The Wandle Industrial Museum is currently a small organisation, with a relatively low and stable volunteer base.
However we have long realised that, dependant upon grant funding as we are, we should always strive to achieve high standards, and to acquire those charter marks which are the public acknowledgement of that achievement. We were concerned, however, that the volunteer management aspect of our existence was stagnating, and we were too small to have the skills to develop an appropriate program for ourselves.
The pilot program for Investing in Volunteers was perfectly timed to fill this gap. Even more, than helping us improve our commitment to our volunteers, we now knew we could do so in a way which would be consistent with other voluntary organisations and to demonstrate this to our stakeholders.
The process was much longer and more challenging than we had thought, and forced a change of our team to those who had the time and skills to devote to the process. What started to fall into place, almost immediately, was a realisation of how many of our processes and policies were unwritten, and uncertain. In the course of the accreditation program we pulled these together, not just within the program, but to assist in our service delivery to the community and our funders. In the end 49 separate new or revised documents formed our evidence file.
We have found, since gaining this accreditation, that we are more open with our volunteers, involve them more in the policies and directions of our organisation, and gain benefit from the feedback that this allows. We expect to be recruiting actively, soon, and will approach that task with a confidence we would not have previously had.
The version of the Investors in Volunteers workbook that was the basis of our program would have been beyond many small organisations by its sheer size, and the number of tasks that had to be completed. Hopefully, the experience of the pilot project has enabled apparent duplications to be incorporated by cross reference, rather than reinvented with minor differences for each task, so allowing the total to be more achievable by wholly voluntary organisations. We were extremely fortunate in our Supervisor whose gentle encouragement kept us to the timetable, away from blind alleys, and directed to the real target - the support of our volunteers.
The challenge now is to maintain the momentum, to keep our program under constant review, and adapted to changing circumstances, and to keep investing in our volunteers!
Nicholas Hart, Vice Chair, Wandle Industrial Museum
