How Gloucester put itself at the forefront of innovative community engagement

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Getting the community engaged and involved in arts, heritage and culture, has long been an aim of civic bodies in Gloucester.

It’s an approach that both carries economic benefits, and individual ones: letting the city council support events and facilities, and promoting physical and mental wellbeing and social inclusion for residents.

The West Country city has been a successful adopter of a new engagement model and technology – Volunteer Makers – to aid these aims.

Gloucester Heritage Forum and other community groups established Engage in Gloucester a year ago, to pool ideas and resources and use the platform provided by Tickbox, a digital tech company based just down the road in Bristol. Tickbox’s vision is to build technology products that have a positive impact on the world, Volunteer Makers has been rolled out nationally – supported by Creative England and Arts Council England.

The results achieved by Engage in Gloucester, using Volunteer Makers, not only provided community and civic projects with more public participation, but brought younger supporters into the fold – a key ambition for the Council.

“Engage in Gloucester with Volunteer Makers has not only increased the number of volunteers, it has enabled a better engagement with the public and increased the scope of their involvement with community groups and projects,” says Sarah Orton, Gloucester Culture Trust’s Community Engagement and Volunteer Officer.

Engage in Gloucester’s Volunteer Makers platform has been used by nearly 60 groups based in or near the city, ranging from Gloucester City Museum and Archives, to a community gardening group and the Girl Guides.

Larger organisations often write their own volunteer “challenges” (opportunities) for supported participation, while Sarah co-ordinates and helps smaller groups write and manage theirs.

“It has tapped into the changing face of community engagement,” Sarah explains.

“People being able to offer a few hours here and there and dip into what they want to do and where they want to do it.

“We’ve seen a big increase in young volunteers. Sometimes students looking for experience, perhaps to put on their UCCA form or to gain a foothold in the heritage and charity sector; young people doing their Duke of Edinburgh Awards and others who just want to help out, maybe in a gap year.

“The technology suits them to the ground and helps them connect, though of course, we still have plenty of older users as well, including retired people.”

Micro-volunteering is what Volunteer Makers encourages, letting supporters match their skills and interests and give time as and when they can, to help charities achieve specific goals.

“We’ve seen people grow in confidence. One regular volunteer now has paid work in the sector.

“For all, it helps that the volunteer challenges mean it isn’t a case of ‘turn up and do what we ask you’ but supporters know what their role will be, they will understand what they’re doing – and are consequently more enthusiastic about it!”

Engage in Gloucester can list many notable successes: stewarding posts for the city carnival and other festivals are filled “almost instantly”, while data inputting roles at the city archives and local history festival, both in situ and as home-based work, have also proved very popular. A drop-in counselling service filled demanding ongoing receptionist roles thanks to Engage in Gloucester and Volunteer Makers. Environmental challenges have also “flown off the shelf”, as Sarah puts it.

“Flexibility is what makes it work for users – not everyone can give regular commitments, but many want to help out as-and-when.

“Our community groups say they are seeing a very high calibre of volunteer come forward. Volunteer Makers has really made a difference to how charity and community groups and events operate here. It’s been great!”

It’s just worked really well for us” Sarah concludes.

Engaging and Developing Supporters – 5 User Tips

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At Volunteer Makers we’re always looking for ways to improve the success of our user community in engaging with volunteers and supporters, and to share success too.

Spoiler alert! Volunteer Makers requires the same sustained approach to supporter development as any other system. The difference Volunteer Makers can make is the potential of social digital and flexible opportunities to reach out and appeal to a wider and more diverse supporter base.

Here are our top tips, collated from our successful user community:
Tip 1
In at #1, social media – particularly effective for reaching new volunteers. Although it’s not rocket science, it’s surprising how easy it is to miss the opportunity of this tool to share Challenges, engage with supporters and share your supporter stories. Successful users are putting most, if not all, of their Challenges on social media and making the most of their reach. Remember, Volunteer Makers has social media sharing tools embedded in the site to make it even easier!

“Every new challenge that goes on is mentioned on all our social media feeds for us and the town. I would say that digital media has been the most successful marketing tool, particularly as we have quite a good reach already” (Tamsin Bough, Falmouth Art Gallery).

“I post at least one original tweet or post each day and then obviously we re-post relevant content. Primarily I use it in a “Have you seen this volunteering opportunity with X” type vein, but I also share events that are happening at the organisations that use Engage in Gloucester and celebrate local volunteers or volunteering in general” (Sarah Orton, Gloucester Culture Trust)

Tip 2
Your website – again, not rocket science, but do make sure your Volunteer Makers’ site is on there, is easy to find, and cross references support and volunteering. As your Volunteer Makers’ site is branded to look like your core website, this should be seamless.

“Our website has directed many people to sign up, having a section explaining about Volunteer Makers” (Jessica Hartshorn, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum)

Tip 3
To reach existing supporters and volunteers, and to convert them to being a Volunteer Maker, make the most of your mailing assets – to existing volunteers and supporters (all GDPR compliant of course!), direct emails (add a clickable banner to the footer of all staff emails) or newsletter articles.

Tip 4
There’s nothing wrong with analogue! Engage new supporters offline too. Posters, flyers, postcards and bookmarks have all been tried and tested, directing people to Volunteer Makers’ sites.

“I’ve got three pull up banners, logoed stickers and postcards to advertise the site. I go out to events such as the History Festival, residents’ weekend, local community shows and have a stall, chat to people about the site and hand out the postcards and stickers. I also made sure that the postcards are a bit thicker and substantial so they don’t just get immediately discarded and they also work as bookmarks” (Sarah Orton, Gloucester Culture Trust)

 

 

Tip 5
More offline activity – you can still showcase Volunteer Makers and drive people to your site via traditional methods such as volunteer fairs and events (on or offsite). It might help to have a laptop/tablet to showcase what you offer, how it works and encourage sign ups on the spot.

“I recommend face-to-face contact at open days – ensuring they sign up on the spot!” (Katy Hammond, Museum of Oxford)

“The most labour intensive, but I think the best conversion rate has to be face to face contact with people” (Sarah Orton, Gloucester Culture Trust)

Summary
We ask our users to put together a plan before they launch for delivering Volunteer Makers – but a plan isn’t just for launch! You will need to sustain your supporter development all year round, and be prepared to experiment with new approaches and maximise your existing assets. As you would for any audience engagement in your organisation.

Case Study
Sofia Carosi, Corporate, Community and Events Fundraiser at HorseWorld tells us how she’s put this into practice since launching in January this year:

I’ve found that social media, particularly Facebook, has been the best way to gain new members on HorseWorld Heroes (HH), as it reaches many more people and is an easy platform to get info in front of them more than once, as opposed to sending a letter where they read it then throw it away. I post regularly on social media about the new site and that we’re looking for specific challenges to be met etc. I’ve set the cover photos on all our social media accounts to show HH and pinned posts to the top of all news feeds. I also ran a sponsored Facebook Advert for 7 days (spent £50, 315 link clicks).

I’ve made staff add clickable banners to their emails so it reaches new audiences outside of my control (without breaching GDPR). I sent direct emails to all current staff and active volunteers and arranged reminders to be sent to those who have not opened the first mailing. I sent emails via MailChimp to active supporters with email consent.

I posted within a campaign mail out to supporters a printed bookmark (that I made myself and printed here to keep costs down) with details of the website on. HorseWorld Heroes will also have a page in the next HorseWorld newsletter and will be pushed out further at events with flyers and bookmarks in goody bags.

Popular challenges are mainly within the Just A Minute category, with Follow On Social Media topping this. An Hour or Two category challenges are also popular, with Knit/Crochet Horses or Donkeys being most clicked on and accepted. Because of this, we will have a lot more handmade horses/donkeys to sell at the open days (which from experience we know are very popular) so will increase our income as a result of the new Volunteer Makers system.

We have gained a new potential regular Research Volunteer to help with #BreakTheChain, and a new and regular Discovery Volunteer. Furthermore, we have acquired two offers of raffle prizes for the Open Days and one offer of clothing for Discovery students because of HorseWorld Heroes.

You can find their site here

Anna Bryant, MA, AMA, Marketing and Engagement Manager, Volunteer Makers
Anna has worked in and for museums of all shapes and sizes across curatorial, interpretation, audience development and marketing roles during the last 19 years.