The Investing in Volunteers team is celebrating its busiest year yet, achieving its yearly target for registrations for the award in Wales inside just two months.
With less than two months since the launch of the new and refreshed Investing in Volunteers (IiV) standard, our IiV team is celebrating its most successful year yet. We are delighted that 40 organisations in Wales have registered to complete the standard since January 2021, and are looking forward to working with a number of new organisations on their IiV journey.
‘The new Investing in Volunteers standards have been launched at a time of renewed interest and focus on volunteering,’ said Felicitie Walls, IiV Country Manager in Wales. ‘It is fantastic to see a commitment by organisations to ensuring that volunteers have a positive experience of volunteering through high quality volunteer management.
‘The whole IiV team across the UK have worked hard to make the standards available and more accessible and we are now excited to see a high number of organisations based in Wales through to the achievement of the award.’
WHAT IS IIV?
Investing in Volunteers is the UK quality standard for good practice in volunteer management, it can help you;
- assess the quality of your volunteer management and involvement
- prove and improve the effectiveness of your work with volunteers
- enhance your organisation’s reputation among your volunteers, staff, funders, partners, clients and service users
Achieving the standard shows your volunteers how much they are valued and gives them confidence in your ability to provide an outstanding volunteer experience.
SUPPORT ALONG THE WAY
Investing in Volunteers is a supported process, through your whole journey, from start to finish and beyond.
Starting with IiV Essentials, you can think about where you are against the quality areas of the standard. This is a free online resource which you can use as a questionnaire to start your thinking process.
You can then discuss IiV with your local County Voluntary Council or our team at WCVA. Our colleagues across Wales will be happy to support with further information on the new Investing in Volunteers standard.
After you sign up and start your IiV journey with WCVA, you will be allocated an IiV Assessor who will support you and ensure you have all you need to complete this work and achieve the Investing in Volunteers at the end of your journey. The support includes workshops and meetings, currently all run online. Depending on the supported option package you use, the costs will vary.
SUPPORT FROM FUNDERS
In the past two years we have been working with funders in Wales. Many funders in Wales, including WCVA, are now willing to support you towards time and costs for the Investing in Volunteers award, as Investing in Volunteers is a process able to strengthen your resilience and minimise risk while you are delivering volunteer-involving work.
Funders’ approaches can vary currently: some funders prefer to consider supporting quality assurance on a case-by-case basis, some encourage their fund recipients to include the IiV costs in their funding application, while others suggest for their grant receivers to use their underspends towards IiV.
Make sure you discuss with your funder about Investing in Volunteers, explain IiV benefits as well as your goals and priorities, and your funders will be happy to do their best to meet your needs and support you prove and improve the quality of your practice.
IIV ASSESSORS IN WALES
We are also very excited to be welcoming a variety of new IiV Assessors and IiV Lead Assessors in Wales to our team. The recruitment of new Assessors was an absolute priority early in 2021, as we are prepared to meet the high demand and interest for Investing in Volunteers in Wales. The new IiV Assessors training in Wales has taken place over the last three weeks with new assessors to be announced in June.
Korina Tsioni, a newly trained IiV Assessor said;
‘I really enjoyed the training sessions, learning with and from this diverse group of IiV Assessors was an interesting, fun and inspiring experience. I now cannot wait to apply the theory to practice, shadow the experienced IiV Assessors, and then try my first solo assessment.’
‘This is a supported process, and I am very happy to be a part of this team. Investing in Volunteers is a tried and tested tool for achieving excellent volunteer management work.’
IIV ACROSS THE UK
Investing in Volunteers is a UK wide standard. WCVA is leading on IiV in Wales and we work closely with the other UK nations , ensuring there is consistency in the delivery of the standard and in the assessment process. The award is equally recognised everywhere in the UK and Ireland.
There are also networking opportunities taking place in IiV UK wide online events, which are proving to be very popular. Out last UK event was the Launch event in late March, which was sold out with 300 attendees in a couple of weeks’ time.
MORE ON IIV
In Wales, we have produced an IiV information sheet, which can be found here. This resource is hosted on the Third Sector Support Wales (TSSW) Knowledge Hub, a learning and development platform for volunteer involving organisations. Take a look around at our resources and e-courses and engage with volunteering experts as part of the ‘Your Network’ section of the site.
You can also;
- download the standard here for free and use it as a checklist for your organisation
- try the IiV Essentials Questionnaire for free
- visit WCVA’s Investing in Volunteers page
- visit the UK IiV website
- follow @VolWales and use #IiVUK on Twitter for further updates and information on upcoming IiV events
- follow @WCVACymru on Twitter
- Subscribe to WCVA’s free newsletter
If you have any questions, ideas, or feedback – please get in touch with iiv@wcva.cymru.