A new way to connect volunteers and charities

The success or failure of a volunteer can almost always be traced to the very beginning. If both parties share clear expectations, projects usually succeed. If they don’t the charitable organisation can be left feeling they invested too much time and resources in a volunteer who didn’t stick around to finish a project, and the volunteer feeling as though they signed up for a project that morphed into something completely different.

Over the past year, we have worked tirelessly to understand why charitable organisations struggle to use people who want to volunteer their professional skills (like public relations, marketing, strategy, and IT). After spending countless hours talking to charities and social enterprises we found that most charitable organisations don’t breakdown their needs because they don’t know what they require or don’t possess the knowledge base to articulate their needs.

We came up with the Project Library: Fully scoped projects that address common needs.

Our projects are designed to make it easy for a busy professional to volunteer and deliver a good product, to minimize the amount of time a charity or social enterprise spends managing a project, and to maximize the results of the volunteer partnership. All projects in our Project library share three important characteristics:

1. Short-term:  projects take no more than 5 hours a week of a volunteer’s time, and are completed in less than 3 months.

2. Discrete:  projects produce a concrete deliverable, and outline the steps a organisation and volunteer need to take to achieve it.

3. Individual:  projects can be completed by one individual with the right skills.

Each project also contains a list of organisational and volunteer requirements to ensure both parties have what it takes to deliver the results. We’ve estimated the time each project requires from a volunteer, and the value of the project at-market prices.

Browse the project library today.  If you don’t see what you want, keep in mind that we’re rolling out new projects constantly. If you have an idea for a project we can add, email projects@givewhatyouregoodat.co.uk  We’ll be rolling out more based on those most often requested!