Revamping roles and responsibilities to help volunteers help others

For Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support, a non-profit agency that helps and supports pregnant teenagers, the pandemic necessitated a complete reimagining of how its volunteers reached out to teens, as many in-person volunteering opportunities were put on hold.

This meant a switch to virtual volunteering methods, like online tutoring and making phone calls to check on vulnerable individuals.

NEW WAYS TO PERFORM A TRADITIONAL ROLE

Ms Patsy Ang, a volunteer management executive with Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support, said this has created demand for new skills-based volunteer roles including roles in social media management, research and data entry.

The organisation is also on the lookout for volunteers who can perform specialised roles, such as giving advice on the latest best practices for digitalisation and human resources and writing profiles of service users. Such roles are ideal for those who are keen to contribute their skills but may be unable to volunteer regularly.

“We foresee the need to look for volunteers with strong digital skills and tech-savviness. Looking ahead, volunteer roles will continue to evolve in response to the changing needs of communities and organisations, and volunteers will play an important role in helping us address these needs,” said Ms Ang.

It was a similar situation at Cornerstone Community Services, a social service agency that empowers family members – from young couples to grandparents – with practical life skills and knowledge.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, our family education programmes saw a need for new volunteer roles to assist with the production of educational video clips. These new roles will continue to stay post-pandemic,” said Ms Lew Mi Yih, executive director of Cornerstone Community Services.

These examples highlight the need for social service agencies to evolve their volunteer roles in the event of future disruptions. Relooking these roles can also allow them to adapt quickly to emerging trends and adjust to the changing needs and demographics of their volunteers.

WHY REDESIGNING AND BETTER INTEGRATING VOLUNTEER ROLES MATTERS

Resources developed by the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), such as the Volunteer Role Redesign Guide, have helped both organisations to pivot and make a positive impact despite the challenging period.

Ms Priscilla Gan, director, Volunteer Resource Optimisation, NCSS, said: “Volunteers are critical in augmenting staff manpower to increase the capability and capacity of our social service agencies. The Volunteer Role Redesign Guide helps the agency take a more intentional approach to designing volunteer roles that will better fit agency needs, adapt to evolving social-health needs and volunteerism trends. Role redesign enhances the volunteering experience and deepens the relationship between volunteers and the agencies – which will allow us to make a greater impact in our community and in the lives of those we serve. ”   

At Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support, the burgeoning workload of staff was eased when the centre integrated volunteers more deeply in its processes. Speaking about one of NCSS’ digital self-assessment tools, Ms Ang said: “The Volunteer Management Maturity Matrix allows us to evaluate our organisational capabilities and identify areas for improvement to include volunteers in our workstream where applicable. With the new tools provided to Babes, we were given the opportunity to rework and restructure some of the essential services we provide such as our helpline service.

“From a largely staff-managed programme, we were able to incorporate more volunteers to enhance the service and train volunteers into new roles such as team leader to head the volunteer team.”

MINIMISING SERVICE DISRUPTION AMID A CRISIS

For Cornerstone Community Services, the NCSS Volunteer Continuity Planning Guide provided a framework for the organisation during a crisis. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted preparations for its thrift shop project for migrant workers, the agency pivoted its programme support to include wellness activities and carnivals to meet the social and mental needs of its beneficiaries as they underwent prolonged movement restrictions.

This was achieved by expanding the role of volunteers, tapping into a more expansive and diverse group of skillsets ranging from shop operations to event management. This helped to capture potential interest from a larger group of volunteers. Last year, Cornerstone Community Services mobilised over 400 volunteers to organise 11 carnivals for more than 22,000 workers, said Ms Lew.

New roles at Cornerstone Community Services include social media and SuperSenior volunteers. The former role was created for social media-savvy individuals who can craft event or sales-related posts on its Facebook, Instagram and Carousell channels for its event-thrift shop, The Barn.

The SuperSenior programme encourages Cornerstone Senior Centre members to contribute in a variety of roles. These range from simpler roles like taking attendance at events to more skills-based ones like gym fitness assistants.

To maintain this valuable pool of talent, Ms Lew said that the NCSS Volunteer Engagement Tool helps the organisation measure volunteer satisfaction and improve role redesign. “As we strengthen our volunteer management capability, we believe it will help with overall volunteer satisfaction and the sustainability of our volunteer pool,” she added.

UNLOCKING GREATER POTENTIAL FROM OUR UNSUNG HEROES

Volunteers are the unsung heroes of organisations like Babes Pregnancy Crisis Support and Cornerstone Community Services, performing a variety of roles including skills-based functions such as marketing, digitalisation and outreach. That is why volunteer role redesign should examine fulfilling ways in which they can continue to contribute. This also helps full-time staff refocus their priorities on other important operational aspects.

Volunteer managers form the bridge between the community, the agency and its beneficiaries. On top of handling recruitment, induction, training and strategy, a volunteer management executive establishes a sincere connection between the organisation and each volunteer, said Ms Ang.

“Volunteer managers create a positive and memorable impression at every touchpoint and puts in great effort to ensure that all volunteers are well-engaged in their assigned role with the appropriate training and guidance,” she explained. This in turn allows the volunteer manager to receive valuable insight for volunteer role redesign.

“The (volunteer role design) tools provided by NCSS have greatly aided us on the journey to cultivate a culture of interdependence between the organisation and volunteers,” said Ms Ang.

Fine-tuning volunteer roles to changing conditions on the ground can help volunteers stay relevant and serve their beneficiaries and the wider community. And with each rewarding encounter, Cornerstone Community Services’ Ms Lew believes the impact can be felt more broadly to build a more caring society.

How can the Volunteer Resource Hub help social service organisations attract and retain volunteers?