Volunteer Manager

There are about 169,000 general charities within the UK employing 608,000 paid workers and a further 13.2 million unpaid. In addition there are an estimated 750,000 trustees who take responsibility for the governance of individual charities. The scope is therefore enormous and the sector is a significant employer within the UK economy. With new organisations and initiatives a constant feature of the sector, the need for new people, talent and skills is set to continue.

A volunteer manager is responsible for recruiting, training and looking after volunteers. A volunteer may work for any of a number of third sector organisations such as:

1. nonprofit organisations
2. charity organisations
3. community projects or groups
4. voluntary organizations

1. Promotion and marketing - to attract new volunteers through campaigns, adverts, presentations, talks and word of mouth. Ninety-five per cent of organisations use word of mouth as their main method of recruiting volunteers.
2. Recruitment - interviewing volunteers to assess their skills and qualities, producing task/role descriptions and placing volunteers in an appropriate role. They may co-ordinate the availability of volunteers, when and where they should work.
3. Training and development - putting together induction and training programmes.
4. Administration - writing volunteer policies and guidelines, issuing procedure handbooks and reports, and producing publicity material.
5. Developing an understanding of equal opportunities and anti-discrimination legislation.
6. Supervising paid staff.
7. Managing a budget and ensuring that volunteer costs are reimbursed.
8. Networking with other charitable organisations.