Centre Manager, Mike Randall talks about how DCVC volunteers make a difference at Dublin City Volunteer Centre:
You won’t be surprised to learn that we involve volunteers in our work at Dublin City Volunteer Centre, but you might be surprised at we involve volunteers – we simply couldn’t do what we do without them.
Volunteers are key to making our service welcoming, inclusive and successful.
Each of our volunteers adds something unique to the services we offer. Volunteers offer language and professional skills, as well as different perspectives. Every volunteer has a unique experience that adds to our ability to understand and reach out to the diverse population of Dublin City.
We have a team of paid staff and are funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development. Our mission is to address social issues and strengthen quality of life through the development and support of quality volunteering.
To achieve this, we sometimes need to spend a bit more time with individuals to ensure they get appropriate support. An organisation that wants to involve volunteers in their work might need extra help to find suitable volunteers or need advice on planning a volunteer programme that ensures volunteers have the tools they need to succeed.
We might need to meet with a potential volunteer one-to-one to help them find a volunteering role that suits their skills and helps them achieve their goals. These personal interactions take time, and we wouldn’t have that time without the help of our volunteers.
We hope that it’s not all one-way, though – and indeed our volunteers often tell us how much they gain from volunteering with us. Each person’s experience is unique, but we our volunteers tell us that volunteering builds their confidence, allows them to take on tasks they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, helps them meet new people and network, and acts as a route to future employment. Indeed, just within the last six months we’ve recruited three people from our volunteer pool to become DCVC staff members and have seen others go into exciting new professional roles.
Having such a fabulous team of committed volunteers working with us and maintaining as high a retention rate of volunteers as we do, doesn’t come easy though, and nor does it come without costs for our organisation.
Being able to say that we don’t rely on our volunteers to deliver our service is a wonderful privilege – and we are grateful to our funders for facilitating our staff to carry out their work. We know that many organisations simply wouldn’t be able to function without massive volunteer effort.
We feel that, by involving volunteers in our service, we get the best of both worlds; having a fantastic staff team that provides our core service, and a wonderful team of volunteers that allows us to spend more time with individuals and organisations that need extra support while adding to the diversity of skills and perspectives that benefit our work.
This National Volunteering Week, I encourage all not-for-profit organizations across Ireland to celebrate and reflect on the vital role that volunteers play. If your organization relies on volunteers, consider how you can ensure this relationship is mutually beneficial. Think about how you can provide a supportive environment where volunteers feel valued and are able to bring their unique skills and perspectives to complement the work of your staff.
If your organisation would like to learn more about how to involve volunteers in your work, get in touch at: support@volunteerdublincity.ie.