ESV: Realising the Potential

1 ESV: Realising the Potential Summary of the York Workshop Discussions 18 March 2016

Dr. Jon Burchell (University of Sheffield), Dr Joanne Cook (University of Hull)

Reflecting on Current Challenges

During the first workshop session, participants were invited to share their reflections on current challenges and developments emerging within their organisations in relation to ESV and ESV engagement. In this summary, these issues have been drawn together under the ‘gaps’ classifications utilised in the supporting research to the workshops.

Skills Gap

One of the biggest gaps is getting access to companies who can help with the skills shortage. Participants noted that businesses often had key skills in areas not associated with their core functions that could help third sector organisations and a potential transfer of skills could take place. One business example demonstrated how they had expanded from STEM based educational work into general personal development provision, such as confidence building and public speaking. A business participant raised the issue of how well does a company actually know the skill set of its own people?

Is there a need for a capacity check within companies to understand employees’ skills and the potential for skills training? A big challenge for employers is understanding the skills base of their employees and matching this to the skills requirement within the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector; translating skills from a business language into a more social setting.

2 ‘When you look at their job title it doesn’t mean anything to the real world. It’s trying to match the two together? What does the charity really need… what could really be offered? How can I find the right person in those 2000 people in that team of people that could offer that real support and how quickly can we get it done’

In terms of skills exchange a key question was raised regarding where the process should start: with the skills that are needed or with the skills that are available?

While team challenges have been criticised in part for not necessarily providing key skills, groups noted the value of these events as a starting point for engaging volunteers. The challenge was then to convert these engagements into more long- term volunteering opportunities. This is challenging as the motivations for the different types of volunteering can be quite different. People often don’t want to repeat their working roles in their volunteering activities.

‘For a lot of people, if you do an office job and you’ve got something really boring to do and someone says ‘would you like to do some finance or marketing?’ – ‘No - I’d like to go out and dig a pond or paint a wall.’

Participants also noted however that smaller groups really need focused support rather than large scale volunteering activities. Challenge events are good if tasks required are labour intensive. However, more often charities want people with expertise and people they can trust on a longer term basis.

Capacity Gap

Capacity challenges were evident for both employers and voluntary groups. Company representatives highlighted the struggles involved in giving staff time to volunteer, which could result in difficulties creating and maintaining a volunteering program. While the enthusiasm is there among employees, company representatives talked of the struggle to give staff time to volunteer and get out into the community. Company representatives spoke of the problem of communicating opportunities to

3 different sites, especially shop floor and factory settings, where email access is limited. While certain staff and certain departments are regular volunteers, participants’ companies can find it a struggle to get people involved across different roles and processes. This is significant for successful skills exchange processes.

‘ Matching the professional volunteers up is a problem, and it’s finding the time because it takes a long time to do a skilled task.’

It was suggested that successful skills volunteering programs took significant development capacity, involving looking at developing employees beforehand and then finding the right kind of opportunities for them – finding out their needs first, then introducing a way to share those skills long term. For this reason take-up was relatively low.

From a VCSE sector perspective, participants spoke of the limited capacity to advertise opportunities and connect to businesses. VCSE groups felt that they had extensive resources and experience to offer, but nobody knew about it because they lacked funds to promote themselves properly. The infrastructure is there but the money isn’t there to push it further. This was seen as particularly relevant for smaller voluntary sector organisations as they didn’t have the resources or the connections to create effective engagement strategies.

Infrastructure Gap

As infrastructure development represented a key dimension to the second discussion group session, the more generic challenges are only touched on briefly here.

A number of charity representatives noted the difficulty in articulating what the task is that they need support with. It was suggested that they needed infrastructure support so that they have the confidence to support and manage the volunteer. Some are also fearful that volunteers will swoop in and out again, so identifying the right volunteers is key.

4 Businesses saw infrastructure as key to helping them understand how to get people to engage and what activities to focus on. Not everybody wants to paint a fence, not everybody wants to do pro bono legal work, and ESV needs to reflect this diversity.

‘The challenge is finding what people in the business will engage with, and the skills that the charities want, identifying this is the challenge and that’s where the brokerage comes in.’

For businesses, infrastructure development was needed to cut across their own internal skill mixes to enable them to support volunteers to take skills out into the voluntary sector.

Knowledge Gap

Participants discussed how companies couldn’t do extensive research on which charities to work with and often charities don’t network well with business. This raises the challenge of how do organisations come together and meet? Who do people contact? It was felt that both sides had a lack of knowledge in this area and limited information was available to them. There is a gap in tapping into who are the CSR/HR contacts. At the same time, companies were often reluctant to pay for volunteering opportunities as they misunderstood the process and time involved in setting opportunities up.

Some VCSE groups expressed a limited understanding of what exactly ESV was and what it could provide to their organisations. Limited information was available regarding how to communicate meaningful volunteering opportunities to businesses. Similarly what would an attractive pitch to an SME look like?

‘For us it’s about knowing more about ESV; what is it? Knowing more about where to go to get in touch with the right people and the right businesses … what do businesses want from us as a placement but what can we ask for?’

5 Discussion included questions around how to upskill the VCSE sector in terms of engaging effectively with business. Charities felt they needed a platform to enable them to share information and share understanding of how to engage with businesses. Key to this was the need to find a common language relevant to both sides that would enable organisations to communicate more effectively. For smaller organisations, they needed help to understand how to focus on what it is they really want and being specific about their needs.

Charities noted that whilst some of the most disadvantaged communities are often on employer’s doorsteps, those employers are not necessarily looking to these communities for opportunities. Many VCSE groups found it challenging finding ways to approach these employers.

Challenges were also discussed around how to engage SMEs and find a model that works for them with the infrastructure to resource in a timely manner the requirements of both sides. Size was also a key theme for the voluntary sector, especially in the face of tightening budgets. How do small voluntary organisations facing significant change find the people they need, short or longer term, to see them through this period when resources are minimal?

Building a Regional Picture of ESV Development in Yorkshire

In the second workshop session, participants were asked to focus upon developing a picture of ESV within the region. In particular, groups were asked to examine three central themes, which are summarised below.

 ‘ What’s There?’ (What exists that can be built upon? Examples of good practice? Areas and aspects that work well?).

 ‘What’s Needed?’ (What is missing from the region? How might some key barriers and challenges be overcome? What frameworks could be developed?).

 ‘ What’s Possible?’ (Given the current context and limited resources, what can be achieved? How could ESV be moved forward and engagement

6 strengthened?). The sections below summarise and synthesise the discussions from the four working groups, under these three headings.

What’s There?

It was widely acknowledged that there is a lot of activity across the region. However it is challenging to keep up to date with all of this. As a consequence many groups are unaware of exactly what is going on in their area.

Numerous examples were given of existing brokerage practice. BITC, York Cares, Time Bank, CVSs, local authorities, dedicated brokers and social enterprises etc. Participants praised York Cares as an excellent model (Darlington Cares is modelled on York Cares and is working well too). ESV is seen to work well in York although there was concern that many organisations felt that York was a wealthy city and therefore had few real problems. On the business side, Chambers of Commerce and LEPS were also seen as instrumental. CVS were identified in many cases as the natural link between employer activity and traditional volunteer brokerage. A consistent theme was a concern that there was limited communication between infrastructure bodies.

Business in the Community’s ‘Business Connectors’ were identified as a strong model for creating an effective intermediary role between employers and VCSE organisations. A key concern was that connectors were only in place for 12 months and overall only three years’ commitment was provided per location. It was felt that this meant that time was tight to build trusting relationships necessary for successful brokerage.

‘ You only get 3 years in each area. It really takes time to build those relationships and to build trust and to really understand those organisations and the connections that I make, those are quality connections but I’m nine, ten months in and its taken me six months for some organisations to trust me and want to work with me and now I’m going to go. It’s far too short.’

7 Participants were concerned about how to sustain this initial activity and make the most of the momentum. Where do the links go afterwards?

Barnsley Council funds CVS brokerage activity through a business liaison manager who manages the brokerage, supporting companies to develop their own ESV schemes and linking groups together. Participants felt that in order for this to become financially self-sustaining it requires companies to fund brokerage and support these types of roles.

Similar active local authority participation was also noted in Gateshead.

Participants noted that many of the brokerage models are underpinned by large employers which made the replication of models to alternative locations difficult. Some organisations spoke of how they broker relationships with employers for themselves, while others utilised Linkedin to get employee led volunteering rather than going through employers. It was also noted that sometimes the existence of stronger infrastructure bodies in London meant that it was easier to get resources from there rather than looking regionally. It was also noted that brokers can be limited in terms of the types of activities and schemes that they offer, leading to organisations looking beyond one service.

Participants agreed that ESV rooted in place is often successful. While many skills focused brokerages work well, people are motivated by home, place and community. Successful local models can be adapted by other networks to work in their localities. The importance of funder involvement in this was identified as key.

What’s Needed?

a) A process for establishing links and disseminating information

A regional system requires a multisector organisation to establish effective links. A key challenge is knowing who the key contacts are, who is available and how to get the message out there. Online systems and Universities were identified as good ways to get into volunteers. A problem for the VCSE sector is finding the businesses

8 with CSR strategies, especially the SMEs, and it was suggested that a website of interested businesses would help.

Participants discussed the potential of a shared website and database where all brokers can highlight the activities they are doing and VCSE groups can highlight volunteering opportunities. One single place where the businesses can look to see what they want to do, which allows groups to advertise everything that is available, with some success stories too. This marketplace wouldn’t just be for opportunities, it would also be for willing volunteers. Needs to be ‘google-able’ and recognisable by employers. It was noted that this one central point was available in Leeds but could be replicated across Yorkshire.

However participants were clear that this form of database couldn’t eliminate the role of the brokers as there was still a need for more sophisticated ways to get people to come together at different levels and times. 'People like people' and it needs to connect. Can a website substitute a person?

From an employer perspective, participants spoke of the need for support to communicate from the business through to the staff, to highlight volunteering policies and opportunities.

‘Once the message is there, we need to get the message to filter down to the staff, really good spokespeople within the businesses to keep the message going.’

b) Networking opportunities

There is a need for far more networking opportunities, action learning, etc. More thought needed to be given on how to get people into cross-sectoral networking events. Issues of time, themes, and how to get beyond the ‘same old faces’ were all raised. It was felt that many VCSE groups struggle to talk to businesses, whereas businesses are used to networking and this is a natural process for them. Participants noted that no local business network existed that aimed to discuss overarching CSR/ESV interests and getting businesses involved at top level.

9 People are also at different stages of engagement. Social enterprises are more used to speaking business language. As a consequence, networking opportunities need to reflect the divergent experiences and skills of the VCSE groups and help them to successfully talk to businesses and be confident in approaching them. They need to teach them to explain what they need and what they can offer a business.

Participants felt it was important to bring people together from public, private, community and business sectors on the same agenda to try and make it work. This method would also lead to a greater mutual understanding of the reciprocal value created on both sides and of the wider potential for skills transfer than currently exists. Awareness of the mutuality of value was also believed to be the route to buy- in by businesses.

Participants spoke of how many individuals within the VCSE sector were very business competent, however it would be useful to have the opportunity to better polish pitches and to be more in tune with businesses in terms of what they want from engagement opportunities. Challenge is finding a way to best approach these employers. What would an attractive pitch to an SME look like, for example?

‘ How do we get them (local large organisations) on board, how do we get sustained volunteering opportunities to present to them but also for them to engage. It’s knowing how to show people the need. Clearly when they see it portrayed, like the floods, they will be interested. More exposure is needed.’

c) An effective brokerage infrastructure

The need for strong infrastructure/strong brokerage was central to discussions. Participants noted some good practice but lots of gaps, especially in rural areas. The challenge is creating long-term relationships between smaller charities and businesses that they might see as a partner.

10 Participants noted that the umbrella organisations are there but support is fractured because there are so many organisations offering brokerage/infrastructure services. Resource capacity is a real problem.

‘ They need money to deliver this. Brokerage is competitive and you are bound to step on people’s toes.’

‘Due to funding constraints, there is little time for organisations to get together to offer a more cohesive and shared approach and the current situation is generating competition between them.’

There needs to be some coming together and coordination to lead the mandate for this to happen. This will reduce defensive strategies in place of more supportive cross-working. Sustainability funding also has the added value of freeing up resources at the point of delivery. So where will funding come from? Effective brokerage requires slick volunteer management systems with all the best options, best impact measurement, etc. You don’t get that volunteer management with an online system. It is crucial to have more than that to make the partnerships work. Brokerage has to have impact measures as part of it, from both sides of the fence, not just from the corporate but from the recipient beneficiary.

A good infrastructure provider would need to include types of volunteering that meet different working patterns, whether you manage your own time versus contact centres. The framework needs to articulate how it transfers back in to the business. Cost Model – How businesses are charged. There is of course a cost involved for recipient organisations, especially for team challenges.

'The whole point of paying a broker is that we don’t have enough staff to do it.’

So understanding a similar cost model would be good, or the language around a cost model. How much does it cost per hour volunteered is an important measure. If a business has never done ESV before, they won’t know what they are doing; they need coordinating and persuading to engage in the first place.

11 d) Effective Support Processes

Participants agreed that you need funders on board to make things happen. The main challenge is that without seed funding to kick start a model, it won’t go anywhere. To get to model sustainability seems unrealistic without kick start funding. Funding and support processes needed to come from a range of different potential locations. Participants identified possible routes to include, Community foundations, Big Lottery, Heritage Lottery Fund (looking at infrastructure projects and legacy), Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). Participants focused upon the need for a sector- wide multi-platform approach to funding and support. The LEPs were identified as having a potentially strong role in the process but currently disconnected from ESV.

‘Charities have no links to the LEPs. That’s where business comes in. There is a fear that the LEPs are separate from the third sector. They are involved in large sums of money. There is a disconnect between the LEPs and the third sector. CVS have the network, companies have access to the LEPs. Why aren’t they talking to each other?’

Also identified a potential role for larger businesses to make things happen by pulling in smaller businesses through supply chains etc.

In terms of government support, participants noted that support in terms of business advocacy, and increasing the role of the business ambassadors was key. It was noted that often it has been local government’s role to link groups and sometimes this can actually be a blocker. Participants raised a concern that so far there has been a lot of talk but little actual commitment that groups could build upon.

‘Is there a politician who can champion this? You’d need somebody from Business Innovation. It sits within the Office for Civil Society, should it have more of a place as a business operation? It should be inter-departmental – Business Innovation and Office for Civil Society.’

12 Participants agreed there is a need for a messenger to talk about the importance of ESV. The government have made a commitment, so they now need to talk it up. Participants feel it is not just their organisations’ responsibility; the government has written the commitment they must now realise the implication.

ESV sustainability emerged as a core theme. Challenges include short-term funding and a lack of strategic thinking on the part of funders to support add-on learning from ESV-supported projects to facilitate more sustainable ways of working rather than dropping streams and re-introducing new ones.

Concern that limited funding support often led to one-year contracts which weren’t fit for purpose as any relationships took at least eighteen months to build and develop. Regardless of who pays for it, participants felt that ESV activity needed to be funded separately.

'There’s a risk that volunteer centres and CVS would be expected to pick it up anyway, which would put their normal services to the back of the queue.’

What’s Possible?

a) Sharing of good practice and the value of volunteering

Participants felt that it was important to change perceptions and raise awareness of the value of volunteering, specifically targeting individuals and young people. They also identified a need to manage expectations and grow awareness of future benefits. Research was considered important into who volunteers and why and who doesn't and why. This can help to change cultural attitudes at a young age which travels through life and employment. This sometimes involves difficulties with terminology - volunteering, champions etc. Maybe we need to look at whether ‘volunteering’ is the best way to frame these activities?

Participants wanted to see co-ordinated communication and shared good practice at organisational level. Case studies, volunteering benefits, financial models, added value for organisations involved are all activities and outcomes that can help to

13 connect what is there already. In addition, ambassadors are key to explain, connect and act as conduits in this communication process. More advanced use of technology had the potential to make this learning and sharing of good practice more effective – digital videos, social media etc.

Participants thought that the Skills Exchange campaign could act as a process for bringing groups together to create a platform of need and information that could be communicated across the regions.

Spokespeople from both sectors need to talk about the benefits of ESV, more sharing. Get it on the agenda at some events, Business Yorkshire for example, get a speaker on the stage talking about it, a real opportunity to raise profile. Events are good because decision-making boards are there. Need to enable stronger communication between Volunteer Centres and businesses in order to build stronger relationships. Maybe being invited into the Chamber to speak? Brokers it was felt are often excluded from the business community.

M&S ‘Spark a Difference’ campaign was seen as a good example of improving the connections between company and the VCSE sector; especially smaller, localized organisations.

A business plan for a charity is a great example of an in-house support process where much of the support is by email, phone etc. This type of support is desperately needed for the charity and possible to resource without a company having to give staff lots of time away from the office.

A role for the CVS?

A key discussion point focused upon whether it was possible to encourage and support the CVS to take the lead in this area. An overall feeling was that the CVS have the core information and connections to do it. All CVS are set up differently; some have better networks, some are better set up etc. Somebody does need to take the lead on the co-ordination. The main barrier to this development was that CVS needed greater support in order to refresh themselves in line with these

14 challenges. Currently they don’t have the resource to take on this role fully and develop effective brokerage frameworks.

‘ They all work differently. There’s some that are really really good, … and there’s some that are barely surviving. They’re under threat and they’ve got no money. And rather than reinvent the wheel, what they do and who they know… you don’t but haven’t the resources to really do enough with it.’

‘CVS and Volunteer Centres are well placed to do that crucial brokerage role but it’s over and above what they’re already funded to do. If they want a real Rolls Royce service to provide that liaison, to be there on the day etc.. it needs resourcing, that’s why there needs to be a charge.’

‘We should recognise that we do have an infrastructure that would support that in CVS, if they could say this is an important key priority, it would be fantastic. How do you galvanise CVS to believe that this is an important aspect. Getting York Cares to work with the CVS?’

‘ Whereas with the CVS, people know CVS – there is an entry point, for example, a network of CEOs of CVS. If the OCSI can push through this CVS network. CVS do as a rule have something in place, they have a member of staff who runs a ‘skill-share’ The infrastructure is already there it’s about making it sustainable, this needs to come from the corporate side, the money that goes into brokerage should go into CVS to make it sustainable.’

As well as issues of funding the increased role for the CVS, comments were also made about other concerns that needed to be addressed. In particular, the need for stronger communication and engagement between the CVS and business. Need to be less excluded from the business community and part of a network. Could this come through engaging with local Chambers of Commerce, business networks etc.?

b) Making a stronger case for paying for brokerage

15 Whilst getting organisations to pay for brokerage was seen as challenging, participants noted that there would be a stronger willingness to pay for a good brokerage model. Key to this was developing a greater understanding of the costs that it takes to facilitate volunteering, so that the businesses are paying their share and so that the brokers are more confident to ask for that money.

‘Companies contribute to the Cares model because they see the value in it.’

A key challenge in this regard is that successful brokerage occurs not always in the areas of greatest need but in areas where big businesses are located, as they are the ones with the capacity to pay. Without funding it was felt that it would be difficult to replicate successful models in other locations. How can these resources be more effectively disseminated to areas of most need? While many brokers do not charge and this fact is important in the engagement of smaller enterprises, one large corporate participant stated that it was their responsibility to the wider social context to absorb some of the costs.

‘We are a large multinational corporate. Especially if the government brings in the 3 day legislation, and people need to broker that, there will be SMEs who can't afford to do that, We have to take our place in society and do our bit. That doesn't necessarily mean just funding and giving to small charities, it means funding the infrastructure that goes behind that.’

Funding was seen as a key issue. Some participants argued that the issue was not lack of funding per se but the lack of strategic involvement and cohesion by funders. It was acknowledged that the best way forward was to find an infrastructure that works and offers mutual value without much investment. To facilitate this, new business models were discussed, for example membership and sales models that have the capacity to sell value to businesses. Suggestion was made that companies will be more willing to pay for activities if it is sold more effectively as skills development for training. Businesses want a one-to-one and infrastructure organisations can struggle to provide this.

16 VCSE organisations also discussed how they would also be prepared to pay for brokerage support if it meant getting them access to key resources. ‘ If you get more value back you will pay and we shouldn’t presume they wont. If there’s an efficiency to outsourcing then groups will do it. Paying for corporate access isn’t a bad idea.’

Where funding is available, there is a need for a different approach in order to work towards sustainability as the main outcome; for example in developing models, learning and case studies that can be used elsewhere and offering a set of characteristics of good infrastructure.

One group argued that with only limited funding it would be possible to offer ESV training for VCSE organisations and to create shared documents on issues such as health and safety/risk assessments etc. a suite of policies and resources which all could utilise.

One participant felt that using people who understand both the private and voluntary sector to engage businesses is important as they worked on a sales model. The financial models discussed raised a need for developing investment cases for brokers that could be shared to create cross-sectoral understanding. In developing the investment case, it was felt that more work was needed to demonstrate impact.

c) Collaboration instead of competition

An overall feeling emerged that more could be achieved if groups worked together and shared resources, training and support. Participants suggested that VCSE groups could support each other will skills and expertise sharing given the massive diversity in VCSE organisations. In effect they could work with each other to skill share across the sector. Could VCSE groups organize volunteer fairs at which different charities talk to companies and their staff about volunteering opportunities?

‘From the employer’s point of view, you don’t really know what skills your employees have, you only know what they do at work. You’ll have employees

17 who can do all sorts of things, if they met at a fair like that they would know what their skills are, they would gravitate towards the ones that they are interested in.’

Local government, universities and businesses could contribute to improving access to opportunities and raising awareness. Pointing people in the right direction and highlighting connections. Another suggestion was the idea of creating video pitches consisting of short five-minute summaries that could be distributed to a broad range of employers and shared more directly.

Participants thought it would be significant to get existing brokers around the table so they can look at what each other is doing. CVS, universities, brokers, getting them to have conversations to see what is happening regionally.

‘There isn’t any kind of resource that says ‘here are all the brokers.’ It would be useful to have a directory of brokers – an online platform, just as a starting point. Then try to have synergies between them, to pass on business to each other.’

However the competitive environment made this type of activity quite challenging. Participants felt that there were too many gatekeepers in an increasingly competitive market.

'Brokers are businesses too and are in competition with each other.’

In the North East, a ‘skills-sharing group’ has been established which brings together big national organisations like BITC and Cranfield trust to local volunteer centres and CVS, to Sector Connector etc. The purpose is to have a full spectrum approach, whether you are a small/medium sized charity or business, you have access to some kind of broker, be it for team days/soft skills/hard-headed business skills/actual work with clients. This makes sure there are no duplicates and different organisations can pass business along to each other.

18 The public sector was identified as being an ideal mediator for partnership building in this area. For example, much ESV has moved into the education sector and, more and more, VCSE organisations are involved in statutory educational provision so there is an ideal opportunity for sharing. Organisations such as the Children’s University are ideally placed to assist in brokerage in this sector.

19 For further information about the research please contact Dr. Jon Burchell email: [email protected] or Dr. Joanne Cook email:[email protected]