Volunteer Centre East Lothian

Are you Volunteer Friendly? 

The Volunteer Friendly Award is a simple, user-friendly, quality standard designed by Volunteer Centre Dundee to support, recognise and reward groups who are good at involving volunteers.  Volunteer Centre East Lothian is licensed to deliver the Award locally and is currently looking for 8 organisations interested in becoming the first batch to achieve Volunteer Friendly in East Lothian.

Volunteer Friendly offers a flexible approach which allows your group to work at its own pace, with full support from your local Volunteer Centre. It is based on the national standard Investing in Volunteers (IiV) but is designed for small organisations which may not be ready to undertake IiV yet, or which may be looking for a stepping stone towards IiV.

Volunteer Friendly involves working through a checklist of best practice, organised into five strands. This produces an action plan to help you to develop a portfolio of evidence showing the quality of your work with volunteers.

Commitment to Involving Volunteers Understanding why your group uses volunteers

Making Volunteering Happen Allocation of adequate resources, i.e. money, management, staff time and materials

Fair & Equal Volunteering Volunteer diversity, equal opportunities, fair recruitment and reference checks

Volunteering Tasks and Getting Them Done Developing task descriptions, training and the support needs of individuals

Celebrating Volunteers' Contributions

For each strand, Volunteer Friendly offers a checklist of best practice, supported by guidance, examples and templates available in an online toolkit.  Access to the Checklist and accompanying resources is given to staff at licensed Volunteer Centres and interfaces as well as to groups and organisations which have signed up for the Volunteer Friendly Award with their local licensed Volunteer Centre or interface. 

Volunteer Friendly is currently free of charge, thanks to funding from the Big Lottery  Fund in Scotland, through the Supporting Voluntary Action Programme.

For more information on Volunteer Friendly contact us or go to www.volunteerfriendly.org.uk