Handy Hints & Tips when adding volunteering roles to Kent Volunteers

Tips:

  • Check your roles – see what your organisation has listed – any that are out of date could be edited and reactivated
  • Add new roles – ongoing roles, but also think about:
    • One-off / short-term tasks – skilled and unskilled tasks that are not ongoing roles e.g. website development, research, events, design & IT
    • Skilled volunteering roles – ongoing skilled roles such as finance, marketing & HR
    • Group tasks – we can promote to local employers who enable their staff to volunteer e.g. events, gardening & painting

Volunteers can search these (i.e. one-off/skilled/group) – so tick the boxes if any of these apply to a role

Important:

  • Fill in the fields with an asterisk. There is a 45-minute time limit so just add the mandatory fields* initially and then click save. The organisation can then go back into the opportunity and add the detail, descriptions etc for the opportunity
  • Once the user clicks ‘save.’ The roles will either appear under Open or Past Roles (if ticked ‘closed’) on the Manage Roles page
  • The mandatory information is listed below

Please note:

  • Only tick the multiple location box if the volunteering opportunity is available in Thanet and Folkestone and Dover
  • Make sure there’s a space in the opportunity postcode (i.e. CT10 2QQ not CT102QQ) otherwise your roles don’t appear when a potential volunteer does a postcode / area search for a role
  • Always add a postcode if the opportunity is area specific i.e. only Folkestone or only Dover or only Thanet. That way potential volunteers searching opportunities in that area will see your opportunity

Hints: Fields that help with the search:

  • Activities and Availability are useful to tick as the system generates potential volunteers for you based on what you choose here
  • The description (this can be short) and the ‘short description’ (even shorter!). The short description is what volunteers see when they are searching. If they like it, they will click on the role to find out more.
  • Role address: if different from the organisation address
  • Role location: could the role be undertaken remotely, or just at the role address?
  • Skills: as this is a way for volunteers to search for roles

If you have time:

  • What benefits will the volunteer get from the volunteering opportunity? Think about why someone would want to do this role and add some benefits to the description

*Mandatory information to add your roles to Simply Connect:

  1. Role title:
  2. Advertising start date: date you are happy for your role to go live on Simply Connect
  3. Advertising end date: date you are happy for your role to not show on Simply Connect anymore – ideally no more than a year
  4. Contact email for this role: you have two email addresses, so fill in which you prefer
  5. Induction & training: this is a tick box, just means you will explain to a volunteer about the organisation, what they will be doing etc.
  6. Regular support supervision: this is a tick box, just means you will look after the volunteer and keep in touch with them
  7. Is this role covered by your existing insurance policy? this is a tick box