Sustaining in Practice

Sustainability should be your ultimate goal – it is about understanding what you have achieved and how, and demonstrating how your volunteering programme or opportunities have contributed to achieving individual and organisational objectives, to guarantee ongoing involvement and support.

Several of the authorities employed young people [as part of the work]…. It is exciting to see young people coming through volunteering to paid positions, supporting others and then progressing further in their own careers (Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009)

“Been involved in volunteering project – totally epic! Met loads of new people from [our town] and all over the place. Got tons of ideas for youth forum stuff and done volunteering qualification. Well worth getting into!” (Young person quoted in Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009)

“The youth worker suggested I volunteer at the youth club… I loved it and the worker in charge there put me on the youth work training. Now I have taken over at that club.” (Young parent quoted in Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009)

“[we overcome the barriers through] senior [person] who could act on the observations of the mystery shoppers. If they had received no feedback and action towards change was not forthcoming, they would have been disappointed, would not have continued” (Development worker quoted in Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009)

If local authorities are serious about service improvement then the implications of the evidence need to be absorbed and acted upon (Doers and Shapers, DMU, 2009)

Key features of sustaining

Sustaining your organisational approach

• Ensuring that volunteering is aligned with organisational priorities and can be resourced financially.
• Retain skilled individuals as volunteers, partners or staff for ongoing learning and continuity
• Review and learn from experiences to generate evidence to support your ongoing work
• Maintain an open dialogue with key stakeholders based on shared core values
• Build in flexibility to allow for evolution on an ongoing basis
• Mainstream activities, including using no-cost and low-cost approaches, to make sustainability as easy as possible
• Link up your work to other internal and external initiatives

Find out about sustaining your organisational approach – the ‘what’ and ‘why' >>

Sustaining opportunities for young people

• Learn how young people’s needs have been met and use this to promote future involvement
• Demonstrate how volunteering has improved young people’s life opportunities
• Link volunteering to future support around skill development and employability.

Find out more about sustaining opportunities for young people – the ‘what’ and ‘why' >>

Get to the heart of the story

See what each project experienced in terms of sustaining their approach to volunteering - Sustaining in action – learning from the projects >>

Hear what those involved really thought about sustaining in action:

Find out about what people say about making it happen >>

The authorities involved in the programme have shared resources that helped them in sustaining their approach to volunteering:

Lancashire Host Department Placement Completion Questionnaire

At the end of the programme, the authorities are focusing their attention on sustaining the volunteering approaches, and will add any further resources as they become available.