Testimonials
“Volunteering is at the heart of delivering advocacy and the process of achieving the award reinforces our commitment to volunteers throughout the organisation”
Barbara Poole
Chief Executive
People's Voices
“Iiv isgreat way of focusing attention on the organisation’s methodology in management practice, policies and procedures, and role development of volunteers. ”
Carmel Sammons
Volunteer Co-ordinator
MertonVision
“The process made us look at how and why people volunteer.It has focussed us on the recruitment process and helped us to improve the entry of volunteers.I am sure that they feel able to integrate more quickly and the contribution they bring becomes a valuable part of the centre’s ethos and aims”.
Maria Mills
Project Manager
The Crown Centre
I am delighted the centre has achieved the IIV award to assist the smooth running of the centre and to recognize the value and recognition of the volunteers”
Alison Casey
Recruitment & Development Worker
The Crown Centre
“Gaining the IiV Quality award is a real achievement, it shows that your volunteer service is well planned and administered by both the staff and volunteers. To give a really top quality service to the users …”
Gillian Nunn
Volunteer Services Co-ordinator
Saint Raphael’s Hospice
“The whole IiV process has been very worth while both for Hillingdon Mind as an organisation and for improving the way we manage and support the dedicated individuals who give their time to volunteer for our services.”
Anthony Brocchi
Volunteer Co-ordinator
Hillingdon Mind
“It is good to have an industry recognised award which demonstrates that we offer a quality volunteering service based on sound principles, supported by strong processes & procedures”
Jane Kilby
Volunteer Co-ordinator
University of Lincoln Students’ Union
“The process made us look at how and why people volunteer.It has focussed us on the recruitment process and helped us to improve the entry of volunteers.I am sure that they feel able to integrate more quickly and the contribution they bring becomes a valuable part of the centre’s ethos and aims”.
Maria Mills
Project Manager
The Crown Centre
“I am delighted the centre has achieved the IIV award to assist the smooth running of the centre and to recognize the value and recognition of the volunteers”
Alison Casey
Recruitment & Development Worker
The Crown Centre
The process is a wonderful opportunity to improve good practice in your organisation – grab it with both hands!…” Wendy Sender
Volunteering Development Officer
Ealing Community and Voluntary Service
“The whole process has allowed us to assess our volunteer programme and achieving it shows our commitment to good practice and support in volunteer development.It is particularly pleasing to be the first voluntary sector organisation in Cheshire to achieve this”
Paul Davies
Volunteer & Learning Co-ordinator
DIAL House
"IiV is a celebration and recognition of good practice in volunteer management”
Maria Jarvis
Volunteer Centre Manager
Kingston Volunteer Centre
“Its hard work, but worth it”
Julie Boyack
Deputy Chief Executive
AGE UK SOUTH TYNESIDE
“Achieving the award has meant a lot to the volunteers at the Trust, who now feel that the splendid work they do is recognised at all levels of management and in the community. We found the process enabled us to be positive about providing quality placements for our volunteers.”
Peter Clarke
Volunteer Coordinator
Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
“Investing in Volunteers provides the opportunity for PDSA to really focus on volunteering, ensuring our volunteering policies and procedures are as good as they possibly can be - for the benefit of our volunteers and the organisation”
Janet Compton
Head of Volunteering
PDSA
“Anxiety UK is proud to have achieved the Investing in Volunteers standard. Volunteers are the life blood of our organisation, and without them we would be unable to help so many people. This standard ensures that we are meeting their needs and working to the highest standards”
Catherine O’Neill
Services Manager
Anxiety UK
“Achieving the Investing in Volunteers standard has been of enormous benefit to Christian Aid. We are now much more confident about our procedures and are able to offer our volunteers more consistent support. The profile of volunteering has grown considerably within our organisation and we have become much more aware of the potential that our volunteers offer.”
Marie Raffay
Volunteering Manager
Christian Aid
“In the first instance, we decided to go for IiV as a really beneficial way to ensure that volunteers within the organisation are fully recognised and are being treated in accordance with best practice standards. In addition, there is increasing demand from funders for evidence of quality standards and this seemed to be a valuable place for a voluntary sector organisation to start."
Maggie Hammond
Revival Support
“We found the team at Investing in Volunteers very friendly and helpful throughout the entire process, our assessor gave us some very useful tips and suggestions for future development for our volunteer services, we pride ourselves on being an organisations who recognises the importance of our volunteers, and the dedication and determination of our team of volunteers, and feel that achieving the standard reinforces this. Furthermore achieving the standard provided an opportunity to promote the hard work of the Trusts volunteers across a variety of media."
Alan Smith
Voluntary Services Manager
"It was a very useful experience to validate the support we offer our volunteers and to consolidate our policies and procedures"
Barbara Poole
Chief Executive
“IiV is like a plumb-line to hold up against your volunteering programme & see where the bits are that need straightening out. It’s certainly improved our posture!”
Eileen Burwood
Development Manager (East Midlands)
“Going through the Iiv process was a real team effort, has increased our confidence in the way we handle our own volunteers and we can now demonstrate to other VCS organisations that we ‘walk the talk’. We felt the assessment was thorough and that we had actually earned the award giving the whole process credibility and value.”
David Bradshaw
Manager (job-share)
Volunteer Centre Winchester
"It has boosted team morale, given us confidence and increased our credibility with other organisations."
Sian Clason-Thomas
Development Manager - Services to Volunteers
Volunteer Centre North Somerset
“We are highly delighted to have been given the Investing in Volunteers award. Our 160 volunteers have supported the entire process and we’re really proud of everyone especially those who took part on the assessment day. Nerves were a little tattered that day but all the volunteers were amazing and ended up actually enjoying the process! We highly recommend that any organisation with volunteers go through the assessment, as it is an incredibly positive experience where everyone learns a great deal.”
Rachael Chamberlain
Volunteer & Fundraising Co-ordinator
Woodlands MS Resource & Respite Care Centre
“I found the process a very positive one, and fairly straightforward. It is extremely practical as well, with very good systems and procedures in place for managing and supporting volunteers at the end of the process.”
Dan Kisumbi
Head of Services
Pursuing Independent Paths Ltd
"We are very proud to have been recently awarded the IIV Quality Standard which is a significant achievement not only for Age Concern Enfield, but the London Borough of Enfield as we are the first to achieve this in the area. We started the process in August 2006 with an introductory workshop and were assigned our assessor. After completing our self-assessment, we produced a development plan which consisted of 4 actions, in preparation for our final assessment. Sophie visited us in February and interviewed staff and volunteers to carry out the assessment."
"We have been impressed with the support and encouragement of our assessor throughout the process and the structure of the assessment procedure."
"To celebrate our achievement and to thank our 220 strong volunteer body, we held a volunteer celebration on 4th June and asked our assessor to present the plaque to the organisation. We even had a cake with the IIV logo on top!"
"We would like to take this opportunity to thank Volunteering England for their support in helping us to achieve the standard and to our volunteers, without whom, we would simply not be able to manage."
Sian Caine
Senior Manager for Development and Enabling Services,
Age Concern Enfield
“The Investing in Volunteers standard was originally developed by the 4 Volunteer Bureaux in Croydon, Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth. Going through the process a second time has enabled us to review policies and procedures, and raise awareness with all staff of good practice in managing volunteers. Funders also appreciate us having gone through this process.”
Mary Benton
Volunteer Centre Manager
Volunteer Centre Croydon
"The whole process was a lot easier than I imagined and our Assessor was very helpful"
Margaret Surrey
Chair
Woodside Bereavement Service
“A useful process for making sure you are providing your volunteers with the support they need for them, and your organisation, to benefit from their volunteering”
Andy Norrell
Director
Volunteer Centre Merton
"This is an important award for us as we hold our volunteers in very high regard. It is huge tribute to the work and commitment they offer to the projects we run."
David Grimwood
Chief Executive
Church in Society
"We embarked on the process of the Investing in Volunteers award to ensure that we develop best practice in supporting our valuable volunteers, many of whom have arthritis – delivering support and service to people with arthritis across Scotland, whilst facing up to the challenge of arthritis in their own lives. As an organistion the onus is on us to ensure their contribution is recognised, valued and well supported – and the assessment process is enabling us to discover new ways of reaching these goals."
Angela Donaldson
Director
Arthritis Care in Scotland
"Sport England welcomes Investing in Volunteers as a key tool to enable sports volunteering involving organisations to benchmark the work they undertake to support their volunteers. Similar to other standards in sport, Equity, Safeguarding and Clubmark, Investing in Volunteers provides a vehicle to help drive the cultural change often required to raise the profile and recognise good practice in this vital area of sport. From the local rounders club to the national governing body of a sport like England Netball, Investing in Volunteers will help sport to recognise and value to huge contribution given by the 5.8 million sports volunteers helping across England. By encouraging the national sports organisations to work towards achieving the standard we hope that this will in turn provide a comprehensive structure to guide their volunteer development and help new sports volunteers to start in sport, current volunteers to continue in sport and all volunteers an opportunity to develop through sport."
Lisa Wainwright
Senior Development Manger Volunteers
Sport England
“Achieving the standard will give us a renewed pride and confidence in our abilities to recruit, manage and retain a network of volunteers at The Children’s Trust. The staff also make sure that the volunteer is part of their “team” Each and every volunteer here adds something to the quality of life at The Children’s Trust.”
Rachel Turner
The Children’s Trust, Tadworth
“Going forward for Investing in Volunteers has reaffirmed that we are following good working practices. It has enabled our organisation to look at any gaps in practice and fill those gaps with confidence knowing we are following the correct procedures. The benefits to the organisation is validation that we are following the correct practices and procedures, proving to our volunteers that we take the volunteer project seriously.”
“The process has been straightforward and the support mechanisms from Volunteer Development Agency has been very good."
Lynn Donnelly
Rethink Northern Ireland
"We would recommend that any volunteer-involving organisation should take part in Investing in Volunteers, to build upon their strengths and take their organisations to new heights of best practice"
Terri James
Volunteer Co-ordinator
Age Concern, Croydon
"We were delighted to receive the Investing in Volunteers award as it gives us recognition for the high standards of service that we have achieved within the NNUH. It has raised the profile of volunteering within the Trust and created the opportunity to promote the Trust's role within the local community."
Sally Knights
Voluntary Services Manager
Norwich & Norfolk University Hospital NHS Trust
"As an organisation we are aware of the importance of recognising volunteers contributions in the workplace. This is our reason for applying to achieve the Investing in Volunteers quality mark. It is important for our organisation to maintain and hopefully exceed national standards for quality volunteer involvement. It is also important that potential volunteers acknowledge that we are working to achieve this award for positive progression within the organisation.
The process of assessment was uncomplicated and easy to complete, with immediate one to one guidance and support from an Investing in Volunteers advisor and assessor. The assessment day itself was certainly less daunting than first imagined and I would recommend any organisation who has involvement with volunteers to work towards achieving this national standards award, as it increases your profile within the community as well as encouraging new growth and quality of volunteers."
Emma Lewis
Volunteer Co-ordinator
MEWN Swansea
“CHILDREN 1ST is committed to involving volunteers in all aspects of our work. Investing in Volunteers provides a valuable framework that has helped us to develop best practice and ensure that we provide well thought through volunteering opportunities benefiting volunteers and the work of our Charity. The assessment process is rigorous but there is a great deal of support to help us achieve the standards.”
Margaret McKay
Chief Executive
CHILDREN 1 ST
“When we initially considered the Investing in Volunteers standard, it became apparent quite quickly that it sat very neatly alongside what we were already striving to achieve in our management of volunteering within Belfast Central Mission (BCM) - ie. good practice and increased recognition of the contribution of our volunteers both internally and externally.”
The Investing in Volunteers standard has provided a benchmark against which we can measure our performance, identify gaps, further develop our work, and promote the immense value of volunteers to any organisation.”
Cindy Scott
Belfast Central Mission
“I would advise any Voluntary Services Manager interested in developing good practice in the management of volunteers to go through the Investing in Volunteers process.”
Judy Woodman
Voluntary Services Manager
Trinity Hospice
“We feel that we have been able to develop processes, policies and procedures that fully support our volunteers in all aspects of their work with us and reflect how much we value their input into what we do.”
Michaela Jones
Head of UK Volunteering
VSO
"We are delighted to receive the Investing in Volunteers Award as it gives the organisation the recognition and credibility that what we're doing is good. Volunteers make a tremendous contribution to everyone's lives and VSB wants to ensure this is valued."
Bill Osborne
Director
VSB
"Investing in Volunteers was a very positive experience for Arthritis Care and resulted in building and cementing relationships between volunteers and staff."
Kate Fleck
NI Director
Arthritis Care
"Undertaking and achieving the Investing in Volunteers standard has been a very positive experience for Down District Volunteer Centre. It has brought the Committee, staff and volunteers together to work on core systems and procedures and has highlighted to our stakeholders why we involve and value volunteers. We promote good practice in volunteer management within our local community; having achieved the standard, we can now lead by example."
Clare McGuinness
Manager
Down District Volunteer Centre
"The Investing in Volunteers Standard has allowed us to identify and address weak spots and show our commitment to volunteers, an integral part of our organisation. Without volunteers, we would not be able to provide essential services for older people in the Strabane District Council area."
Karen O'Donnell
Development Officer
Strabane Community Project, Northern Ireland
"We are so proud to have received this award. Our staff and volunteers now have the confidence that we are operating within recognised best practice. Certain changes needed to be made at an organisational level and having Investing in Volunteers to back up why these changes needed to happen gave more weight to our arguement."
Helen Connolly
Volunteer Resource Adviser
RNID Northern Ireland
"The Investing in Volunteers Award is much appreciated by the volunteers and informs the public that we care about our volunteers."
John Maxwell
Bureau Manager
Lisburn Citizens Advice Bureau
"It's very exciting to be among the first Citizens Advice Bureaux in Northern Ireland to obtain the award. We have always demonstrated how much we value our volunteers, and now the award provides us with official recognition of this fact. I'd like to express my gratitude to the team in Regional Office for their support through the process."
Meraid Griffin
Bureau Manager
Strabane & District Citizens Advice Bureau
"IiV has been a very worthwhile process and I would have no hesitation in recommending it to any organisation that involves and values volunteers."
Margaret O'Kane
Millennium Volunteer Co-ordinator
Off the Street Initiative
"Involving our organisation in working towards the IIV award was challenging but very worthwhile. We value all our volunteers highly and this award affirms our commitment to them. They are the cornerstone of our organisation."
Margaret Thompson
Senior Organiser
Home-Start Antrim
"Achieving the Investing in Volunteers standard goes a long way to showing our continued dedication to volunteering and ensuring the high quality of work we do for and with the community. We continuously strive to ensure that our volunteers receive the acknowledgements they deserve and the training to assist them in their volunteering’.…”
Marion Schuman
Director
Hammersmith and Fulham Volunteer Centre
”Achieving this award has been down to the hard work and loyalty of our volunteers – they deserve the highest praise and recognition for their contribution.”
Annette Jaep
EPP Project Support Manager
Worcestershire Health
“The assessment was very useful, and led us through some of the gaps to an understanding of what was missing.”
Susan Chambers
Director
Hoxton Health
From a volunteer “My skills are valued, they value you and do a sterling job with the resources they have”
From a funder “If I have any spare cash I would look to see who had an award such as IiV as that would give me confidence.
Margaret Surrey
Chair
Woodside Bereavement Service
“The Investing in Volunteers process was very straight forward, there was lots of support and advice from the Volunteer Development Agency. The assessor was very helpful on the day and made the volunteers being interviewed feel relaxed.”
Claire Eakin
Volunteer Coordinator
MindWise
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"Recognising volunteers and their contributions is incredibly important for an organisation, the way we have done this at RAPt is to bring our standards up to a quality that is recognised as the template for all organisations wishing to adhere to good practise in the recruitment, management, and support of volunteers. Having gone through the process of gaining accreditation, and now working within the structure implemented by the investing in volunteer standard, I cannot imagine ever working without these policies, and procedures. The whole organisation will benefit by the quality standards now in place, and our partner organisations will recognise our continued commitment, and support of volunteers. Last but not least our assessor was always friendly, open, and honest, and very helpful, and gave us enough time to implement the changes RAPt needed to make to gain accreditation. Also the staff behind the scenes were very helpful when I phoned up asking questions related to the assessment."
Andreas Loizou
Volunteer Co-ordinator
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“Investing in Volunteers was really hard work, but we knew we had to go through the process in order to progress the organisations development model. We think it is worth it, and now feel volunteer ‘best practice’ is at our fingertips …”
Felicity Cotton
Project Manager
East London Food Access
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“We are very pleased to have achieved a nationally recognised quality standard. Our IiV award demonstrates the value we place on all our volunteers”
David Ranner
Volunteers Co-ordinator
North Yorkshire Countryside Volunteers Service, North Yorkshire County Council
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“Investing in Volunteers has given Inspire positive feedback and assures those who fund us that we value volunteers. We have a steady stream of success stories as volunteers get qualifications and go on to further education or employment”
Gerri Bright
Manager
Inspire Nottingham
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“Hard work, but so pleased to have achieved this as we are the first youth organisation in Bromley to have completed this quality standard.”
Tammy Blaikie-Gould
Volunteer Coordinator
JusB
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“Volunteers are integral to the work that PeaceMaker does and our projects would not be successful without them! We wanted to ensure that our practices of recruitment, training, and management of volunteers communicated to volunteers how much they are a valued part of the organisation. PeaceMaker is pleased with achieving the IiV standard because it is an external verification of our good practice with volunteers.”
Erin Hoekstra
Director
PeaceMaker
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Our volunteers are an invaluable addition to our workforce, what better recognition for The Children’s Trustand our 400 volunteering stars than being re-accredited with the IiV quality standard."
Rachel Turner
The Children’s Trust
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“The IiV experience has been a positive learning curve for the volunteers and staff of our Organisation. It has given us the very real opportunity to examine the service, adapt it and appreciate just what a great job our volunteers do.…”
Kathryn Dolby
Volunteer Project Co-ordinator
bid services
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"The IiV process helped to bring all the stakeholders on board and emphasise the importance of having a nationally recognised standard to take us forward into next year, which will mark the launch of our myplace youth facilities at TaB Centre Plus. We were able to achieve the kitemark quite quickly because a lot of the preparatory work in establishing policies and procedures had already been done and because stakeholders were able to see the value of the volunteering programme for the organisation."
Lindsay Peniston
Volunteer Coordinator
TaB Centre Plus
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“We are so proud of this achievement which demonstrates the commitment and value we place on our volunteers and the great work they carry out for the Hospice.This process has given us the opportunity to ensure we are providing our volunteers with the best levels of management, support, and guidance."
Jo Shevlin
Human Resources Manager
St Elizabeth Hospice
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“It has helped our organisation focus on the needs of volunteers”
Gail Mistlin, Director
SKY Partnership
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“The Investing in Volunteers standards made writing a volunteering strategy / development plan easy for the organisation. There was a great sense of achievement when we completed the award after all the hard work within the organisation by staff and volunteers in implementing change and working to the standards.”
Anne Norrie
Volunteer Development Coordinator, NI Chest, Heart & Stroke
