British Heart Foundation: £200,000 in savings per year

Introduction

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 programme strives to be easy, flexible and inclusive and their onboarding platform ‘MyVolunteer’ is pivotal to their success.

The Challenge

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 explore how BHF uses Rosterfy to increase the impact of their volunteer programme, ensure legal and regulatory compliance, and introduce operational efficiencies.

A consistent experience for a variety of roles

Fundraising

Volunteers that offer a friendly face while representing their organisation are pivotal to BHF’s fundraising efforts.

Retail Volunteers

BHF’s ability to generate revenue for their cause is directly linked to the efforts of volunteers who support hundreds of their retail stores.

Event Support

Event ‘Cheer Squads’ create a wonderful and engaging experience for participants and guests.

Action Team

Volunteering with BHF is about being part of a community of people wanting to make a difference, wherever they are.

The Solution

To ensure the smooth running of their volunteer programmes 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 gave BHF 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.

Now, they can offer opportunities to an active database of over 6,000 volunteers, screened, compliant, and ready to go.

The Impact

Reducing the application process admin

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.

Through optimising the process for both volunteers and the administrative staff, Rosterfy enables BHF to lower dropout rates and increase commitment to their mission.

125% increase in the number of volunteers on multiple opportunities

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%.

Streamlining reference collection

Before Rosterfy was introduced to BHF it could take up to six weeks for a reference to be returned. 

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’ programme is now able to reduce the time spent processing the reference and screening details by 15 minutes each volunteer.

This enhanced transparency into the reference checks not only improves compliance but also simplifies the entire procedure, making it more efficient.

Templated onboarding for specific roles

Prior to Rosterfy being introduced to BHF’s ‘MyVolunteer’ programme, adding a new role meant creating a new requirement, every time. This often involved completing 11 steps and adding 11 pieces of information.

Whether it’s a new volunteering position or event, role templates from Rosterfy have reduced the possibility of human error and reduced the number of steps taken to post an opportunity from 11 to three.

Collecting parental consent

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.

Improved communication with email alerts

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.

£200,000 cost savings per year

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.

Creating a ‘best in class’ experience for volunteers

BHF is able to offer their volunteers an engaging experience from their first interaction with their programme.

Rosterfy empowers BHF to develop a customised, detail-packed portal that showcases every role’s crucial information, all while offering a swift and effortless signup process.

BHF’s volunteering portal is encouraging those who support them to participate in a variety of different volunteer opportunities – beyond what they may have thought were available.

With the introduction of a unified hub for all volunteer opportunities, coupled with an automated application system, BHF is enhancing the volunteer experience, making it more dynamic and engaging.