Volunteers play a pivotal role in charity store operations. Here's why BHF turned to Rosterfy to make sure they could offer the best experience
Volunteers play a pivotal role in charity store operations. Their energy, enthusiasm and dedication dictate how much an organisation is able to raise funds for their cause.
British Heart Foundation is one of the most recognised charities in the UK and they are very aware of the impact a successful volunteer program can have on their ability to change lives. To provide their volunteers with the best possible experience, BHF recognised a need to invest in a digital onboarding system and after a procurement process, they selected Rosterfy to deliver ‘MyVolunteer, BHF’s volunteering hub’.
British Heart Foundation (BHF) is a charity organisation dedicated to the prevention and treatment of heart and circulatory diseases. With almost 700 charity retail outlets in the UK supported by over 12,000 volunteers every week, their support makes a huge impact to the charity.
BHF aims to fund around £100 million of research each year into all heart and circulatory diseases and the things that cause them. BHF’s volunteer program strives to be easy, flexible and inclusive and their onboarding platform ‘MyVolunteer’ is pivotal to their success.
In 2021, they chose Rosterfy as their supplier of Volunteer Management Software and to date has achieved cost savings of over £330,000 while at the same time providing their volunteers with an engaging platform, encouraging them to easily support their cause.
In this case study we will explore how BHF uses Rosterfy to increase the impact of their volunteer program, ensure legal and regulatory compliance and introduce operational efficiencies.
The Charity Retail Sector faces a pressing challenge of escalating operating costs. Charities are tasked with balancing their expenses while ensuring store availability through strategic volunteer and workforce staffing to ensure operational goals are met.
Their customer expects certain standards both in the store experience and their ability to find high quality products at affordable prices. The profitability of the stores is directly linked to meeting these expectations.
The effectiveness of their efforts in supporting their cause is jeopardised by the rising costs within their supply chain, which are often passed on to their stores. With escalating expenses in logistics for waste carriers, increased energy costs, and wage inflation, their ability to generate funds is being significantly impacted.
However, against the backdrop of rising costs Charity Retail stores are as popular as ever. In the UK, the sector grew by 15%, as many retail outlets are leaving the highstreet the Charity Stores are thriving.
British Heart Foundation has decided on a strategy that ensures the best possible experience for its customers. Their outlets are modern, well-stocked and maintained to the highest standards. They must continuously evaluate and adjust their operating models to remain efficient and cost-effective.
This strategy relies on the support and availability of their 11,000 volunteers across their stores, offering over 70,000 hours of support in their stores each week.
"High Street Charity stores don't receive preferable rental rates. We have to ensure the standards we set are very high until the point you wouldn't even know it's a charity store. Volunteers play such a pivotal role in our shops and stores due to their significant time commitment they donate to BHF"
Linda Fenn, Head of Volunteering, British Heart Foundation
Charities invest so much into their volunteer programs, it is imperative they can offer a consistent and scalable experience that adds value to the organisation.
The average age of BHF’s volunteers was previously around 59 years old, while new applications are from volunteers with an average age of 29 years old.
BHF has adapted to this change in demographic by offering a modern and engaging experience for their volunteer program, with better communication and the use of technology.
The need to modernise and streamline their ‘MyVolunteer’ program went beyond simply reducing operational inefficiencies.
Choosing a world class provider of volunteer management software means they can meet legal & regulatory compliance requirements, reduce overheads and future proof their program.
BHF can ensure they meet strict compliance requirements around GDPR and they have greater visibility of reference collection status.
Managing thousands of volunteers presents a challenge for any organisation. The large volume of admin that needs to be correctly collected and stored is time consuming and presents a high level of risk.
Rosterfy solves this problem by giving a centralised and secure platform for data collection and our automations streamline nearly all processes in the volunteering journey.
The success or failure of a volunteer program comes down to how engaging the experience is for them. Rosterfy’s Volunteer Management Software provides an easy way for volunteers to apply for roles and increases the visibility of available volunteer opportunities.
‘MyVolunteer’ not only provides a great experience but has unlocked the potential for volunteers to apply for multiple roles.
To ensure the smooth running of their volunteer programs BHF turned to Rosterfy—a scalable volunteering management platform designed to streamline the scheduling, communication and engagement of volunteers.
Using Rosterfy in their ‘Action Team’ initiative for example, gave them a chance to build a database of people who could not only volunteer one off at events but support different campaigns, providing extra value across all services within the whole organisation.
“During the 2022 London Marathon, we were the charity partner, and we have in the region of 500 to 600 volunteers through the platform [Rosterfy], and when I spoke to campaigns somebody from the event they said that was the best volunteering experience they have ever had”
Linda Fenn, Head of Volunteering, British Heart Foundation.
Now, they can offer opportunities to an active database of over 6,000 volunteers, screened, compliant and ready to go.
"We're able to say exactly how many volunteers we have in our shops and stores, as well as those supporting our events as part of BHF's Action Team. That's because of Rosterfy"
Sue George, Volunteer Development and Systems Manager at British Heart Foundation
Introducing Rosterfy has added cost savings and efficiencies from the very start of a volunteers journey with BHF to their last role.
Prior to Rosterfy being introduced to ‘MyVolunteer’ the application process had 54 steps with an estimated 54% of these being redundant after Rosterfy.
It was estimated that it previously took an average of 42 days for someone to start volunteering with BHF, this was reduced to 21 days because of the operational efficiencies introduced by Rosterfy.
Existing volunteers no longer needed to reapply and can now apply for additional roles in just two clicks as opposed to providing 14 pieces of information with each role application.
4107 volunteers were assigned to multiple opportunities in 2022, this has increased to 18,247 in 2023 due to the reduced steps and increased visibility of opportunities Rosterfy has offered.
Number of volunteers on multiple opportunities increased by 125%
Before Rosterfy was introduced to BHF it could take up to six weeks for a reference to be returned and it could take around 15 minutes for it to be received.
"For referencing alone, Rosterfy saves us around 15 minutes per applicant, representing a significant time saving across the volunteering functions"
Sue George, Volunteer Development and Systems Manager at British Heart Foundation
Incomplete training records and a lack of follow up were two of the five key areas identified as opportunities to improve in recent audits. The ‘MyVolunteer’ program is now able to reduce the time to around 10 minutes per volunteer with much greater visibility of the status of references, improving compliance and streamlining the whole process.
Students and young volunteers play a crucial role in helping Charity Retail Stores meet their staffing requirements. Having a smooth and recordable process for collecting parental consent will significantly improve store volunteer recruitment.
Prior to Rosterfy, parental consent was collected in store on paper forms which represented reporting and auditing issues. Since Rosterfy was introduced over 13,000 parental consents have been collected. This greatly helps the organisation maintain auditing standards and increases the likelihood of finding new volunteers for the stores.
Previously email notifications and communication involved manual intervention. This time consuming process was very labour intensive and if not promptly acted on could result in no-shows or frustration for the volunteers.
‘MyVolunteer’ now provides excellent communication to the volunteers. Rosterfy’s automated reminders, system updates, training reminders and more has helped increase the number of volunteer communications from around 214,000 sends in 2022 to over 550,000 in 2023, almost all totally automated.
Prior to Rosterfy being introduced to BHF’s ‘MyVolunteer’ program, adding a new role meant creating a new requirement, every time. This often involved completing 11 steps and adding 11 pieces of information.
Role templates from Rosterfy have reduced the possibility of errors and reduced the number of steps taken to post an opportunity from 11 to three.
The introduction of Rosterfy to their volunteer program reduced the number of steps in the exit process from 10 to four.
Rosterfy is utilised to manage volunteers across 700 stores. They have reduced wastage, streamlined processes and the volunteer benefits from a straightforward process that empowers them to support their cause even faster.
While BHF greatly benefits from the increased legal compliance and operational effectiveness, the volunteer feels valued and part of something special.
Their own whole organisation benefits from greater operational visibility of their program. They have the tools to deliver a world-class experience for their volunteers and their time savings allow them to focus on meeting their targets.
The combination of reduced steps in the process and the increased accessibility of data that Rosterfy has offered BHF provides a yearly saving of around £200,000 per year.
These are savings based on the current volunteer numbers and as their program grows and continues to improve the savings increase and the people that truly benefit are those who BHF supports.
With plans to open additional stores across the UK, British Heart Foundation needed to future-proof their volunteer management with an adaptable and scalable solution - Rosterfy was the only option.
You can find out more about British Heart Foundation and who they support with their their lifesaving research and fundraising visit www.bhf.org.uk
The retail sector is changing and charities are having to respond. In this free to download white paper we asked industry what changes they are making and how to get the most value from their volunteer program.
Download here: Maximising the value of your Retail Charity Volunteer Program
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