This document outlines the agenda and presentations for the National Volunteering Forum Employer Supported Volunteering event held on November 30, 2015. The event featured discussions on employer supported volunteering (ESV) and building partnerships between companies and voluntary organizations. Presentations explored the benefits of ESV, challenges in partnerships, brokerage roles, and strategies for meaningful short-term engagement beyond the proposed three day government policy. Roundtable discussions focused on challenges organizations face and how brokerage could help build sustainable partnerships.

1. NATIONAL VOLUNTEERING
FORUM
EMPLOYER SUPPORTED
VOLUNTEERING AND BEYOND…
30 NOVEMBER 2015

2. JUSTIN DAVIS SMITH
DIRECTOR OF VOLUNTEERING AND
DEVELOPMENT
NCVO

3. AGENDA
Time Agenda Item Speaker
10.00am Tea and coffee available
10.30am Welcome and introduction
Beyond Employer Supported Volunteering
Justin Davis-Smith
Director of Volunteering and Development, NCVO
10:35am Welcome from host and the IBM approach
Mark Wakefield,
Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs Manager,
IBM UK
10:50am Update from NCVO
Emily Graham, Trainee Volunteering Development
Policy Officer, NCVO
11.00am ‘On the brink of a game-changer?’
New research commissioned by CIPD and
conducted by NCVO’s Institute for
Volunteering Research
Q & A
Katerina Rüdiger, Chief Community Officer, CIPD
Andy Curtis,
Senior Research Officer, Institute for Volunteering
Research, NCVO
11.45am Roundtable discussions Chair
12.30pm Lunch
MORNING SESSION

4. AGENDA
1.30pm Voluntary Service Overseas
Volunteer Centre Swindon
Chris Walker, Director of Private Sector
Engagement, Voluntary Service Overseas
Sue Dunmore, Manager, Volunteer Centre Swindon
2.00pm Q & A Chair
2.15pm Anna Fiorentini, Theatre & Film School
Volunteering Matters
Anna Fiorentini, Founder and Managing Director
Angela Schlenkhoff-Hus, Employee Volunteering
Development Manager & Beverly Frain, Head of
Employee Volunteering, Volunteering Matters
2.45pm Q & A Chair
3.00pm Roundtable discussions Chair
3.25pm Closing Remarks Chair
AFTERNOON SESSION

5. JOIN THE DISCUSSION
#volforum
@NCVOvolunteers

6. MARK WAKEFIELD
CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP &
CORPORATE AFFAIRS MANAGER
IBM UK

7. ESV: NEW POLICY
CONTEXT

8. “…we will make volunteering for
three days a year a workplace
entitlement for people working
in large companies and the
public sector. People could, for
example, volunteer for a local
charity, or serve as a school
governor.”
Conservative Party manifesto:

10. “…it has the
potential to help
strengthen the
UK's culture of
volunteering”
NCVO response:

11. GOVERNMENT’S
THREE DAY POLICY

12. ON THE BRINK OF A
GAME-CHANGER?
EMPLOYER SUPPORTED
VOLUNTEERING: BUILDING
SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIPS
BETWEEN COMPANIES AND
VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS
MAIN MESSAGES FROM THE
RESEARCH
Nick Ockenden

13. BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH
1
• Commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Personnel
and Development (CIPD) to look at partnerships in ESV
• Research conducted spring/summer 2015
• Predated Conservative manifesto commitment/policy
on ESV
Two workshops and 12 telephone interviews, we spoke to:
• Companies
• Voluntary organisations
• Brokers

14. PEOPLE IN PAID WORK PARTICIPATING IN
ESV 2010/11 – 2013/14 (ENGLAND AND
WALES)
1
3.9 4.2
4.6
10.5
10.4
13.3
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
2010/11 2012/13 2013/14
% people
in paid work
participating
in ESV
Monthly
In last 12 months
Source: NCVO Almanac and Community Life Survey

15. DIFFERENT TYPES OF ESV - RELEASE
1
TIME OFF TO ENGAGE IN AN EXISTING VOLUNTEERING
OPPORTUNITY
• Employee released to engage in a volunteering role
• Company has no direct role in the volunteering activities

16. DIFFERENT TYPES OF ESV - BESPOKE
1
ONE DAY GROUP ACTIVITY
• A team from a company visit a voluntary organisation. Over the
course of the day they conduct an activity, often paining and
decorating.
• Often seen as the archetypical ESV activity
• Good for team building, popular with companies
• Helpful to let volunteers know about the organisation during the
day and follow-up with the results of their work

17. DIFFERENT TYPES OF ESV - BESPOKE
1
USING SPECIALISED SKILLS/PRO-BONO SUPPORT
• Employee uses their specific skills, eg web design, finance etc
• Hours can be flexible, and involvement with a voluntary
organisation over a period of time
• Often very popular with voluntary organisations

18. FINDINGS: A MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL
ACTIVITY
1
• ESV, when done well, has the potential to create positive benefits
for all parties
• Positive examples of both one day and specialised ESV activities
• Contributes to employee engagement and satisfaction
• Volunteering is freely given but not cost free, yet this can be
outweighed by the benefits experienced

19. FINDINGS: CHALLENGES AND CONFLICTS
1
• Some voluntary organisations find team building activities difficult
to facilitate and loss-making to host
• Voluntary organisations and brokers can want costs paid for by
companies, who can find this off putting
• Voluntary organisations often prefer specialised support

20. UNDERSTANDING THE PERSPECTIVE OF
PARTNERS
2
• Both companies and voluntary organisations have different
working cultures, challenges and expectations
• Need to understand and examine these at an early stage
• Importance of the first contact between the company and the
voluntary organisation
• A need for mutual understanding of the full range of costs that are
involved and who should incur these costs
• Different values can be placed on varying types of activity, eg
group volunteering versus specialised assistance

21. USING THIRD PARTY BROKERS AND
INTERMEDIARIES
2
• Brokers and intermediaries can play a key role
• A third party can play a vital part in matching the needs of
companies and voluntary organisations
• Brokerage can be especially beneficial for smaller voluntary
organisations and SMEs

22. IMPLICATIONS?
2
• What can help to facilitate ESV?
• Can anything be done to help ‘match’ partners?
• What are the relative merits about volunteers providing generalised
versus specialised support?

23. EMPLOYER
SUPPORTED
VOLUNTEERING: HR’S
VIEW
Katherine Garrett, Senior Community Invesrment
Manager, CIPD
Monday 30 November 2015

24. COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AT CIPD
Creating a movement of HR volunteers
CIPD approach to its own volunteers
Supporting CIPD members and wider
HR/employer community with ESV
Relationships with charity/voluntary sector
Advocacy around volunteering & role of HR
Ensuring CIPD walks the talk

25. CIPD VOLUNTEER SURVEY 2015:
EMPLOYEES’ VIEWS

26. EMPLOYERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS
VOLUNTEERING

27. THE ISSUE…AND SOME SOLUTIONS

28. HOW TO TAKE THIS FORWARD
Close partnership with the NCVO (joint work
on training for HR)
Championing good practice
Exploring link between volunteering and L&D
Promoting skills-based volunteering
Providing employers with initiatives & toolkits
Supporting the charity sector
Joining up CSR & HR activity

29. ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS
1. What challenges do you think the government’s three day
employer supported volunteering leave policy poses for you?
What benefits?
2. What are the challenges you face in terms of working with
charities/business? What support would be useful in supporting
you to overcome these challenges?
3. What kind of activities is your organisation planning in relation
to Employer Supported Volunteering? What is needed to make
the most of the opportunities presented by ESV?

30. LUNCH

31. CHRIS WALKER
DIRECTOR OF PRIVATE
SECTOR ENGAGEMENT
VOLUNTARY SERVICE
OVERSEAS (VSO)

33. “This doesn’t exist anywhere else
outside of London.
We are leading the way and we are
making a difference.”
Tony Martin, Zurich Community
Trust, Chair, Involve Swindon
Why it is different ………

34. ……Structure
• Activity brokered through NCVO Accredited
Volunteer Centre
• It is business driven
• Monthly steering group with Corporate, Charity and
Statutory partners
• 2 Network days a year for approx 80 attendees
• Corporate and statutory donations with multi year
commitment . Also one off donations
• Donations pays for part time salary and delivery
costs
• Provides some stability /sustainability

35. Brokerage perspective
• Ongoing juggling act to match requests
from organisations wanting support and
business requests
• Small local charities can be overwhelmed
by support from large corporates, they
may not have capacity to deal with or
know what to do with people or how to use
the skills/time offered .

36. Brokerage perspective
• Businesses & their employees can think
that offering the time of 50 + people for a
day is a good thing & don’t realise the
amount of time involved in supporting &
managing, particularly for small charities
• Often at short notice
• Very time consuming to meet these
requests
• Volunteer Centre links can help enable
these to happen

37. Brokerage perspective
• Difference in understanding between a
corporate CSR team & an employee on
the ground – what a business may say at
corporate level is not always understood
or easily achievable by an individual
employee
• Often difficult to unlock Business funding –
does it sit with CSR or HR ?Teams have
no budget for it

38. Brokerage perspective
• It’s really important to stress that what may
work between 2 big partners (corporate &
charity) may not always work out in the
regions with smaller charities
• Problems of branches managing to
release staff etc

39. Brokerage perspective
• Trying to get people to understand that
volunteering and brokerage isn’t free
• But you are a charity ……..
• Not aware that we have costs in
developing opportunities , getting
organisations ready to involve corporate
volunteers

40. Brokerage perspective
• Businesses & employees still want to do
‘team building’ ie practical stuff but there
are only a few charities that can take
advantage of this offering, need to find
ways of raising awareness of what is
actually needed .
• Shift towards donation of skills , micro
opportunities and workshops

41. What has worked
• “I’m learning things I wouldn’t normally learn.
I’ve developed skills I’m bringing back into my
job.” Emily Jones,Nationwide
• Customer Care Training Delivered & hosted by
the Swindon Marriott for volunteer receptionists
from Citizens Advice Bureau“
• Corporate trustees help us look at our charity
from a fresh perspective and bring skills none of
us possess” Dressability

42. The future……
• Developing Franchise model
• Gloucestershire taken it up
• Develop links with SMEs

43. Contact
• Sue Dunmore
• manager@swindonvolunteers.org.uk
• Jo Banks
• involve@swindonvolunteers.org.uk
• www.involveswindon.co.uk

44. QUESTIONS

45. ANNA FIORENTINI, FOUNDER
& MANAGING DIRECTOR
ANNA FIORENTINI THEATRE
& FILM SCHOOL

46. NOW SEE HOW IT WAS MADE!
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=MVEV
Z0EG4IU&FEATURE=YOUTU.BE

48. Beverly Frain, Head of EV
Beverly.Frain@volunteeringmatters.org.
uk
Angela Schlenkhoff-Hus,
Development Manager in EV
Angela.Schlenkhoff-
Hus@volunteeringmatters.org.uk
www.twitter.com/EVmatters

49. QUESTIONS

50. ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS
1. Drawing on the examples you’ve heard. What
approaches to building mutually beneficial
relationships with business/charities work well for
your organisation?
2. What role could a broker play in helping to you to
build these partnerships? Does brokerage need to be
more available?
3. How can we sustain engagement beyond 3 days?
What might meaningful short term engagement look
like?

51. CLOSING REMARKS
JUSTIN DAVIS SMITH
DIRECTOR OF
VOLUNTEERING AND
DEVELOPMENT

52. GET IN TOUCH
Volunteering@ncvo.org.uk
@NCVOvolunteers
https://www.ncvo.org.uk/ncvo-volunteering