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Writer's pictureIzzy Brown

A new generation of volunteers

Idia’s Community Kitchen fights poverty, social isolation, and food waste. Five times a week, the Tower Hamlets and Hackney grassroots charity provides hot meals and an essential food bank service to those in need.


Despite launching during the pandemic, the charity gained significant interest from budding volunteers. However, once lockdown restrictions eased, the charity noticed a decline in volunteer activity.

Prior to joining Yovo's Community, Penny, Idia's Community Kitchen's Chair, spent eight hours onboarding and coordinating volunteers to ensure they were placed in suitable positions. Coordinating and overseeing volunteers is just one task on Penny's extensive to-do list.


The list is a long one. Admin, governance and operational duties take away time from the cause and the charity's purpose.


Any leftover time is spent recruiting help, and reaching out to those who need help across Hackney and Tower Hamlets, which has the highest child poverty rate in London.


How Yovo helped


Penny has reported spending six hours less screen time per week coordinating help on WhatsApp.


“All that time back has meant that we’ve been able to focus on all the important tasks which kept getting put off”


Combining YOVO’s Calendar and To-do List feature, Penny has divided her volunteer workforce tasks with other Trustees and has an overview of uncompleted and completed tasks.


The charity has given 3 coordinators access to the following areas of their account:


  1. Inductions and welcoming

  2. Training and updates

  3. Event check-in

.


Increased Volunteer Interest & Engagement


The charity now attracts an average of 30 new sign-ups each month, a significant increase from their previous post-pandemic lull of 3.6 monthly sign-ups.


Being external, YOVO has enabled all volunteers to contribute at their own pace, guilt and pressure-free. The charity is reaping the rewards of this boundary-driven approach, with 40% of volunteers returning regularly.




An unexpected outcome

Traditionally, younger generations are trickier to engage in volunteering. Over the past 5 years, 70% of volunteers in England have been older than 35, and 45% are over 50.

Although our platform users cover a vast age range (18 – 61 years old), a surprising outcome of YOVO is the impressive engagement from under-35s: three times the national average for this age group!

This proves that providing younger generations with easy-to-use technology is all that’s missing to connect the next generation of volunteers to exciting volunteer opportunities, like Idia’s Community Kitchen.



Join Yovo today and see how it can help you streamline your processes, automate manual tasks, and increase volunteer engagement in your charity!



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