Voltage Programme: Demonstrating Impact and Embedding Volunteering Into Your Organisation and Work

Based on the experiences of the Youth Music Voltage programme the main challenge identified when it came to effectively demonstrating the impact to others within the organisation and beyond (i.e the wider community) was ensuring complete organisational buy in and support for volunteering.

This page is part of a resource collection for practical guidance around providing volunteering opportunities.

Spotlight on The Sage Gateshead Demonstrating impact and embedding volunteering into the organisation

At The Sage Gateshead the main challenge initially was to ensure that managers throughout this relatively large organisation understood the broad brush strokes of this project, with particular emphasis placed on explaining the differences between Voltage and other projects lead by the same staff team.  For instance the age range being 16-25 when we more commonly work with young people aged up to 25.

The Sage Gateshead gets inundated with volunteering requests from young people who want to do their work experience placement with us to degree students, etc.  It is a real challenge for staff members to efficiently deal with all these requests and try their best to allocate meaningful volunteer placements where practically possible.

Therefore when the Voltage project came on stream I think that the mention of ‘volunteering’ got some staff members nervous.  How was this going to affect them?  Was this going to mean lots of extra work for them?  And there was also the assumption that the volunteers were going to be observers, unable to complete tasks and in need of a lot of chaperoning.

It took time to let people see that the level of competence these volunteers had due to their peer support and the staff support from their weekly sessions.

It was really important to have patience in setting up this project, not trying to run before we could walk.  Having set up a number of projects already I knew that any initial mistakes made would create a negative reputation which would be difficult to overcome, therefore it was more important to take the time necessary to set up the project and train the volunteers accordingly.  For instance, it was important that the volunteers spent some time meeting up at the weekly Tuesday evening session before attending specific volunteering placements.

We have been able to recruit so widely by clearly communicating the project aims to staff members and partner organisations and individuals who have then successfully signposted young people to the project.  For instance, one staff member was leading on a project linked with the North of England Refugee Service.  Their young people were taking part in an event where other young people from the refugee service not already engaged with TSG activity were attending.  Sage Gateshead staff members were able to signpost these 'new' young people to the Voltage Project.

Due to the fact that we have a relatively large staff pool who are well briefed on the project aims and ethos, and the fact that we are located in an area of relative ethnic diversity, it is very possible for the project to successfully recruit BAME young people.

Demonstrating how to make an impact in the local community

At New Roots young volunteers on the Voltage programme took part in training for the Hate Crime Initiative in Shrewsbury. This involved details on how to take a report of a Hate Crime incident and indentifying what a Hate Crime is. The Hive already had a relationship with the Community Regeneration Officers and set up a meeting to discuss the potential with the Voltage volunteers. The volunteers then had a meeting with the Community Regeneration Officers to talk about the project. This gave them professional experience outside of the Hive team and gave them confidence, despite finding it a bit daunting at first. The volunteers were also involved in writing a bid to the local council’s equality and diversity fund to deliver music making workshops in a local school and a gig to raise awareness of the scheme. The music making workshops proved to be a great success involving members from the Hate Crime department of the West Mercia police authority going in to the school to speak with the participants on what a hate crime means. The workshops produced a song about hate crime which was then played at the Holocaust memorial service, the young volunteers also performed redemption song.

It is also worth ensuring that achievements of volunteers are widely shared...

Gaining local, regional or even national recognition helps to raise the profile of the organisation as well as the volunteers and also helps to raise the confidence and aspirations of the volunteers. In the press cutting below an event at The Hive is plugged and the volunteers are given credit for their contributions; simple yet effective!:

Click here to read an evidence review on the effects of youth volunteering