Loughborough Students Union

Name of Organisation

Loughborough Students Union

Why did you decide to go for Investing in Volunteers?

1. To get an external view of the support we give our volunteers, an opportunity to see what areas needed to be improved

2. By gaining the award we hope to able to attract more external funding for some of our volunteering projects

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

It has forced us to review all aspects of our work with volunteers, to identify areas of good practice and areas of weakness we need to address

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

Once we found the right assessor (the first one couldn’t meet our timescale objectives), it was much more straightforward than we had anticipated

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

• Set your targets and objectives in advance – these need to be clear

• If you are a Students Union and being assessed by focus groups, PLAN them well – i.e. times, numbers etc., and always invite more people than you need (half won’t turn up!). Offer incentives to attend e.g. sweeties etc…