The World is Digital: A Strategy For Introducing Digital Transformation To Your Volunteering Programme

The World is Digital: A Strategy for Introduction to Digital Transformation

Intro

Sam Bennett
Hello everyone. Welcome to another Rosterfy webinar. Thank you very much for joining. Hopefully you can see my screen and for those that haven't met me before, my name is Sam. I've been with Rosterfy for about three years and have worked in the volunteering for profit for technology space for the last six, seven years. Delighted to be joined today on another session of our webinar series with Victoria Dickinson. 

I'm sure many of you know Victoria, but Victoria, is a very experienced volunteering professional, been heads of volunteering at a number of large charities across the UK and involved with NCVO and consultancies and worked with many organisations and I know he's very passionate about this space. So today's session is going to be around 40 minutes long. I'm going to say a very quick kind of introduction to the session and then we will pass over to Victoria to do most of the main content, but we will save some time at the end for questions as well.

01:31

Sam Bennett
If there are questions obviously throughout, feel free to put those in the chat and I'll try and make sure that those are covered and at the end of the session as well, if you do have any follow up questions for me or Victoria, do feel free to get in touch. I'll leave our contact details towards the end of the session as well. So as I said, I'll just do a very quick introduction to Rastafy today and then we'll hand over to Victoria to talk about what digital transformation means for you. So today's session is all going to be about why a digital strategy is important for the future of your volunteer program.

02:00

Sam Bennett
And we'll do a bit of a live Q and A at the end as well to answer some of the questions around how you're finding digital transformation or some of the thinking that you might have had within your charity programs as well. So for those that haven't joined a Rosterfy webinar before, just going to very quickly introduce who we are and what we do and what we're all about. So Rosterfy's purpose and our mission is to connect communities to events and causes that they're passionate about through volunteering. We've come from a volunteering management background. Our co founders were volunteer managers Themselves predominantly working with young people.

02:33

Sam Bennett
So a lot of the volunteer cohorts that we used to support were people coming out of colleges, universities and finding work experience opportunities, really developing their skill sets, developing their confidence and their CVs and placed with lots of different partner organisations that were working with at the time. And that's really where Rosterfy was built. So rosterfy was the technology platform that was built within that organisation to help the organisation to onboard screen, recruit new people, but also track the work that they've been doing, track the skill sets that those volunteers had and where they might be of good fit, where they could demonstrate and learn from the types of skills that they're looking for with their volunteering experience. And that's kind of grown organically over time.

03:14

Sam Bennett
So were very proud last year to have surpassed 100 million volunteering hours through the Rosterfy platform and have supported operate and volunteering programs now in over 35 countries. So we know what good looks like when it comes to volunteering. Supported a wide mix of organisations around the globe, City councils and government large event series and also charity programs as well as there's some of the logos on screen that we work with and there's some amazing case studies that we can point you to and also webinars that have been done in this series as well that you can go back and refer to on our website and just in terms of the trends that we see. So I'll hand over to Victoria in just a second to talk a bit more about digital transformation in volunteering.

03:55

Sam Bennett
But one of the things that you hear in the industry all the time is that volunteering rates are declining. That is very much an established trend over the last decade and a half or so where the number of people volunteering in the UK is falling, charities are struggling to find volunteers, but equally, there's a bit of a paradox where we are actually seeing more and more demand from volunteers. Certainly the younger people that are coming through, 16 to 24 year olds, the Gen Zs of the world. Also, corporate volunteering is having a real rise as well. So we are seeing in some of the kind of metrics that we track, there's an increase in Google searches for volunteering opportunities and how to get involved.

04:34

Sam Bennett
And we are seeing spikes as well in tools such as AI, as that's obviously changed the game a little bit recently. But more and more people are now using AI search engines to find opportunities that they can come and get involved with. So just in terms of some of themes that we see and some of the things that volunteers like to look for, we're obviously looking for mobile first and technology based entrance to volunteering now. So AI searches, using mobile phones to sign up for and search for opportunities. So thinking about making your website really fun and friendly and engaging to connect with via the phone, being able to track where your signups are coming from and making sure that we're using that information to then increase the diversity pool within our volunteer database as well.

05:18

Sam Bennett
So we do a lot of kind of talking, a lot of surveys, a lot of engagement with volunteers. And one of the things that we do find is that different pockets of volunteers will have different reasons for signing up. And if you're looking to engage with different demographics within your volunteering communities, it is very much about how you present those opportunities and tailor the messaging towards those different demographics. One of the ways that you can do that is through feedback surveys, but also through tracking where your volunteers are coming from, where most signups are coming through, and what demographics are there at the moment and which ones you're looking to engage with going forwards. So that's a little bit about the context. There's an underlying demand here and we're then looking to give those volunteers a great experience.

05:57

Sam Bennett
So, Victoria, I'm going to hand it over to you and you can run through a little bit around digital transformation and how this all comes together. You're on mute at the moment, Victoria. We could hear you a minute ago so we know it was working.

06:19

Victoria Dickinson
Yes, there we go. Needs a firm hand on that click. So basically I was doing a little light touch there. I should have been a little bit firmer with it. Thank you very much indeed for introducing me today's great session on the World is Digital. I'm just finding my screen to share with you, so hopefully everybody can see the screen that I've got up here. So thank you very much for introducing me and it's great to have everybody on today to talk about transformation in volunteering from a personal perspective. I've been in the voluntary sector for about 30 years now, so it's quite a long time. And I've been dedicated to responsible volunteers during that time, from being a coordinator, from activities and coordinating volunteers to strategic leadership roles.

07:12

Victoria Dickinson
And I think sometimes people get a little bit overwhelmed by the word and implications of digital transformation. But basically it's simply the process of using technology to make your programs more effective, user friendly, and also importantly as well, is ready for the future. What is the future holding for volunteering and how will your programs be able to fit in and match with that. And I personally have been involved in large, complex organisational digital change where I'm being the lead stakeholder for volunteers, ensuring that their voice is heard, ensuring that people understand the impact of the change on digital side of things, volunteers. But also I've actually been the lead change in my volunteer programs as well, bringing about digital transformation to the volunteer programs I'm responsible for.

08:03

Victoria Dickinson
And I had to check back because it's been a while since I first introduced one and it was actually in 2018 and so things have changed quite considerably since that time. And I'll be sharing some of my personal experiences this morning with yourselves. So, first of all, what is digital transformation? As we said before, it's just basically taking processes and making them more streamlined and hopefully you'll be able to see my next slide. It's just flying along. So why do you need to go digital? What's the purpose and what is the value for it? As alluded to, I did some work for NCBO as well as a freelance consultant and they did a very good time well spent survey back in the UK in 2019, looking at volunteers experiences and seeing what it was they wanted.

08:56

Victoria Dickinson
And the experiences were very different from previously set out. So volunteers' expectations have in fact evolved. They're looking for more flexibility. Volunteers' lives have got very complex, they have more demands upon them, they have got caring sponsors, generally with either older or they may be helping out with siblings, grandchildren, etc. So their time is more limited. So they're looking for a lot more flexibility in what they're doing. They're looking for things that are meaningful, so that there isn't too much bureaucracy. They were looking for things that are quick and easy to do. They don't want to be burned down treating their volunteering like a job. They're looking for more digital options for roles, things like micro volunteering.

09:43

Victoria Dickinson
And that has been on the increase since COVID We've seen a lot of change in the voluntary sector volunteers expectations since COVID and we need to meet those modern expectations to engage with more volunteers from more diverse backgrounds. And that is one of the key things we talk a lot about is inclusion and diversity. And by having a really good system and processes for recruiting volunteers, it's breaking down those barriers to include people from young people to people with disabilities, from the excluded, marginalised groups of people who would like to engage with volunteers but find it challenging from the processes that you may have in place already. So another reason why having to go digital is, you know, when you have manual systems, it limits what you do, the scale that you can do and the accuracy.

10:34

Victoria Dickinson
You're spending a lot of time deep down probing into finding out where their errors are made, making it harder for you to concentrate on growing your programs. And also as you grow your programs, you've got more volunteers to support and engage with. And if you've got a really good system place that makes it much more efficient, it streamlines that communication. Communication is very complex for volunteers because there's so many different elements to it. So how volunteers want to engage when they want to be engaged in communication. By having a system in place that's more digitalised, you can make it much easier for volunteers to engage. It's more accessible, the information is there when they want it and it can provide better real time data and it helps for that type of reporting as well for you.

11:22

Victoria Dickinson
So checking on, as we alluded before with Sam, you know, your retention, where your pressure points, what's happening with your volunteer program by having a digital process that access that information so you can make quick and really good decisions based on accurate information access, our ability to reach our goals and to reach our goals so basically enables us to be able to operate smarter, more effectively, more efficiently. As I say, working on those pinch points, trying to solve those problems you have instead of having to deal with other smaller issues that could be dealt with by having a digital process in place. So it's not just a trend, it's how we meet volunteer expectations today. So the digital difference, what will it give you?

12:14

Victoria Dickinson
If you have a digital process in place of what you might have currently, which might be quite clunky, out of date system, or you might be still dealing with paperwork type of things in spreadsheets. So it presents a sleeveless journey for the volunteers. They can move from a very slick showing expression of interest right through to their first activity. You can have online applications, you can do your online checks and onboarding. So it's a nice, simple, streamlined process for the volunteers. You can get better scheduling, smarter scheduling through having a digital system. This means that people can actually log in themselves, set their own availability, sign up for shifts. Coordinators also can actually fill in gaps where they really have gaps, perhaps through a shop or an event they're going to do.

13:08

Victoria Dickinson
So if you've got a shop and you need to have certain people coming on certain days, you're organizing an event and you want to have people to come and help at certain hours, people can sign up and sign on very quickly and Easily using a digital process rather than somebody picking up the phone and ringing around to see who's available or on a particular day at a particular time. So it's a really good way of filling gaps and notifying what you need to be doing. It centralizes that data as well. I mean, data is critical. It hits one platform for all volunteer data to be kept safe and it helps identify trends, things that happen. I said earlier on, your retention helps you do your impact reporting and it supports our strategic decisions.

13:51

Victoria Dickinson
When you are caught in a strategic position in your roles, you might be thinking about, what do I need to be doing for the future? What does the next 10 years need to be like? What do I need to be putting in place now? By having all that data available at Fintips that's accurate and up to date, really enhances that for you. Accessibility. I touched a little bit about accessibility and I said the important part now is that people can actually access. So you're looking for a system that enables people to be able to experience the settings and everything else is open to everyone. As I said earlier on, even though, you know, people who have disabilities find sometimes technology is a much easier way to access their volunteering opportunities. It's empowering as well. For our volunteers want to be empowered.

14:39

Victoria Dickinson
They want to be in control of their own volunteering opportunities, their own volunteering experience, so they can update their own profiles, their skills, interests, and also sometimes it can be linked to your training. So sometimes it might be about how to engage volunteers to ensure they're skilled and trained and what they're able to do. So by empowering them to access their training in their own time through platforms that link together, you can empower them that way. And that leads me to that bit about integration. When you have an integrated system, it empowers even more for you as an organisation when where you have linking from perhaps another CMR system or your HR or your fundraising platforms.

15:21

Victoria Dickinson
So if you think about your volunteers as a supporter effectively, because that is what they are, one of the activities they may do is a volunteer role, but they may also be a fundraiser for you and may be working directly with the fundraising department, then you may have volunteers also who are members of and you might have a membership program. So your volunteers actually can have several hats if you like, but they are generally supporters. So by having an integrated system where you can talk to other systems really brings that experience well together. For a supporter, they really feel engaged and you understand each element of what their role is. So by having a difference I think the quote there is. Volunteers thrive in systems built with them in mind.

16:14

Victoria Dickinson
So I want to think for a moment about some of your pains that you might be going through in your own organisations, things that you are finding a little bit tricky to deal with. When I started off on this journey of transitioning into a digital program, these are some of the pains that I was finding. I found that the spreadsheet chaos was just beyond me. Everybody seemed to have a list of volunteers in different places and different computers and it was worrying about having that personal data. So going back to my experience in 2017, it was also the introduction of the GDPR, which happened in 2018, which was a big concern because it moved from data protection to this new gdpr. And people were very concerned about where data was stored and how it was stored as well.

17:00

Victoria Dickinson
So, effectively that was a driver for me and something I had to consider how I was going to address that for the organisation and individuals about holding and storing their data in a correct manner. I was also finding inconsistent messaging. I was finding that people were sending out messages to various volunteers about very local things, which was great, but timing could be off because somebody might be sending something locally and then something would be sending nationally. So there was inconsistent messages and it was sometimes they were being bombarded with too much, but also that consistency of correct messaging about what were the key messages we wanted our volunteers to understand and benefit from. I was suffering from poor retention. The onboarding process varied from area to area, so they were very separate about what was happening in local areas.

17:52

Victoria Dickinson
There could be delays in some areas about volunteers being kept informed about that happening there, their journey, and sometimes, again, that information was unreliable. I couldn't really trust what data was going on in the systems of people's spreadsheets and what people were saying to me. So how would I then be able to make some really good decisions about strategic planning if I couldn't trust the data? So effectively, they were the four key drivers. They were my pains that I was facing when I started off on this journey of transferring into more digital programming. So I don't know whether some of you might share some of those pains with me and you might be still going through them at this moment in time.

18:35

Victoria Dickinson
But I wanted to make a decision then, to make a strategic decision to transform our processes and way were working into a more digital format. So the things I took into consideration was I wanted really, first of all to understand what my challenges were. So what was my challenges now? I talked earlier on about those pinch points that I had in my organisation. But yours may be similar, but yours might be very different. So what are the problems you're trying to address? You might be setting yourself some clear goals. I was thinking about what is it I want to do, what I want to measure in my processes. So it could be that you want to increase your attention by a certain amount. It may be that you want to increase your comms.

19:24

Victoria Dickinson
So when you do a volunteer survey and your satisfaction for comms is quite low, you might want to do a survey and benchmark where you are and see has this improved the communication satisfaction of your volunteers. It's really important to identify your key stakeholders. Who is it that you want to engage in your processes changing into a digital transformation program that could be a variety of people. So it's really important that mapping out of stakeholders so who is actually going to be affected by your transit formation? What I tend to do with this particular experience is identify all the supporters, create a grid and then look at those that are influencers, those who just want to be informed. So you can identify different groups of stakeholders and those you want to bring at the beginning of your journey.

20:13

Victoria Dickinson
And some you might bring along a little bit longer but you really need to think about first of all who they are and they could be your key internal stakeholders, the people in other departments that you need to have on board with this planning as well and that links that gained support as well. Without the support, you won't actually be able to get very far. So who are the key supporters internally who will advocate for you? Sometimes we don't always get a full voice at the time table to say this is what I need to do. So you need to have someone if you like the voice at the top table. If your role isn't very senior within organisation, who can you bend the ear of help support you? And that's really important about thinking about your timeline, your budget.

20:57

Victoria Dickinson
When are you planning to do this? It always takes longer than you expect to do a transformation. The bigger the project, the longer it takes and what sort of budget are you thinking about? And you need to consider your budget as well about your planning. So you need to give yourself time to be able to make this happen. Think about using an agile approach so that you can assess, review and change things as you go along. I found that was a really good way of working with something when you're working with volunteers as well. And you need to think how your body cycles work as well because I also experienced this. You can think about budgeting in November, time for the Financial year in April.

21:38

Victoria Dickinson
So you need to do your budgets beforehand, you need to talk to your financial director, find out what other things are happening coming up as well that may impact upon your budget. Find out what else is happening in your IT department. Are they got big plans for digital change as well? Are you plugged into all those sort of things that you can get their support and also possibly get some of their budget as well. So lots of things to consider when you're starting off on that journey about your strategic plan. But what is important as well here is to actually turn that strategy into action. So you might be looking at your current processes, map it out, what are your workflows, are there any changes that need to happen

22:27

Victoria Dickinson
If you go through a digital route where there are things that you won't need to do anymore or things you need to do more of. You might find the spreadsheets and touch points for engagement for volunteers currently, as I said, engaged with your stakeholders. Really be clear about who they are and look at them, as I said earlier on, as influencers, informers and everyone else doesn't need to be involved at the beginning, bringing more on board in the change process. I also found prioritising. Once I'd sort of made a list of all the things I wanted that system to do for me, I then had to prioritize and I worked on something called moscope. And some of you may be familiar with this prioritizing technique.

23:11

Victoria Dickinson
Basically you wrist out all the things that you would like to have ideally in your system and then you have to think about what must I have, what should I have, what could I have and what does it matter if I don't have? And that helps you prioritise what you can do in your planning process, because actually you can plan it then in phases. So you may don't have to do everything all at once. You might focus on your particular ones you want to do first of all, key ones, your onboarding part, you might be thinking about that first engagement, those messages, but you might be thinking about later on. I can't really do the forums or I can't do particular parts I'd like to do later on as a part of engagement. So that being level three, phase three.

24:02

Victoria Dickinson
So you will break up your planning into phases, into what you can manage and what's possible to do. And that also could reflect also on your budget and what you can afford to do at a particular time. So then it's researching the systems and that's in some ways the nice part of all this process, because a lot of it is about preparing, planning, thinking it through. You don't want to be rushing into getting into digital transformation without bringing people along, without thinking about it. The researching the system part is you've got all the information you need now and then you can checklist, do your research, see what systems are out there, what matches up with what your requirements actually are. So going back to your priority checklist, so success of next step. So there's other work to be done.

25:04

Victoria Dickinson
You've found your system, you've done all your gathering of your data, you know what your pinch points are, you know what your ideal system would be and how it work for you and your volunteers. You've got stakeholders engaged, everything's ready to go. But critically, it's really important to make sure, if you're taking the data from some other spreadsheets and some other areas, it's really important that you cleanse your data, check it as up to date, check errors, make sure that you've got the right information about people, ensure you have relevant permission to move to another system. That might be something you need to consider. And talk to your GDPR specialist or your IT department about what permissions have you asked for to transfer information into another area.

25:52

Victoria Dickinson
This in my case actually took quite the longest time of transferring data over from various spreadsheets, cleaning it, checking it, checking with volunteers, whether they want to stay on the new system, whether they're accessing it properly. Then the next bit is test and train. So first of all, test it, get lots of people to try it out. You're talking about young people here, getting them to be involved in that testing process. Once people test it and see the value of it, they can also be your advocates, they can talk to other people about this is a really good system, this can work. They also can be your lead people as well. And saying yes, I can tell you this works this way, they can buddy up, they can mentor, they can help other people as well.

26:36

Victoria Dickinson
So get those volunteers from different sections of the community and your groups, young people with people, extra support needs, get them to help other people as well. Once they're confident, they'll give confidence to others. And that training part, train up people to how to use the system. Again, you might have super users and in your system to train them up to be able to use the system to the full advantage. So those are two key things as well you need to do to make it successful. It's not a standalone, it has to be monitored and needs to be evaluated. So Important for you to assess it as you go along. I mentioned the agile approach, so that's really important to check and evaluate and be honest and open about things that are happening.

27:21

Victoria Dickinson
So if you are changing things, use it in a positive way. Say that you're listening, you heard this was a bit of a bit difficult, this part here. So we re evaluated it and we think this might be a slightly better approach. But if you've done your testing and your training beforehand, there shouldn't be too much amazing changes as you go along. So take your time in launching it, get it ready. Because it's hard to change things as it goes along. But it is an agile approach. But trying to get as much done up front will minimize the amount of change that you need to do. We often forget to celebrate our successes at each stage. Celebrate storytelling.

28:00

Victoria Dickinson
One of the important things we all know nowadays is about storytelling and how we tell that to get volunteers to share their experiences, showcases to other volunteers through newsletters, groups. If you're finding a little bit of resistance, that's another way of engaging with volunteers to celebrate and also celebrate internally as well. Because you need to create a culture of volunteering within your organisation. So if you're celebrating the successes of the digital transformation and effectively you are then being able to say internally, this has been a success, the investment has worked, this is the reason why we do it. Once you've got that as well, you can build on that to create perhaps if you're doing it in phases, to develop the next phase and get support and the funding to be able to do that. So it's important to do those next generation.

28:50

Victoria Dickinson
And today digital transformation is as much about culture as it is about tech. So keeping the people in the center of what you're doing will make your successful transition into digital. So that is a quick run through from my personal experiences and what I did and how I approached the transition from lots of spreadsheets, lots of different ways of communicating into more of a digital approach to my volunteer programs. So that is it from me. But just on a quick point to say, oh, I'm just going to find my screen. There we go. Yeah, I can offer services, diddle pump if anybody needs any analysis of reviews and processes on their workflows to help them on that transition or you'd like some facilitation, co signing, sacred and gold engagement, I can help in that way.

29:42

Victoria Dickinson
I can evaluate and recommend systems once you've got an understanding of what the needs are. And I'm offering change management training as well, so last but not least, I am going to move on to questions. There's a quick slide I'm sure that will be shared with you at another time. So thank you everybody.

30:01

Sam Bennett
Thanks so much, Victoria. That's really clear. Thank you. Very actionable plan there that we can take away as well. So it's a great resource. Thanks for running through that. We've had some questions come through if that's okay. They're for you, so I will read them out to you now. So first one is what metrics would you collect to prove the return on investment for getting budget for approval for something like a digital transformation project?

30:24

Victoria Dickinson
Well, one of them of course is retention because we know how expensive it is to actually and time consuming to recruit volunteers. So one of the key metrics I would be looking at is retention, showing effectively that once they're on board that we're not coming out and spending time recruiting time and time again. The other one I'll be doing, of course is the one that people do like, which is the hours. I know it's a difficult one, it's quite controversial, but very often for people in strategic leadership roles it is something they want to know. And if you're collecting the hours, it's always good to add that bit of information in, but it's also about. So yes, you can add your hours so you can equate that against the minimum wage type of thing.

31:03

Victoria Dickinson
And there are lots of ways you can cut back information, but it is again, it's bearing in mind who wants the information and what they want the information for. So effectively meeting that need. So if someone's very into hours, that's a good one. Retention is a very good one as well. But thing is also about activities and impact. What impact are those volunteers having? So you could be looking at the type of tasks they're doing. So you might be doing visits. So I had a befriending scheme. So were monitoring and analyzing how many visits that somebody went to visit someone who was isolated in their own home. So it doesn't necessarily about the hours but the actual type of activities and when the activities are taking place.

31:45

Victoria Dickinson
So those are three that I've used, but they said it depended on who I was trying to get some money from.

31:50

Sam Bennett
Really? Yeah. And there was a follow up question to that actually, which is kind of along the same thread. Would you recommend building out a business case to share with leadership?

32:03

Victoria Dickinson
Oh yes. You talk about just involving leadership in the conversation.

32:09

Sam Bennett
That's what the question says. Yes, I think so.

32:12

Victoria Dickinson
Understanding that, absolutely. I think you can't do this on your own. You need to have a good support from different departments as well as within your own team as well, bringing everybody along with you. And that's the hard part as well. If you've got a concept, an idea, you. You need buy in, you need to have that support because as I say, it can have quite an impact and implications across the organisation. You're not sitting alone. Volunteering doesn't sit alone, it goes across all areas. So when other departments see the benefits and how they benefit from a system like that, you're halfway on that sort of engagement selling point in your business planning. And I hope that's sort of the answer to the question you were looking for.

32:54

Sam Bennett
Yeah, and I guess question from me, I mean, there's a couple of others that I'll cover in a sec. But just on that same line of thinking, one of the things that we hear often is volunteer teams kind of see the value in this and focusing on their volunteer audience. But actually it can be a challenge to get the other departments within a charity to feel the same way a lot of the time. I think charities have these big technology projects and big technology digital strategies which involve a big system, a one size fits all for everyone, one big database. And quite often volunteers tend to be a bit of an afterthought in that. Have you got any advice for how a volunteer team can help make their message heard across an organisation?

33:33

Sam Bennett
How do they kind of show that impact, I guess, wider than just the volunteer team?

33:37

Victoria Dickinson
Yeah. For two sides of that, you're right, it is about the impact which we talked a little bit about then, the value of volunteering. There's something about a volunteer culture. So also, is your organisation got a volunteer culture? Has everyone bought into the idea that volunteers are real value to the organisation? If that's not the case, and I have worked in organisations that has secondary become volunteers. Oh, yeah, they're on the side. It's a lot of hard work about constantly telling stories, giving messages. So you need to shift that culture about volunteers being very much at the centre of what you're delivering, not on the side. And that other influence is understanding it from their perspective. What is it? What are the advantages from the HR department or the advantages from your finance department partner or whoever it is?

34:22

Victoria Dickinson
You need to get them to understand what difference is going to make to them and the work they do or how they. We all achieve our strategic goals. So sometimes I've been through the strategic aims of the organisation and looked at the departments and picked out elements of what they're trying to achieve and tell them that by doing this it will help them achieve their goals in their individual strategies or the whole organisation. We want to get more services delivered, we want to engage with more young people. Well, here's a starting point. By having this system in place, this will help you achieve that as well as us. So making it that both way type of thing.

35:06

Sam Bennett
Yep, very good, thank you. There's a question at the bottom. It's a bit more of a, I guess, recent trend. Victoria and Sam, what are your experiences of other digital solutions to support volunteering and volunteers? For example, the use of AI. It's a big question.

35:24

Victoria Dickinson
I think we've been talking about this for a while and AI has got its place. Definitely got its place. The issues for the voluntary sector are slightly different, the corporate sector, so there is a place for administration, type of tasks, etc. But note taking, writing some nice emails, you know, you've got to write a corresponding email. You might set up Q&As on your website. They've got some good places to help engage volunteers. You know, when you get the same answer questions, you sometimes think, oh, I could standardize that. So you can create a list of questions through AI and put them in your system. You can also do Automatic Q&As. They work really well. But bear in mind we're doing with lots of people and personal information, so there is a restriction within all that.

36:07

Victoria Dickinson
And I know I've talked to charities and they've been saying they can only use Copilot and there's restrictions on what they can use for because it's a bit of an unknown quantity. I think we're more cautious, we're taking our time. But yes, I think there is a place for AI and in the volunteer journey, taking out some of that administration type burden. So some of your pinch points, can that be done by something like, as I say, an automated question A or you know, helping with administration type tasks but not taking out the human element. And I think everybody understands that.

36:40

Sam Bennett
Absolutely. There's one final one, just squeezing because I think we're up against it on time. What stage would you involve. Sorry, what stage would you get the volunteers involved with your plans to add a new system or a change in process for the volunteers?

36:55

Victoria Dickinson
Right at the start. I would start right at the beginning. You know, I always use that allergy. You know, if you drop a frog into boiling water, it's going to jump out. If you put it slowly, turn off the water. I hate to think about volunteers being frogs. That's not what I mean at all. But it's about a complete instant reaction that we're doing this and everyone goes, but if it's that conversation, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it. Don't say it. I was talking to an organisation recently about actually staff and they were doing, oh, blah, blah about stuff and I said, oh, have you thought about the volunteers? And they go, oh, no, we hadn't.

37:27

Victoria Dickinson
You know, that's the same impact you're talking about, but even worse because they're not every day in an organisation, they have busy lives, they're caring. So their engagement with you could be once a month, it could be twice a month, it could be less than that. So your communication and bringing them on board is really important because they'll miss the boat and then you'll wonder why you have got resistance to change, so slow adoption. So it's really important to involve volunteers early in the process and get some of them to be digital champions, get them to be your voices, et cetera.

38:02

Sam Bennett
Definitely, Yep, completely agree. And a lot of what you were saying earlier around as well around telling the stories and getting volunteers to share their experiences, I think that's going to become more and more important when you're engaging different demographics and diversity. But also for AI searches, AI is just surfacing up data that's already out there. So if you've got some great, compelling stories as to why someone would come and volunteer with your charity, those are the sorts of things that will pull into an AI search. It's not a registration form for volunteering. It's got to be more of a narrative that something like an AI model can pull things out of around. Yeah, this might be a good fit because other volunteers have shared their experience about this and that's certainly where we're seeing more and more people search for opportunities.

38:43

Sam Bennett
So something to think about. I think that's it in terms of. Go on, go on, Victoria.

38:48

Victoria Dickinson
Sometimes people will say that the lack of digital literacy, people are frightened of digital stuff, but I would question that in this day in society, most people will be using digital one or two times. And I think, you know, people say, oh, no, no, I don't touch digital. And they go, do you do online shopping? And they go, yes. So people will interact with digital stuff just as when they get that question is that sometimes people tend to check the digital site when it suits them and it's good for them and they see the benefits. So if you take that sort of mindset and think that way around, why did they go and use Amazon? Why do they shop online? Their food shopping? What is it that integrates that? It's intuitive, easy to use. They understand the benefits of it.

39:27

Victoria Dickinson
Then you'll get them to adopt your system.

39:29

Sam Bennett
So a very good point. Pretty much every single call that we take with a customer or potential customer, it's always. But our volunteers are not very tech savvy. That is something that comes up on nearly every call. And it's like that behaviors change and they are changing. And to your point, they are probably. My granddad uses an iPad and he's nearly 90. So things are changing, behaviors are changing and we shouldn't have that mindset that things are always going to be as they were because unfortunately they're not. So thank you so much for your time, Victoria. Really, really appreciate that very clear and informative session and I'm sure there'll be lots of organisations that want to ask follow up questions and start to use your services. This session is all recorded so it will go up onto our website as an on demand resource.

40:16

Sam Bennett
Just wanted to. Yeah, thank you for your time and if there are any follow up questions from anyone that's joined the session today, do feel free to send them over to us and get in touch with myself or Victoria.

40:25

Victoria Dickinson
Thank you very much indeed. Lovely to meet you, Simon. Thank you to everyone for taking your time out to come and listen to this session this morning. Thank you very much indeed.