‘Volunteering is the commitment of time and energy, for the benefit of society and the community, the environment, or individuals outside (or in addition to) one’s immediate family. It is unpaid and undertaken freely and by choice’.

If your organisation is based in the Derry City & Strabane District Council area, we can support you to improve your volunteering practices and ensure that volunteers make a meaningful and rewarding contribution to your activities and projects. We can give you guidance in developing or reviewing your volunteer policies and procedures, support you to plan and facilitate volunteer recruitment, give you advice on best practice when involving volunteers and help you access training. Please contact us now if your organisation would benefit our good practice support.

Recruiting New Volunteers

Part of our role is to increase participation in volunteering.  We will help you develop volunteer roles within your organisation, advertise and promote these locally and online and identify people who may be suitable for your volunteer roles. In addition, we can host information sessions on your behalf or organise taster sessions for prospective volunteers.

Support with Policies and Procedures

Our knowledgeable and experienced team of staff can help you to review or develop your policies and procedures for volunteers. We'll visit you at your organisation to get a better understanding of how and why you involve volunteers and work with you to ensure your organisation is establishing the best methods and policies to effectively manage and support your volunteers. Every organisation is different, so we'll tailor our support to best meet your needs.

Training and Supporting Your Volunteers

We can help you identify the training and support needs of your volunteer team and help you identify suitable training providers. We know that it can be difficult to find the necessary funds to provide training so we'll help you to identify free training or we can host or facilitate the training in our centre therefore reducing costs and opening up the sessions for other groups. We are committed to finding the most cost-effective solutions to training and welcome the opportunity to colloborate with other groups to share resources and expertise.

Assessing the Impact of Volunteering

We're all aware that volunteers make a massive contribution to society. We can assist local groups in the North West establish exactly what volunteers can bring to their organisation, defining their impact through social, economic, human, physical and cultural capital.