Volunteer support

Many small organisations rely on friends and relatives to step in when things go wrong. This is often a great way of getting people involved in community activities and can be the most realistic way for small organisations to start managing their ICT, but it must be managed carefully.

Volunteers with ICT skills are the same as any volunteer – they can be the lifeblood of an organisation and a key factor in the success of an organisation, or they can dominate other people’s time, deliver poorly conceived pieces of work and end up costing more than if you’d paid someone to do it.

As your ICT set up grows it is vital that any volunteer-based ICT support is included in your organisation’s planning process and managed as carefully as if it were being paid for.This not only helps avoid problems but is an important way of showing how much you value the volunteer’s time.

Make sure you understand what your ICT volunteer is doing for you. Meet regularly with them to talk about their role and their availability.Work closely with them on the overall management of your ICT resources and give them the time they need to plan things with you.

• Define your needs as carefully as possible.
• Choose the right volunteer – don’t just take the first person who turns up.
• Agree goals that you can understand rather than listing technical tasks, and monitor progress.
• Try not to rely on a volunteer for something that is mission-critical, such as a main database or your server.
• Support the volunteer as you would any volunteer – don’t treat them differently just because they have technical skills.
• Be realistic about the risks of working with a volunteer and consider contingencies.

iT4Communities

iT4Communities provides a specialist brokering service to helpVCOs find a volunteer ICT professional. It has almost 4,000 ICT professional volunteers and more than 1,600 charities registered on its database.

The iT4C team translates an organisation’s ICT needs into a set of requirements and then matches them with the skills of a volunteer. Recent projects include simple websites, installation of software and helping to run a tendering process to select a supplier for a new database.

More details at www.it4communities.org.uk.

Where to find a volunteer with ICT skills

There are a number of places to look for volunteers with ICT skills.

• Your local volunteer centre should be able to place an ad for you and help recruit the right person.
• IT4Communities is an ICT Hub partner that brokers voluntary projects for ICT professionals.
• Pro Help and other schemes provide access to professional advice free of charge.
• Students at a local university or college may be looking for projects or placements, and some student unions have volunteer schemes.
• You could approach the local newspaper to publish a story appealing for help.