Volunteering week 2014: A week to remember (original) (raw)

Guardian Volunteering week is made up of a series of one-day projects, when we work with charities, schools and community organizations. Staff can volunteer to work with our regular community partners as well as a wider network of organizations. The projects take place in London, Manchester and in 2014, for the first time, New York.

Supporting our partners and the business

The projects are chosen by our community partners and developed in collaboration with the Guardian’s Volunteering week team. The perfect project is one that matches our partners’ needs with the skills available at Guardian News & Media (GNM) and what Guardian staff want to do - and something that can be achieved in one day.

Once the projects are agreed, a brief is handed over to the volunteer project manager (PM). The PM is a member of staff who takes on the responsibility of making sure the project happens. Responsibilities include everything from developing the idea and briefing volunteers to ordering lunch for everyone.

All PMs are paired with a sponsor; this is a senior member of staff who can help with accessing support and networking as well as, in some instances, being a mentor. Each project is then allocated the required number of volunteers before the week gets underway, usually in the first half of June.

In 2014,280 people took part in 18 projects across London, Manchester and New York**;** 12community organisations benefitted from GNM’s skills and resources. You can read more about all the Volunteering Week 2014 projects here.

Objectives

Every volunteering week has clear objectives: forCommunity partnersthey include accessing and benefitting skills and resources available at GNM. For GNM, the aim is toincrease engagement in volunteering and pride in GNM and improve networking and collaboration. But it’s also important to create projects that are fun, meaningful and make an impact.

Aside from those objectives, we also want projects to strengthen relationships between staff and our community partners and provide organizations and charities with lasting benefits. Once the week is over, we ask our volunteers and community partners for their feedback to see if we’ve all achieved our objectives. This is what they told us in 2014:

Engagement: did taking part affect volunteers’ views of GNM?

“I thought the day was brilliant. A hugely successful outcome - or at least I thought so. The volunteers got to know each other better, we got to chat to the surrounding community, all the while making some much needed improvements to the estate. I was proud to represent the Guardian and would happily do this again... and more often if the opportunity does arise in the future.”

Collaboration: did the week help with networking and collaboration and raise awareness of skills amongst colleagues?

“I really look forward to volunteering week. It’s an excellent opportunity to meet staff you wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to meet, but it’s also fun to get out and work with staff you do know in a different environment. One example of how useful volunteering week was for me personally: I had exchanged emails with a member of staff in the Technology department and was working with them on the project day, but had no idea who they were. After 20 minutes of shovelling, we introduced ourselves and realised we had been exchanging emails over the last few days. It was nice to meet someone in person as well as via email!”

Being a project manager helped me connect with colleagues from across GNM:

100% agree/strongly agree

Volunteering helped me connect with new colleagues from across GNM:

86% agree/strongly agree

Being a project manager improved my leadership skills

91% agree/strongly agree

Being a project manager improved my ability to maximise the performance of others

81% agree/strongly agree

Being a project manager improved management skills

77% agree/strongly agree

Fun and rewarding: did staff have a good time and feel they were involved in meaningful projects?

Following feedback from previous years, we tried to make sure that the projects called for a variety of skills and that there was plenty for staff to be involved with, even if they wanted to do something completely different from their day job.

“I loved the whole experience and hope to be able to go back soon.”

“A very rewarding day.”

“A fantastic opportunity.”

“Very well run, helped a lot of people.”

Community impact: Did the projects support our partners**?**

“It was magical, I do not know how else to describe the day. Also, we were particularly happy with the team work required to plan the event... the determination of all the volunteers that this day was going to be the best day at Great Croft, and it really was!”

“The enthusiasm of the volunteers was incredible. The wisdom, experience and overview they were able to offer was a real strength of the project.”

“Raised self-esteem and self-worth, due to the volunteers’ happy, outgoing nature and the kindness they showered on our members. Their happiness and fun was infectious, for our members, staff and other volunteers. It improved the emotional and well-being of our members.”

“Mentoring, inspiring young people, an insight into the world of work, skills in presentation and event planning.”

“It was all brilliant! Well done to everyone at the Guardian.”

What we learnt

Projects need to have practical elements: Projects for partners need to have some practical element, especially if they are workshops for young people. The iPhone filming workshop that was part of the Cutting East and Live workshop was an enormous success but, afterwards, we realized that it involved too much sitting and listening and not enough doing.

More work needs to be done in the initial planning stage: “I think project managers could be recruited further in advance of volunteering. This would give us much more time to plan the day. It’s quite full on planning the day in a short space of time while doing your day job and I think having more time would certainly alleviate the stress.” Project manager

Volunteers are very happy with the support provided by the organisers of Volunteering week: “I was very happy with the support given by Jan Stevens. Being project manager for the first time did scare me a little bit, but through her positive attitude and the fact she had a lot of confidence in me really helped towards the preparation of the day, as well as the day itself. She is absolutely brilliant and deserves heaps of praise for all the hard work she has put into volunteering week! Other than that, I have no complaints. No improvements needed to be made. It was a brilliant day.”