Vision for Volunteering in Stoke-on-Trent
For a stronger, more connected volunteering community
Our Vision for Volunteering
“Our Vision for Volunteering is to create a community where everyone comes together to make a positive impact. We believe that together we can create meaningful connections, foster empathy, and create a real sense of unity.
Putting the ‘unity’ in community, our mission is to inspire others to join in and help make the world a better place for all.”
What is the 'Vision for Volunteering'?
This Vision for Volunteering is a pledge, one where organisations like yours can show your commitment to developing and nurturing a community where volunteering thrives, and where every individual feels empowered to make a difference.
It’s a pledge to uphold and promote the values and principles that underpin our shared vision for a stronger, more connected community across Stoke-on-Trent.
What are the themes?
Our Vision for Volunteering statement identifies four key themes which fit the ethos of volunteering in Stoke-on-Trent.
Each theme has three subthemes, which are accompanied by a range of suggested actions. These actions are not an exhaustive list, as we want organisations to be able to personalise what the Vision for Volunteering means to them.
If your organisation is carrying out activities that fits the spirit of the theme, then we’d love to hear about it. We want the Vision for Volunteering to be a living document that evolves and adapts.
Investing in Volunteers should take a strengths-based approach to ensure volunteers feel valued, rewarded, and recognised ultimately improving retention rates and community impact.
- Reward: To enhance volunteer motivation and satisfaction by providing meaningful recognition through various reward mechanisms.
- Recognise: To enhance volunteer motivation and satisfaction by providing meaningful recognition through various reward mechanisms.
- Retain: To support volunteer growth, engagement, and long-term commitment.
Volunteering should be all about positive community connections. Volunteers need the opportunity to discuss their ideas, network with other people and share issues to develop solutions.
- Ideas: To provide appropriate opportunities for people to come together to share ideas on improving volunteering.
- People: To provide key networking opportunities for those who are volunteering or are involved in the volunteer journey.
- Issues: To provide opportunities for volunteers and organisations to feedback relevant issues they are facing within the sector.
Communities should feel empowered to develop their own innovative solutions to engaging and supporting volunteers through strong partnerships, mentoring schemes and sharing learning.
- Partnerships and Collaborations: To encourage more partnership working between organisations and the wider community to benefit volunteering overall.
- Mentoring: Volunteers are experts by their own experience, so it is crucial that they are offered the opportunity to use this expertise to benefit others.
- Sharing Learning: To develop appropriate channels and mechanisms that can be used to share learning and development opportunities.
Volunteers should be encouraged to express their individuality and feel valued for their unique contributions. This can be done through encouraging higher levels of accessibility, looking at inclusion through a holistic approach and reducing barriers.
- Accessibility: To encourage organisations to innovate to develop more accessible services and take an initiative-taking approach rather than a reactive approach when the need arises.
- Inclusion: To encourage a more inclusive approach to volunteering and capture best practice.
Removing Barriers: To provide organisations with the tools to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate volunteers where appropriate.
Who's the Vision for?
YOU!
It’s for you. It’s for your organisation and your Volunteer Manager(s) or coordinators(s).
It’s for your volunteers, to be able to make their volunteering journey a positive, smooth, rewarding, and fulfilling one.
The Vision for Volunteering is for any volunteer involving organisation – no matter how big or small, old or new! We would love to have a wide range of organisations involved in the Vision for Volunteering.
Sounds great! How do I sign up?
Firstly, there’s the pledge for you to sign up to support.
Before pledging your support for the Vision, please ensure that you have read the Stoke-on-Trent Vision for Volunteering before confirming your support at the end of the survey.
Following your pledge there’s a six-monthly reporting form to complete to monitor the Vision, allowing for improved evaluation and measurement of it’s effectiveness and impact.
Got any questions?
If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please get in touch.
What our clients think about this Vision for Volunteering...
"This Vision for Volunteering is important for Stoke-on-Trent because it will unite the city through shared ambitions which will strengthen services and partnerships and create meaningful opportunities for creating positive change in the community.”