact with relevant agencies,
companies and organisations,
(3) To develop and to test
a variety of established and new innovative methods of volunteer recruitment,
(4)
To increase the number of ‘high calibre’
volunteers who are recruited, trained, screened and matched with families, so that in turn more families and children can
be supported,
(5) To set up effective
ways of evaluating the calibre of volunteers recruited in conjunction with the other Home Link staff,
(7) To encourage growth and development in the volunteer befrienders and encourage them to use the Home Link
pathway to take up training and learning opportunities,
(8) To develop, adapt and extend the role of the VRO.
2.
Methods and Procedure
The
Home Link Volunteer Recruitment Project aimed to evaluate the overall effectiveness of employing a Volunteer Recruitment Officer
(VRO) who has a dedicated remit for volunteer recruitment. Qualitative methods
were used to collect information on measures of effectiveness and to evaluate each of the Project Objectives in the following
way:
2.1 To research the volunteer market and
draw up a recruitment strategy:
This was successfully carried
out at the beginning of the Project. The VRO produced a report of the recruitment
strategy which is attached in Appendix 1 No further action was required.
2.2 To design and produce new high-quality
recruiting publications for different target volunteer groups and to make contact with relevant agencies, companies and organisations:
In
the first year of the post the VRO worked extensively to design, produce and distribute different types of volunteer recruitment
publications and to build up collaborative working relationships with agencies, organisations and individuals who could support
the VRO in the recruitment process. The VRO collected information describing
each recruitment method and the number of volunteer befrienders recruited as a direct result of each method. Findings are presented in the Results section below. In the
second year of the Project, when the initial ground work had been done, the VRO was able to develop and adapt her role with the support of Home Link. This was then included as an objective and evaluated in its own right (see point 2.6 below).
2.3 To develop and to test a variety of
established and new, innovative methods of volunteer recruitment:
The VRO has developed and implemented a range of volunteer recruitment methods over the
2 years of the Project. A procedure was developed to record the recruitment channel
taken by new volunteer befrienders recruited during the period of the Project. The
resulting figures are presented in the Results section below and the effectiveness of each method is discussed.
2.4
To increase the number of ‘high calibre’ volunteers who are recruited, trained, screened and matched with families,
so that in turn more families and children can be supported:
First
it was important to define and understand what is meant by the term ‘high quality’. Everyone seemed to have an intuitive idea about this concept but there was no clear definition as to the
exact qualities that made a ‘high calibre’ volunteer. Questionnaires
were used to collect befrienders’ and project workers’ definitions of this term and a working definition was developed.
Due to some of the priorities of one of the funders, the current
Project also aimed to find out how befrienders feel that they best:
support the growth of children’s social and language skills; improve family use of local/city-wide services for children
and parents; improve communication between children and parents and enable better understanding and management of children
by parents. Twelve befrienders returned questionnaires to say how they felt they had benefited the
families that they had supported. Their descriptions were collated and are presented
in the Results section below.
2.5 To encourage growth and development
in the volunteers and encourage them to use the Home Link pathway to take up training and learning opportunities:
A
procedure was developed to monitor and record all training undertaken by each volunteer befriender. Twelve befrienders returned questionnaires to say what benefits they had gained from the training that
they had received since volunteering with Home Link. This information was collated
and is presented in the Results section below.
2.6
To develop, adapt and extend the role of the VRO:
During
the life of the Project the role of the VRO naturally evolved and changed. The
VRO and Home Link responded to this by explicitly developing and adapting the role to ensure maximum efficiency. Importantly Home Link is determined that the VRO role remains clearly focused on volunteer recruitment
but they are aware that the previously narrow focus of the role could be widened to good effect. A meeting was held with the VRO and the Home Link manager to provide information about a range of ways
in which Home Link propose to develop the role. This information is presented
in the Results section below.
3.
Findings
3.1 Effectiveness of employing a VRO
This was the overall aim
of the Evaluation project. At the end of the Project, the VRO Project has been
successful in its aims and in many respects has superseded expectations. It appears
from formal feedback from Project Workers and from the numbers of volunteers recruited, that it has been extremely valuable
to have someone employed specifically to recruit volunteers. Home Link relies
on volunteers coming forward to work with families and recruiting enough volunteers even to meet some of the need requires a great deal of time and commitment. It appears that having someone employed in the VRO role has a wide range of benefits for Home Link as an
organisation and for Project Workers and families individually.
Home Link staff felt that there
were many direct benefits of having someone specifically employed in the VRO role. They
reported that the quality of the publicity material had improved 100%. They all
agreed that the Home Link presentations were now more professional and that there had been a marked increase in publicity. They felt that they now had more time to focus on family work and the VRO had helped
to keep them focused on the issue of recruitment. They felt that the VRO was
a good representative for Home Link and that this encouraged good follow up of contacts and increased networking. They all agreed that the VRO had worked hard and the results of the Project were very successful. The following quote illustrates the Project Workers’ views:
“The
VRO is extremely good at her job, really excellent. We feel that volunteer recruitment
requires skills that individually we don’t always feel that we have. The
VRO has all the right skills. She is organised and reliable and a really positive
team member. She is clear and knowledgeable.
She has recruited a much wider cross-section of people. We can always
be confident that if we pass on people to her, she will take up the contact. We
can be confident in her in general. She has a broader sense of where to look
for volunteers and she’s a great net-worker. A level of guilt has been
taken away because she has the skills that the Project workers don’t have. Now
we can focus on our job and work to the skills that we have. We used to worry
when we couldn’t find volunteers but we don’t feel bad now”.
3.2
Effectiveness of each volunteer recruitment method
Each
recruitment method was tested and the evaluation was based on the perceptions of the VRO and on the numbers of volunteers
who were recruited, trained and matched with a family, as a result of each method. Table
1 below, provides an overview of all recruitment channels used by volunteers over the last two years.
Table 1: Methods Evaluated during the Project (July 2003 –
May 2005)
|
Method |
No of Enquiries as a result of method |
No of volunteers recruited, trained and matched |
|
Leaflets,
posters and bookmarks* **(see below) |
7 |
1 |
|
Volunteer
Centre* |
22 |
3 |
|
Volunteer
Fairs* |
24 |
1 |
|
Information
Stand* |
66 |
6 |
|
Newspapers*
|
12 |
10 |
|
VRO
Presentations* |
6 |
5 |
|
Word
of mouth |
4 |
4 |
|
Fairs,
Gala Days* |
1 |
0 |
|
Home
Link Staff |
1 |
1 |
|
Home
Link Volunteer |
3 |
2 |
|
Other
organisation |
3 |
4 |
|
Bus
advertisement* |
12 |
4 |
|
Home
Link Website |
7 |
1 |
|
Other
(not specified) |
5 |
2 |
|
Total |
44 |
*
= Methods that were specifically evaluated in this Project,
**
= Leaflets, posters and bookmarks could not be evaluated separately because they were handed out at all events and it was
not always possible to tell where the potential volunteer had picked up the information.
The
table shows that overall; the Project was a great success. Forty-four volunteer
befrienders were recruited, trained and matched with families during the period of the Project, which means that forty-four
families and their children are being supported.
It
appears that methods that reach a larger number of people are more effective. For
example advertising on buses and in newspapers is an effective way to recruit volunteers.
Writing articles for publication in the media does require specific skills and the Home Link VRO found it useful to
liaise with other professionals who had expertise in this area.
Volunteer
recruitment fairs and services have recruited 4 volunteers. Although this is a fairly limited number, this method has the
advantage of providing important networking opportunities and is useful for raising the Home Link profile with other agencies
(this is important as other agencies have already helped to recruit a further 4 volunteers).
Using
the Home Link information stand created a high level of interest among potential volunteers.
Six volunteers were recruited as a result of this method although this number does not reflect the initial interest
and it may be worth exploring why potential volunteers do not pursue their initial enquiry.
Overall it seems that this method is less effective if the Information Stand is not staffed. If the VRO remained with
the stall she was able to answer questions and raise Home Link’s profile. Some
venues seem to be more productive (for example the Volunteer Fair),
Presentations
given by the VRO are time consuming, requiring a great deal of preparation and time commitment. Furthermore they appear to have limited success in recruiting volunteers.
However, the VRO reports that this is a useful way of profile raising, establishing and maintaining contacts with course
leaders and has led to further useful opportunities and offers of support. It
may be constructive to limit the number of presentations given, to situations where there is a clear benefit from doing so,
Publicity
material such as leaflets, posters and bookmarks appears to generate a steady (although fairly small) level of interest among
potential volunteers. They are a useful way to provide information and contact
details and it is possible that if this method was perhaps expanded to include a larger scale distribution, it may be more
effective at recruiting a larger number of volunteers.
3.3
‘High Calibre’ Volunteer Befriender Profile
Project
workers and befrienders were asked to list the qualities that they felt make a ‘high calibre’ volunteer befriender. They listed the following characteristics (the numbers in brackets show how many people
listed the characteristics and so gives some indication of how important this quality may be):
