CharityComms

Mary Breen, Communications Manager, WOMANKIND:

“Vary the work you give volunteers as much as you can. If they’re expected to input data for long stretches at a time, make sure there’s a more creative task on the horizon. Briefs should be clear, especially if you’re asking them to write for an external audience. They need to include who the piece is aimed at and what the organisation/campaign hopes to achieve. Volunteers should be listened to because they’ll have valuable suggestions about which communications messages work for their peer group (for example, making the most of YouTube). Perhaps most importantly, ensure the mechanism for providing expenses is clear and they’re provided on time!”

Genevieve Clark, Director of Communications, Terrence Higgins Trust:

“It’s useful to write to universities that offer PR courses to ask if they have any students who want experience of working in a charity press office. It’s a good way to get people with a chunk of free time and is useful when you have a big event coming up like, for us, World AIDS Day. Matching people’s skills with what they’d like to do is important. If someone asks to do writing work and all we have for them to do is to go through the papers, it’s not going to work. Regular meetings to see how they’re getting on makes sure their aspirations match your own.”

Claire Ashby, Head of Media, Mind:

“It’s important to remember to say thank you to case study volunteers. You should offer the fullest support with any interviews they may decide to undertake, including full briefings, follow-up calls and further communication when the article or interview happens and appears. We’re in the process of setting up an email newsletter to keep better in touch with these volunteers. Also, we need to be better at communicating with those volunteers who have not done any interviews for some time whether it’s because they’ve been unwell or an appropriate opportunity hasn't appeared.”

Nick Capeling, Website Editor, CAFOD:

“We advertise for volunteers to work on the online team on a project by project basis on our website. You never really know how long volunteers will be available and it’s handy to have someone coming in to help at busy periods rather than all the time when you might not have things for them to do. We might ask volunteers to cold call contacts to set up links with other websites or carry out surveys. It’s good to choose something that can be done any time so if they’re coming in one day a week for a few months, they can fit it around their other commitments.”

Ingrid Burns, Public Relations and Campaigns Manager, Epilepsy Action:

“We always interview our communications volunteers or interns. It’s good practice for both parties; we can get a feel for who they are and they can tell us about their career plans and what they want to get out of the placement. We tend to meet our media volunteers but on the phone to assess the strength of their story and how comfortable they would be talking to the media. We only pass on contact details of a case study once we’ve had an opportunity to discuss with the volunteer the angle a journalist wants to take.”