Case study | Breaking down barriers to volunteering

Helping Hands – a Cumbria-wide partnership programme involving more than 30 museums, theatres, arts centres, historic houses and heritage sites that ran from summer 2022 to spring 2024 – aimed to break down barriers to volunteering across the county and contribute to improved community wellbeing and increased workforce diversity.

It was made possible by a £490,000 grant from Arts Council England through the Volunteering Futures Fund.

A dedicated group of eight people, comprising inclusive volunteering leads based in cultural venues across the county, along with communications and evaluation specialists, supplemented the Cumbria Museum Consortium team. Community partner organisations, such as Cumbria Deaf Association and Anti Racist Cumbria, provided specialist guidance and training.

Our project evaluation identified five key lessons learned about developing equitable volunteering programmes in cultural organisations.

1. Personal relationships and face-to-face contact are vital

Helping Hands set out to disrupt the traditional model of volunteering in cultural organisations in Cumbria.

The project advocated a shift from a “role first” model in which volunteers were generally placed in roles based on organisational need, to a “people first” model in which prospective volunteers’ skills, aspirations and needs were the starting point for considering where they could be placed and what they could do.

Personal relationship building was at the heart of this new approach. Successful placements happened when the inclusive volunteering leads had met potential volunteers and understood their skillsets, interests and hopes for volunteering and could match these with placements based on an understanding of the cultural organisations’ volunteer roles and needs, and ability to be flexible.

In many cases this resulted in the creation of bespoke placements. For example, a volunteer who wanted to get more experience in photography was placed in Barrow’s Dock Museum to photograph their collections.

In other cases, meetings between volunteers and partner organisations enabled barriers to be addressed and solutions found. The tweaks needed were often simple, such as changing start times to allow for public transport or providing suitable clothing.

2. Barriers to inclusive volunteering often sit within host organisations, and not with the volunteer

Helping Hands was created in response to a set of widely acknowledged barriers that prevent people from volunteering in Cumbria. Those include poor transport links, lack of familiarity with cultural settings and limited awareness of opportunities. However, as the project progressed it became clear that other significant barriers existed within cultural organisations.

Typically, organisations had developed their volunteering systems around a set of assumptions. These included the belief that volunteers would be able to drive, access a computer and bank account, write and speak English well, access suitable clothing and have the confidence to navigate induction processes.  Of course, many people are not in this position (and nor should they have to be) and these assumptions are where the barriers appear.

The Helping Hands team found that willingness to be flexible on the part of the organisation was key to finding solutions. Access funding helped (for example, providing a pair or work boots or a deaf interpreter) alongside some creative thinking.

The culture of the organisation made all the difference. In some cases, individuals only wanted to work with volunteers who were skilled and experienced, which blocked any meaningful progress in their organisations. In others, the team encountered resentment among existing volunteers.

Messaging about inclusive volunteering is vital. If senior leaders are clear that this is a priority, then it becomes a priority. Where leaders were willing to step in to address resistance, and where staff felt empowered to bring in volunteers with particular needs, great progress was made.

3. There is significant value in creating a culture of care in volunteer management

Volunteers consistently spoke about the value of a friendly welcome. This feeling of safety and welcome is the catalyst for all the benefits that follow in terms of decreased social isolation and anxiety, improved communication skills and new learning.

Across the project, volunteers, project partners and project delivery team members described big and small ways in which they had created a safe and welcoming volunteering culture.

These included:

• A consistent point of contact for volunteers.
• Accessible buildings with the right equipment.
• Good induction processes and training opportunities.
• Regular briefings and social activities.
• A culture of thanking volunteers.
• Flexible volunteering opportunities.
• Personal touches such as remembering volunteers’ birthdays.

Providing these elements ensured that volunteers were more likely to stay in their volunteering role.

4. It is difficult to make generalisations about best practice in volunteering

Throughout the course of the programme, a number of questions arose about the ethics of volunteering. When should a volunteer opportunity be a paid role? Should organisations always offer expenses? In what circumstances should you turn down a potential volunteer? What minimum standards should organisations meet before a volunteer can be placed there?

Diversity in the size, capacity and culture of participating organisations made it very difficult to make any generalisations. Best practice is heavily dependent on the wider context. If there was a rule of thumb, it was that volunteers could contribute in almost any way, providing they remained safe, well-supported and have their individual needs met.

There was recognition that perfection is not possible in volunteer management. In order for organisations to be more inclusive, they need to make a start and take on diverse volunteers.

5. Inclusive volunteering practice can benefit all volunteers, not just those with additional barriers to participation

The benefits of Helping Hands has extended far beyond the newly recruited volunteers, to staff and existing volunteers, who have benefited from training opportunities, stronger networks of contacts and improved procedures and practice.

Feedback has highlighted that existing volunteer teams may need the kind of additional provision and support that was available to those joining via Helping Hands.

The answer could lie in establishing processes for regular one-to-one check-ins with volunteers, to find out whether there have been any changes to personal circumstances, health or caring responsibilities that require support and adaptations.

Other options include offering opportunities for volunteers to widen the scope of their responsibilities or try something new. Making sure volunteers are aware of available expenses or other forms of access funding, in case they ever need it, could also help.

What does this mean for the wider sector?

For the culture sector in Cumbria, Helping Hands leaves a cohort of over 400 additional active volunteers. Cross-sector networks have been established and strengthened through effective partnership working, and the programme has left a legacy of improved skills in volunteer management across the county.

Many partners have made substantial improvements to the equity and quality of their volunteering offer. There is now a tried and tested training offer specific to the needs of cultural organisations available across the county and partners know where to go for specialist, locally tailored advice on aspects of accessibility, inclusion and diversity.

Above all, Helping Hands has created space for honest conversations about what it takes to create equitable volunteer opportunities. On the back of sometimes difficult discussions, the team has produced a recipe with ingredients for inclusive volunteering that can be applied to all cultural organisations.

The key lies in recognising the individual needs of each volunteer – and this depends on excellent volunteer management.

At a time when budgets are being cut and posts frozen, volunteer coordinators can often be among the first to go (if they existed in the first place).

Often, volunteer supervision is shoe-horned into a wider role description or dropped altogether. Helping Hands has shown that having a dedicated member of staff focussed on volunteers significantly boosts an organisation’s ability to understand individual needs and flex to meet them.

Investing in volunteer coordination pays dividends both for the individual volunteer and the organisation. Volunteers are happier, more fulfilled and stay longer. A win-win, which as it happens, is precisely what volunteering should be.

Helping Hands in Numbers

The funding application set out an overall recruitment target of 500 volunteers for the programme as a whole.

• 434 volunteers were recruited and successfully placed.
• The total number of volunteer roles filled was 517.
• The programme also exceeded its self-set targets for recruitment of young people, Black, Brown and minoritised people, and people with a disability or health condition.
• 58% of volunteers recruited were from the 50% most deprived postcode areas in the county.
• 44.5% of volunteers describe themselves as unemployed, 16.5% students, 21% employed, and 15% retired. This indicates a shift away from the more traditional volunteer profile of older people and retirees.
• There were 392 training attendances across nine different courses, mostly focused on awareness of protected characteristics. 42 training sessions were delivered at venues across the county, with 101 volunteers accessed the training programme alongside staff from partner organisations.
• There were 7,771 page views for Helping Hands pages on the Cumbria Museum Consortium website, with 2,845 users. Social media accounts were also created for the project, with 223 followers and over 117,000 page impressions on Facebook by the end of the programme, and a further 381 followers on Instagram.
• 26 separate pieces of coverage across local print and online media including one item on ITV regional news and an article in Museums Journal.
• 70 attendees joined the Part of the Family conference at the end of the programme, representing a wide range of organisations and partners.
• Members of the project team presented at the 2023 Museums Association conference session Helping Hands Cumbria: inclusive volunteering through collaboration beyond the museum.