Volunteer Centre Winchester

Name of Organisation

Why did you decide to go for Investing in Volunteers?

Having signed up as an Iiv ‘partner organisation’ we felt we wouldn’t have any real credibility unless we had the award ourselves; by going through the award we would gain insight into the process involved and would therefore be better able to advise others.
To raise the quality of our own volunteer management so that other VCS organisations could see that we ‘walked the talk’.
To show to potential funders that we are a professionally run organisation.
To give us a ‘competitive edge’ in the current atmosphere of re-organisation.

What benefits have you found from working towards Investing in Volunteers?

Improved and tightened up on our own processes
Made us review what we did and why we did it
Made us formalise some processes we did on a more informal basis
We realised that we were actually doing fairly well
Gave us more confidence in what we do
Gave an opportunity for our volunteers to give feedback on how they felt about being volunteers with us (in addition to the normal support).
Our Volunteer Policy is now being used as a model for the whole CVS in which we are based

Tell us about your experience of the assessment process in your organisation.

Our process was quite a long one from initially applying and having the first meeting to assessment but this was due to us. Having applied and had the initial meeting we then put everything on hold as we had to go through a quality accreditation process for Volunteering England and we didn’t have the resources to do two assessments at the same time. Having completed the VE process we picked up on the Iiv assessment

After completing our development plan and receiving feedback on this the assessor changed so someone new came in to do the actual assessment which worked out ok.

Everyone who was involved in the actual assessment day felt it to be a thorough and rigorous process i.e. that everything was checked and the interviews were meaningful and probing and that at the end we had earned the award rather than it being a purely ‘rubber stamping’ exercise; we felt this was positive and makes the award have value.

5 Practical tips you would give another organisation working towards Investing in Volunteers

Be organised
Don’t be afraid to ask for support or help
Make use of the resources available to you
Look on it as a positive learning experience rather than ‘another task’