Bringing Volunteers and Charities Together in Gloucestershire
We work with charities and other non-profits to help them recruit the wonderful people who come to us looking for volunteer roles. It's not just charity shops and gardening - we've loads of "people helping people" roles too!
Brokering over 500 volunteer and charity relationships a year
That's one or more placements most working days - see below for recent successes!
16 Oct 2017: Volunteer Appropriate Adult placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People) upholding rights & welfare of children in Police custody, see also ▶
16 Oct 2017: Receptionist Volunteer placed at Listening Post Stroud - more needed Monday evening and Wednesday mornings… ▶
16 Oct 2017: PIP Volunteer placed at CitizensAdviceStroud helping people get benefits
16 Oct 2017: Marketing & Publicity Volunteer placed at Stroud Credit Union - more Stroud roles ▶
13 Oct 2017: Volunteer Collections Assistant placed at Dr Jenner's House Berkeley - more heritage roles ▶
12 Oct 2017: Court Outreach Volunteer placed at Citizens Advice Witness Service - more needed… ▶
12 Oct 2017: Admin Volunteer we placed at Naturewatch has turned out to have creative skills too + Social Media
12 Oct 2017: Administration Volunteer placed at Citizens Advice Gloucester - more admin roles ▶
11 Oct 2017: In recent months, three "Friends for You" Volunteers placed at GRCC and they are now full! Happy to have helped
10 Oct 2017: Volunteer to help with Smallholding placed at Orchard Trust
09 Oct 2017: THREE Riding School Helper Volunteers placed at Cotswold RDA More disability roles ▶
09 Oct 2017: Volunteer befriender placed at MHA Brockworth - to find roles near you, try ▶
09 Oct 2017: Volunteer Online Research Assistant placed at Naturewatch - more animal roles … ▶
09 Oct 2017: Volunteer Receptionist we placed at SR Leckhampton Court says "Lovely people, worthwhile charity - very rewarding" ▶
06 Oct 2017: Volunteer Befriender placed at Gloucestershire Rural Community Council awaiting training - good to see charities investing in volunteer training
06 Oct 2017: Listening Volunteer placed at Cheltenham Samaritans (just started training) - maybe it will be you next time?… ▶
06 Oct 2017: Volunteer Conservation Worker placed at The Conservation Volunteers - more needed ▶
04 Oct 2017: Riding School Helper Volunteer placed at Cotswold RDA - more disability roles ▶
03 Oct 2017: Volunteer Visitor for older person placed at GRCC People For You service. More needed ▶
02 Oct 2017: Just heard that a Paws in the Park Volunteer was placed at Cheltenham Borough Council - more "one off" volunteering ▶
02 Oct 2017: Arts & Craft Volunteer placed at Salter's Hill More disability related roles ▶
28 Sep 2017: Volunteer cook placed at Cheltenham Senior Citizens Welfare Committee St Luke's lunch club. More catering roles… ▶
28 Sep 2017: Mobility Aids Volunteer placed at British Red Cross Tewkesbury - more help needed ▶
27 Sep 2017: Office Assistant Volunteer placed at Naturewatch - more animal roles ▶
27 Sep 2017: Criminology student Volunteer placed at Victim Support for a short time helping with office tasks.
26 Sep 2017: Volunteer Befriender placed at GRCC Friends For You project - more needed ▶
26 Sep 2017: Volunteer Gardener placed at Orchard Trust some months back has now left for a paid job so another one needed… ▶
26 Sep 2017: General Helper Volunteer placed at Gloucester Chinese Resource Centre - more people needed by various charities… ▶
25 Sep 2017: Volunteer Video Editor we placed at Naturewatch - see his work on Badger Baiting ▶
25 Sep 2017: Online Research Volunteer placed at Naturewatch has now moved abroad so another one needed animals ▶
22 Sep 2017: Cheltenham First Stop Admin Volunteer placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People) More admin roles ▶
22 Sep 2017: 2 Volunteers placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People) in Appropriate Adult role protecting rights/welfare of Children in custody ▶
21 Sep 2017: Stay & Play Volunteer placed at Family Space See their volunteer needs ▶
20 Sep 2017: Volunteer to support offender re-integration into the community placed at Circles UK Being trained November ▶
20 Sep 2017: Support Worker for Young Homeless Volunteer placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People)▶
20 Sep 2017: Volunteer Befriender for a child in care placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People) - more roles helping children ▶
18 Sep 2017: Tea Room and Kitchen Volunteer placed at Woodchester Mansion - ▶
13 Sep 2017: Clothing Photographer Volunteer placed at Stroud District Kids Stuff - They still need other help in Stroud… ▶
12 Sep 2017: Communications Volunteer placed at Discover DeCrypt - more marketing roles ▶
12 Sep 2017: Volunteer for Light Gardening placed at Friends of Hatherley Park - More needed Cheltenham ▶
11 Sep 2017: Volunteer Receptionist placed at Listening Post - more needed ▶
11 Sep 2017: Volunteer Advocate supporting vulnerable adults through Child Protection cases placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People) different role! ▶
08 Sep 2017: 2 Volunteer Appropriate Adults placed at CCP(Caring for Communities and People) supporting children in Police custody ▶
07 Sep 2017: Volunteer placed at Woodchester Mansion Tea Room - More catering roles ▶
06 Sep 2017: Fundraising & Events Volunteer placed at Cheltenham Animal Shelter More fundraising roles … ▶
01 Sep 2017: Stay and Play Volunteer placed at Family Space More roles with Children … ▶
01 Sep 2017: Administration Volunteer placed at Citizens Advice Gloucester. Need to recruit volunteers? ▶
There are many ways to find volunteer opportunities through us:
Meet us: Talk to us about what you want to do
We love meeting potential volunteers both in Cheltenham and Gloucester!. We start by understanding why you are looking to volunteer. From that we suggest opportunities for you to consider. If you want, we'll try and put you on the phone to a suitable charity there and then. We know that many people prefer to give it more thought so we give you the details to take away. To book a meeting, please contact us.
Important note for professionals thinking of making a referral - please see here
If you know roughly what sort of volunteering you'd enjoy, this website has several tools to link you in to a great role. Just below here you'll find our unique system that lets you say what you care about, what you want to do,, etc. and leads you to possibilities.
We've also teamed up with Google to create a special search engine focussing on Gloucestershire volunteering opportunities. Try telling it what you're interested in, your skills or where you live...
If you are up for a short-term volunteering project - for a few days or hours, enter your email address below and we'll send you occasional newsletters telling you about all the great projects where we've been asked to recruit volunteers
About ▶ How our service operates - the volunteer view
We get over 3,000 online applications for volunteer roles every year and have 200 informal meetings with potential volunteers. Overall, 500 volunteers go on to start volunteering thanks to our work
About 160 organisations use us to recruit for 350 roles all over Gloucestershire.
Here's the typical processes involved in finding, applying for and starting volunteering.
We feel strongly that people offering to volunteer deserve a great service. We ask that normally recruiters respond to applications within 7 days and suggest that potential volunteers chase up after 14. We send out a follow-up email to volunteers after about 18 days to check that everything is on-track. Doing this has helped with communications issues such as emails ending up in a "spam" folder.
We also check with both recruiters and volunteers at four months to help us know how many volunteers we have successfully placed.
About ▶ How our service operates - the recruiter view
We get around 12,000 page views on our website every month and over 3,000 applications for volunteer roles every year. We meet 200 people a year for an informal interview. Overall, we place over 500 volunteers/year.
Since 2011 we've been asked to promote a total of 1257 opportunities and currently about 160 organisations use us to recruit for 350 roles all over Gloucestershire. We'd love to help you too!
Here's the typical processes involved in finding a volunteer through us:
Your advert is live on our system for 6 months (Unless you have an earlier "closing date") and we email you a couple of months before the end to check before renewing for another 6 months.
We feel strongly that people offering to volunteer deserve a great service. We ask that normally recruiters respond to applications within 7 days and suggest that potential volunteers chase up after 14. We send out a follow-up email to volunteers after about 18 days to check that everything is on-track. Doing this has helped with communications issues such as emails ending up in a "spam" folder.
We also check with both recruiters and volunteers at four months to help us know how many volunteers we have successfully placed. Recruiters are obliged to respond to our enquiries,
Steve Harris - Manager: Steve started as a Volunteer Interviewer in 2012 and became the Manager in 2013. Since then he has successfully piloted the service through funding changes, the move to CCP and the challenges of the Do It website. Steve’s original career was in Electronics and Software but his wider interests led him to volunteer for a number of charities including Samaritans where in addition to answering the phone, he initiated email access to the service.
Debbie Evans - Volunteer Interviewer & Website Editor: Debbie has been volunteering with the service since 2014. When she is not talking to people who come to see us about volunteering possibilities, she edits the website adverts so they attract more volunteers. Debbie comes from a business and recruitment background
Penelope Graham - Volunteer Interviewer: Penelope has been volunteering with the service since 2013. She meets people who come to see us about volunteering possibilities. Penelope was previously employed in the education sector and has volunteered with a number of organisations.
Heather Kerr - Volunteer Interviewer: Heather has been volunteering with the service since 2015. She meets people who come to see us about volunteering possibilities and also helps with ad hoc projects. Heather used to work in IT but more recently has volunteered with Cruse, CAB and CCP.
Isobel Edwards - Community Engagement Office with Gloucester City Council: Since 2015, part of Isobel's role has been facilitating the Volunteer Gloucestershire service in the city.
Faye Longley - Volunteer Interviewer (Gloucester): Faye has been volunteering with the service since 2016. She meets people who come to see us about volunteering possibilities
Faye is currently studying to become an Occupational Therapist and is a volunteer at Milestones School.
Sarah Grundy - Volunteer Advert Writer: Sarah has been volunteering with the service since 2017. She takes the "job descriptions" from the charities and turns them into attractive adverts.
Sarah comes from a marketing bacground and has volunteered with the National Childbirth Trust.
We've get lot of help from people in our parent charity, CCP - in particular:
Cordell Ray - CCP CEO: Cordell is the CEO of CCP. Taking a keen interest in all things volunteering, he recoognised the vital work we do and brought us into CCP in 2014.
Daniel Chun - Project Manager, CCP Volunteering: Daniel runs Involve Gloucestershire linking charities with businesses. He has many year experience as a manager and recruiter of volunteers and has volunteered with the Princes Trust
Volunteer Centres opened in Cheltenham and Gloucester
1998
Volunteer Centre opened in Tewkesbury
2007
Cheltenham Volunteer Centre used over 200 volunteers and staff to deliver clean drinking water to vulnerable people during the Gloucestershire Floods
2010
The volunteer broking/management parts of volunteer centres in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury came together to form Volunteering Gloucestershire. Funded mainly by Gloucestershire County Council, and delivered by Third Sector Services (now Community Connexions) in partnership with GAVCA (closed 2016)
2014
Funding ceased and a large local charity, CCP agreed to take over the service. At this point, the only office was in Cheltenham
2015
Launch of Involve Gloucestershire, a service linking Employer Supported Volunteers with opportunities. Interview service re-launched in Gloucester Docks in partnership with the City Council. Two more partnerships followed - both Cirencester and Fairford Town Councils agreed to host paper listings of local volunteering opportunities in their respective Town Halls. Similarly, Emmaus Gloucestershire hosted a list of roles likely to be of interest to their service users.
2016
Our own "Search engine" for volunteer roles handled 74% of traffic and other software helped demonstrate volunteer placements worth over £500,000 to local charities
2017
Launch of a Paid Jobs page specialising in roles with charities and other non-profits in Gloucestershire
Designing Effective Volunteer Roles (September 2014) Many volunteer roles are “extreme part time”, needing a different design approach and some roles may are not be suitable
Volunteering is local (January 2016) A report on our research showing that just over 30% of volunteers applied for opportunities within a mile of their home and 56% restricted themselves to a 2 mile radius.
Gloucestershire VCS Alliance - an independent charitable organisation working to strengthen the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) in Gloucestershire
Launch of 
Our own "Search engine" for volunteer roles handled 74% of traffic and other software helped demonstrate volunteer placements worth over £500,000 to local charities