Service Directory

Our new Service Directory connects NCVO members with specialists who can save them time and money. Find out more

Volunteering practice and strategy

Volunteers are the lifeblood of charities and impact-driven organisations. Without them, achieving large-scale impact would not be possible.

We help charities to create sustainable and impactful volunteer strategies. The volunteering landscape is rapidly evolving—who volunteers, how they engage, and the support they need continues to shift. Our consultancy service helps you keep pace with these changes.

We help charities and impact-driven organisations to:

  • assess their operating context
  • define the focus and nature of their volunteer roles
  • design management approaches that ensure volunteers are supported effectively.

We also advise on the resources required to achieve these goals and on measuring the impact of volunteering, providing confidence in its value and ensuring volunteers are championed.

As the sector faces growing challenges, it has never been more important to attract, retain and support a wide range of volunteers.

Why choose this support

Let us help you unlock the full potential of volunteering in your organisation, driving greater impact and creating a positive, sustainable experience for all involved.

We can help with:

  • Driving growth and diversity in volunteering: Many organisations struggle to attract volunteers or worry about the sustainability and diversity of their volunteer pool. We help you develop context-specific strategies that create impactful, purpose-aligned volunteering programmes, ensuring they remain relevant and effective.
  • Understanding the volunteer experience: Retention often falters when organisations fail to listen to their volunteers. We can help you gather and act on volunteer feedback, turning insights into practical actions that enhance engagement and satisfaction.
  • Enhancing the volunteer experience: Effective volunteer support requires thoughtful planning at every stage—from recruitment and onboarding to retention, management, and offboarding. We review and optimise the entire volunteer lifecycle to ensure a positive, productive experience for both your charity and your volunteers.
  • Managing risks and ensuring compliance: Engaging volunteers comes with unique risks, but these can be effectively managed with the right planning, support, and training. We help you navigate complexity, assess risks, and develop robust frameworks to protect your organisation and volunteers.
  • Demonstrating impact and valuing volunteers: Volunteers thrive when they see the difference they make. We help you measure and communicate volunteering outcomes, while also designing rewards and recognition strategies to ensure volunteers feel valued and appreciated.
  • Increasing skills-based volunteering: Highly skilled individuals often want to contribute meaningfully, yet too often their expertise is underutilised—after all, there are only so many walls that need painting. We know what great employer supported, skills based volunteering looks like and can help in the design and outreach for programmes with real impact.

How we can help

Our service is designed to work collaboratively with you to strengthen your volunteering offer and provide you with the tools, processes and strategies to deliver excellence in volunteering practice.

Volunteering diagnostic

Our experts use a proven methodology tailored to your charity to deliver in-depth reviews of your volunteering programme. We provide an external perspective, identifying opportunities to embed best practices and strengthen your approach to volunteering.

Strategy design

We support you in developing a volunteering strategy that reflects the complexities of the modern world. Our approach ensures your strategy is forward-thinking, impactful, and aligned with your mission and goals.

Policy and process development

We can help you to review your volunteering policies, processes and procedures. And develop, design and deliver new ones that meet your organisational needs.

Diversity and inclusion

We know inequalities in society are often replicated in volunteering. Whether you’re looking to change the age profile of your volunteers or better reflect the communities you serve, we can work with you to consider key steps for developing more inclusive volunteering practice.

Understanding impact

Our experts in monitoring and evaluation can work with our volunteering specialists to help build capacity. We can support in designing systems so that you understand the difference your volunteers are making. This can attract funding and help you know where to focus.

Specialist technical advice and increased capacity

From navigating legal complexities to selecting volunteer management software, we provide expert guidance to overcome technical challenges and build your organisation’s capacity to manage volunteers effectively.

Funding volunteering

We help you develop evidence-based bids and business plans to secure resources for volunteering. Drawing on sector expertise and your organisation’s strengths, we can help you craft compelling, realistic proposals.

Employer supported volunteering

We specialise in helping employers design impactful volunteering programmes that harness their employees’ talents to create meaningful change. At the same time, we support charities in developing effective strategies to engage with corporate partners. Whether you’re a company aiming to make a difference or a charity seeking to attract skilled volunteers, we can guide you in creating programmes that deliver real impact..

Funding Volunteering

We help you develop evidence-based bids and business plans to secure resources for volunteering. Drawing on sector expertise and your organisation’s strengths, we craft compelling, realistic proposals.

Mentoring

Our experienced consultants provide hands-on support and advice, offering practical solutions and walking alongside you to address challenges and achieve your goals.

Training

With a well-established training programme covering all aspects of volunteer management, we deliver in-house sessions or create bespoke training tailored to your organisation’s unique needs.

The difference we make

Contact us

To find out more about how NCVO consultancy can help your organisation, email consultancy@ncvo.org.uk or fill in our short online enquiry form.

Back to top

Sign up for emails

Get regular updates on NCVO's help, support and services