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ESV: Realising the PotentialSummary of the Oxford Workshop Discussions
22nd July 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
The skills gap held resonance with the majority of the Voluntary, Community and
Social Enterprise (VCSE) participants who spoke of the misconceptions around
volunteering from some businesses.
…they don’t understand– they think it’s painting, but it’s really about skills and
trying to encourage to offer that more to charities.
Lots of businesses want days (team challenges), but charities are reluctant to
engage because they don’t have the capacity.
Conversely brokers spoke of how many of the charities they work with struggle to
identify what they need from businesses. Most companies were moving their
volunteering in new directions to encompass challenges and skills sharing but this
involves stepped changes for some employees. For example, participants talked of
using challenges as taster session to pull volunteers into more skills based projects.
One broker observed that most companies go through a journey where they start off
with the practical stuff and then move onto more skills based activities, broadening
the range of opportunities as the offer evolves.
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The evolution of skills based employee volunteering is fundamental for the VCSE
sector as for many small charities sustainability of their service in the long term is an
imminent issue. Therefore more long term skills based volunteering targeted to
towards VCSE sector sustainability is important. Participants spoke of the
Nationwide experience as being a great example of how to develop long-term
relationships that offer real value. It was acknowledged that this may be a more
difficult ask for smaller businesses. VCSE sector participants were keen to
emphasise the two-way nature of skills sharing and again Nationwide had an
excellent example of this with their partnership with Marie Curie.
What the business brings to the voluntary sector is enormous, but what the
charities take to businesses is even bigger (broker).
There were also skills gaps from the business side employers spoke of how they
found it difficult to map out what their employees are already doing:
…companies struggle with that, large companies struggle to gather the data,
they can gather it from those who have done ESV, but finding those doing it in
their own time is problematic. Skills-based volunteering never gets recorded.
Employees just don’t provide the data, even if the employer asks for it. People
don’t often recognise that what they are doing is volunteering. Some people
may volunteer every Saturday at their children’s football team, but they wouldn’t
consider it volunteering. There’s an education piece.
Knowledge gap
Key issues were discussed around language, mutual respect and how to effectively
pitch an offer to businesses. Despite the increasing development of ESV there
remain significant levels of misunderstanding between the sectors and some
examples were given of how this can close the door from the onset. Some
businesses spoke of how some charities were still pitching their ask in terms of
money, instead of thinking about how in-kind resources and time could be more
valuable and also considering the two-way relationship in terms of what they can
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give back to the business. There is too little focus given to impact as this is also a
major pull factor for business support for example charities could usefully;
talk about the impact on the charities, on the beneficiaries, the impact etc. and
for the businesses too, employee retention, community engagement, all of
these benefits need emphasising (broker).
They [charities] need to think really clearly, ‘what do I want’, ‘how can I achieve
it’, before just diving in (employer).
The language used to pitch ESV collaboration is also key, it has to draw upon the
above to include issues that speak to employers. Equally businesses could increase
their appeal to charities by pitching their offers in terms of the values and objectives
of the charities they want to work with. Indeed if all the movement is in one direction,
ESV could present some problematic issues for the charity sector.
In all this knowledge through familiarity and bringing the sectors together seems to
be essential. For example, until attending this workshop, one participant
(representing a charity) didn’t know that brokering was an activity. This kind of
awareness raising and open discussion of the issues and drivers offers opportunities
to develop successful ESV partnerships.
Capacity gap
The challenge of breaking down the barriers to collaboration and awareness raising
is closely related to the issues that both sectors face around the capacity to engage
in ESV. Some VCSE sector participants were acutely aware of the importance of
selling their offer to businesses in a climate where some offers look more appealing
than others, and where some VCSE organisations were ahead of the game and
possessed the necessary capacity to make their offers attractive. One participant
who worked with clients who were homeless and with offenders, talked about the
challenges they faced in engaging business in a hugely competitive market where
the cancer charities, the Air Ambulance, etc. werer the popular ones for businesses.
This is both a reality of a diverse and unevenly resourced VCSE sector and the
syndrome of ‘usual suspects’ that sometimes characterises ESV.
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Another key capacity issue facing the VCSE sector is that the majority of local
organisations are small and medium size charities. Many of these smaller charities
don’t have the capacity to host ESV. This poses several challenges for engaging in
ESV;
it’s mostly smaller groups trying to do a lot of things and struggling to host
these big team days, it disrupts the work plan. There’s an internal issue of
making staff understand the bigger relationship and engagement.
Some have the will, but a lot of them don’t because when you try and identify
projects, it always comes back to funding. Longer-term perspective of building
relationships, coupled with the fact that there’s been local funding cuts, coupled
with a very strong competition between the sectors, means that charities are
unwilling to work with the businesses long-term (broker).
The issue of size and capacity also spans the private sector as many SMEs also
struggle with these very same issues. The predominance of SMEs and the very
small number of large employers in the area pose significant problems for brokers
seeking to engage corporate partners. While Oxfordshire has a number of successful
initiatives which engage SMEs, this was still a significant challenge for the regions
represented in this workshop and for the significant number of SME employers who
attended this event.
One participant summed up the challenges for SME owners and explained,
You are talking about a disproportionate amount of time for an SME than for a
large company. Owners of business need to feel like they’ll get value from
working with the charity. There’s a real need to either demonstrate the business
case, or to feel a connection to the charity because of what they do. There is a
need to hit on one of these things because otherwise the SME won’t see the
value in doing it. With engaging the employees, they need to feel that the work
the charity is doing is really important (employer).
The desire among SMEs to engage in this region is encouraging but ESV needs to
be approached differently so it can take account of the challenges SMEs face in
making the space for their employees to volunteer. For example, taster session were
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used, SMEs simply could not pay for brokers so support was on a voluntary non-paid
basis which in turn poses problems for the sustainability of brokerage.
SMEs only have a small budget, and if some of it is being creamed off to an
intermediary, you need to know that it will be absolutely essential (employer).
There’s the HR stuff, associated costs of managing a team of people, there’s a
will – but the smaller the company, the more difficult it is to enable that (broker).
Even large employers were struggling with their limited capacity to invest in ESV.
One city council discussed how they offer support to community associations within
the city and also implement their own employee volunteering scheme. They offer up
to 3 days, subject to head of service – ‘but nobody is taking it up, nobody
understands what it’s about’. The resources needed to realise the potential if this
ESV offer are significant and simply having a policy in place is not resulting in take
up. This participant also highlighted the need to think creatively about how to match
the council’s priorities with personal learning objectives of some of the communities
who need support.
Infrastructure gap
Since this gap forms a key part of the following sections the challenges to be
addressed here are limited to a few key issues. Participants spoke of three
challenges for the VCSE sector that brokerage can help address; there’s the
question of collaboration between small charities who need to make better use of
pooled resource. There’s a tendency of people in each sector to think that they
understand the other sector when they don’t - a lack of listening skills. And a lack of
thinking outside the box – the brokerage can help both sides to think outside of the
box. One broker explained how they had tried three times to set up brokerage
service using fixed-term funding but have found it hard to get it off the ground
because the majority of employers are SMEs who once the funding expires can’t
afford to pay for brokerage to continue.
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One larger scale national broker was also experiencing new challenges around
finding the charities to partner with their businesses.
The biggest issue is finding the charities, something that gets in the way is what
used to be Volunteer Bureaus …, acting as an umbrella organisation for the
charities in the area, now … either they charge and it’s a contribution to their
income, or because they’re doing it for free, they can’t provide [broker name]
with opportunities; it’s blocking the flow of information.
Building a Regional Picture of ESV Development in Oxfordshire
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
strengthened?). The sections below summarise and synthesise the
discussions from the four working groups, under these three headings.
What’s there and what works well?
The regions involved in this workshop reflected the uneven investment in ESV
across areas. Encouragingly though there was a good spread of brokerage
organisations and collaborative networks present in the different area. Oxfordshire
was unique in that it had collaborative networks as well as some brokerage systems.
Other areas such as Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire had more fledgling
brokerage systems beginning to develop. Participants agreed that the regions
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represented reflected a busy, but fragmented landscape of activity around ESV –
‘there is good practice but it’s not well networked, advertised or known’. Their
challenge though is that business don’t want to pay, because they feel they are
already giving with time and other resources. So they are looking at levels of support
that they can broker, whether it be level 1) a free service, a connection, some ideas
of organisations looking for help, and the business takes it from there. 2) an
enhanced service which would be charged, delivering the day, doing risk
assessments, visiting the sites, working on case studies, evaluations etc.
Some brokers have been successful in convincing businesses to pay. Community
Action Milton Keynes, for example, is one of the few voluntary sector organisations
that are being paid by businesses to deliver their brokerage service for ESV.
..it’s just covering someone’s time and costs – it’s not about making a profit.
You can’t help the voluntary sector as a broker without the costs being covered
(broker).
Some other brokers had also been successful in convincing a selection of business
of the value of paying for brokerage. Some interesting lessons can be learnt from
Surrey where participants talked of the competitive employee market pushing
businesses towards ESV to stand out. Brokers there had been successful in making
it easier for businesses to engage. CSR managers are tasked with increasing the
number of volunteers, and brokerage helps increase participation and provides
interesting opportunities to attract employees.
Each individual needs a customised service to get lots of people volunteering in
a large business; it’s making it easy for people to volunteer, serving it up on a
plate (broker).
Connect Reading is another good example where it is sustained by an annual
prescription based on size of organisations. Everyone pays – public sector and
charities.
An example of two-way dialogue leading to ESV developing shard value was the
new shopping build that’s happening in Oxford city, Land Securities who are
overseeing it have partnered with Oxfordshire Homeless Pathways. As a
consequence of this partnership the build will encompass
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a space where rough sleepers can go to be accommodated, in that partnership
they’re having a dialogue about rough sleeping, about how to support them and
train their staff and ultimately develop a strategy so that anyone who chooses
to go there can referred to the charity - so it’s a symbiotic relationship.
Oxfordshire also hosts two networks designed to enhance business-community
engagement. ROBIN and Reciprocate. While ROBIN was initially funded it has found
a way to continue based on the volunteer time of its original members. It’s been held
as a positive example at this and other networks but its members described it as a
‘very much a work in progress, it’s as good as it can be at the moment but it has real
potential to do more’. The business membership is almost entirely SMEs which holds
learning for other areas. However, this also means that it is free, run by volunteers
and can’t charge fees to extend its work. Reciprocate is hosted by the Oxfordshire
Community Foundation and runs on the basis of members making pledges to do
more, and helps organisations to make those connections. This is a new initiative but
potentially a model that could be used elsewhere. Another example of a network
model with longevity is Connect Dacorum - supported by the Chamber of Commerce
and CVS. This is a membership network hosting four meetings bringing the sectors
together. It has been going for 10 years and has built positive relationships. So
across the region there were strong examples of good practice around brokerage
and some successful cross collaborative networks.
What’s Needed?
Networking opportunities
While some networks already existed there was a consensus that forums like the
one created for this workshop are really helpful, ‘it’s South East wide and we should
do it more regularly’. They also saw the need for more localised networks which
brought businesses and charities together to talk about what both sides want, similar
to the model of ROBIN. Participants also felt that networking between the charities
added value since – ‘charities can offer something to charities’, in terms of learning
how to decipher what ESV can offer and how to pitch their ask. Those based in
Oxfordshire felt that since the ROBIN model brings all kinds of organisations
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together, it would work better to work with this existing network and not reinvent the
wheel. For example, ROBIN runs four core events per year; is it feasible to allocate
one of these to facilitated groups where they sit down with businesses and charities
and discuss some key areas, including ESV?
Brokerage development While some brokerage models were in existence some areas did not have any
brokerage in place. Also there was considered to be room for improvement and the
cross fertilisation of good practice across the region.
One area where more work was needed is in supporting charities to have a clearer
map of what their needs are and be more explicit in articulating a clearer ask. In
addition one group discussed how brokers should think about strategic ambitions of
the company. In general, brokers tend to become involved at a later stage, where
they’re thinking about how to get their staff on the way. This group felt there is a
mismatch because brokers should be looking at their business plan and their long
term view and reflecting that back to the business about what value they can get out
of the volunteering engagement - ‘it takes longer to do it this way, but it would be
more valuable’.
Participants recognised the need to find a business model that means that brokers
don’t have to rely on funding from government. However, this has to be a
combined income source as it seems unrealistic in most areas that businesses will
provide all the income. For example, despite some successes overall the majority
of broker were still struggling with getting businesses to pay for brokerage.
Is there enough appetite in the business world to be able to have some upfront
costs? … We have to build the business case. If the partners in that firm
wanted to decorate their reception, they would get a decorator in. If you have a
certain amount of money, you want that money to go directly to the need (not
the broker). It needs a good business case to get the appetite going.
There is the question about brokerage, who pays for it? From a business
perspective, if you have a pot of money, you don’t really want that money to go
towards someone that isn’t a charity. But at the same time, if you can’t organise
the facility then the whole thing is a waste (Employer).
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The interesting thing is, the amount of work involved in facilitating volunteering,
it’s a huge amount of time that needs paying for.
One broker had calculated that for a team of 20-30 people, it’s about 18 hours of
time for brokerage. It only works because they’re doing lots of teams at the same
time. Overall participants agreed that more work is needed on profiling the returns on
this investment and this business case for ESV is equally important to build amongst
the VCSE sector. The impact for charity is important, but you have to think about
the outcomes / impact for the individual too. These must be discussed together.
Important work also needs to be done mapping the landscape of brokerage so
businesses and charities know where to go and what’s on offer.
On the other hand one working group discussed the need for brokerage to actually
equip organisations to do it for themselves, rather than have them dependent on
something that they must pay for when the majority of SMEs and small charities
simply can’t pay. Also some employers were less keen on the notion of a third party
broker sitting between them and their community, which offers some lessons for how
to approach ESV in a manner that fits with SMEs preferences around community
engagement.
Brokerage/Charity collaboration
Wider issues of sustainability are embedded in the need for both broker collaboration
and charity to charity collaboration around ESV. For example one participant
summed up the challenge of collaboration as follows;
600+ charities in Oxfordshire, in competition with each other, how do they align,
the question is how to support them in the broader agenda of community
support.
Participants agreed that part of the problem is that charities will make connections
for themselves, but by and large, they’re reluctant to help their fellow charities make
the same connections because there is a perception that it’s a zero sum game.
That’s a really misguided perception, because we’re still at a stage where we
can grow the pie if we don’t all try to hang on to our own little bit of it (charity).
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You have this with the [organisation names] thing, they won’t share the names
of companies that support them, because they are in competition. What if we
had one pot of money coming in from businesses and you could get ESV about
of that. The same businesses in the area, if you’re going to them just to get
money for the charity and they need ESV, it would make sense to have it as
one package as an offer to the business (broker).
Other participants pointed out that there are some serious blockages to
collaboration;
It’s easy to see the route forward to collaborating with local authorities, but not
for collaborating with charities – because funds are so tight. In this environment
when most brokerage charities are having the rugs pulled from under them, it’s
hard to see how we can afford collaboration (public sector employer).
Broker Collaboration A warning:
most of the brokers here are non-profit making charities; there is a brokerage
market that is being fulfilled by private sector companies, … They are making
more money out of corporates by organising this than is possibly necessary.
These companies won’t share their best practice because it’s commercially
sensitive.
However this potential exist for some forms of collaboration across the VCSE sector.
As one participant pointed out, there’s always going to be competition, but by looking
strategically it is possible to identify where your value proposition is,
where do you make your money, and where can I pay someone else to make
money for me - and you can say to other organisations, ‘I do this for you, you
do this for me’, if you work on contractual weights, it’s easier to work with other
charities. There’s no point trying to get rid of competition, but to instead work
with it, look at it strategically. There’s not necessarily a problem with having
multiple organisations, so long as there’s no overlap. It’s working together, but
on different elements.
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Calls from other workshops are echoed here around the need for a cultural change
amongst the VCSE sector to enable more effective systems of support and
collaboration whether it be around brokerage or ESV savvy charities supporting
others to learn how to more effectively engage.
There are lots of skills in the third sector, do we need to thinK of how to enable
these organisations to collaborate more? It shouldn’t be a competition for
funds, we should think beyond that. If we work together, if we need to go for
funding we could do it together.
Charities DO collaborate, they have joint fundraising projects and they are quite
comfortable sharing best practice, they are in separate markets so they can
work together.
So there may be potential for greater collaboration around ESV. One participant
suggested how businesses could also encourage this kind of collaboration;
As a business if you’re offering something skills based to a charity, you could
say, ‘I want three charities to come’, and then you kill several birds with one
stone. It might be something useful, invite a charity and say perhaps if you can
find two other charities and come along and work together to tell us what you
want to achieve (charity).
Taking ESV forward
Opportunities for more two-way skills transference were discussed as an important
whay of taking ESV forward.
We’ve talked a lot about volunteer support from businesses, but we need to
think about how to offer the charity staff opportunities within businesses. There
could be a real improvement in understanding in how these two systems work.
Charity staff are very used to being resourceful and resilient, and they could
take these skills into businesses.
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Businesses could develop ways of extending the awareness and appeal of ESV.
Some considered that building ESV into Appraisals in a light touch way could
enhance participation recognition. Also when looking at personal development areas,
‘how could volunteering address some of those needs?’ This contains risks also
though as some employers pointed out;
‘It would put some employees off if it was part of their appraisal – it would
become another criteria. Appraisals aren’t fun anyway. It might become another
tick box’ (employer).
One participant pointed out that the key incentive for an employee who works full
time and has 2 kids and a busy schedule, that will encourage them to volunteer is if
the boss says
‘here is a great opportunity, you’ll have fun, you can do it in work time and
there’s no strings attached.’ That’s what is attractive. This is where early
collaboration becomes important, the charity sector are good at measuring the
outcomes, to engage with employee at the point and say these are the
differences that you will make (broker).
Another participant raised that Business in the Community set up the Business
Connector programme, setting up individual as brokers around country, not just to
support ESV, but also community engagement and skills sharing. We need to
support those organisations doing that, and see how we can build, rather than create
something new.
Localisation
In developing suggestions around network, portals and toolkits participants
emphasised the need for some elements of localisation.
Let’s ensure there’s a localisation, and it not just be a national initiative - a
national framework with a localised response. But who brings it local? The LEP
in Surrey and County Council don’t understand the charities. It needs to be
collaborative from the start. The organisation that takes the lead should be
connected to the charities.
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From the perspectives of some businesses localisation was important when
engaging their employees but they also saw the need for a national framework
where by
If you end up with a situation where there’s a charity in Scotland doing
something that an employee in Oxford could help with, maybe over the phone
or the computer, it doesn’t have to be in the community.
Online Portal / digital platform
The landscape is very chaotic, lots of charities, businesses and brokers, but no one
depository of how they talk to each other. Participant agreed that some clarity as to
what a collective market is, and who are the players was needed. What exists in
terms of support and opportunities could be mapped, cases and toolkits could be
made available but nothing like this currently exists. There are limits to online
systems;
It shouldn’t be the portal that does the brokerage but it tells you what’s there
and who the contact is that’s when the relationship starts.
In some respects creating such a portal and toolkit could ‘empower organisations to
do ESV for themselves’. Having that toolkit of what to do, how to set it up and
manage it hold value. The challenge is though in creating a single stop shop that can
provide these things in an accessible and up-to-date state. There are many imperfect
models out there. A further challenge is that people reinventing the wheel all across
the country with toolkits on volunteering, when what’s actually needed is people who
can communicate to organisations how to allocate the resources around ESV more
effectively and support them in implementing this. This points us to the continued
importance of human intervention in the brokerage process.
All best options need feet on the ground, be it volunteers or paid staff, the
website is available but people will invariably want to speak to someone to
broker it for them.
Undoubtedly what participants felt would be useful is a toolkit – for SMES preparing
for ESV, and one for charities, preparing to work with businesses. Starting at the
beginning of the process, to work through what skills do you want to give/what do
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you want to do. Then you’re in a position to do those introductions. Thus a tool which
is able to provide some early diagnostics which organisations can utilise to prepare
for ESV.
What’s Possible?
Potential partners
Involving the LEP was seen as key, it would be interested in ESV and they don’t
really have it in their portfolio at the moment.
The LEPs have a skills agenda, if you stress the concept that volunteering
helps to develop skills it’s win-win for everybody.
There is a role for local authorities as well. It was felt that the public sector is funding
ESV already to a certain extent, but struggling to protect this funding in the face of
increasing cuts to public services budgets. There’s ways to work with together
address these problems. Indeed it was felt that better teamwork is needed across all
three sectors and maybe also including some potential funders and the chambers of
commerce. Identifying potential leaders was seen as important;
If you have individuals to champion this, perhaps people from ROBIN, other
people to go out and sell the idea – ambassadors.
Mapping the field
One groups agreed that,
If there was one thing we need to start with, it’s to understand what’s here and what
do they do’. Not just in Oxfordshire but around in the South East area, just
understanding what is there and what the function is, in terms of brokerage.
Coming together to discuss the business model issue for brokerage
Participants felt they would like to begin collaboration by bringing some people with
expertise in different models of brokerage, to have a discussion about how that might
work and how to share best practices. While funders aren’t very responsive to
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infrastructure, they could be involved in this. A collaborative approach might be best,
government and funders. Once we have a prototype, maybe it could be piloted.
For further information about the research please contact
Dr. Jon Burchell email: [email protected] or
Dr. Joanne Cook email:[email protected]
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