Hi all,

I am in a Fundraising Administrator role at a brain tumour charity, which I have been at for a year now and have gained a lot of experience with phone use, Outlook, Excel and CRM. 

I would love to get into volunteer management, and I am aware of the work I would need to do to get there. My role at the moment has been involving volunteers where I have been filing their applications on our CRM and creating and mailing out welcome packs (which I helped the Communications team to produce by suggesting what should be included and what should be said in the letters). I love helping volunteers out in the office and showing them a few of my basic tasks (such as scanning documents and laminating posters for campaigns). I have also been brainstorming ways we could make the process more streamlined and personal for volunteers at our charity. 

Question 1: What would be the best way to gain more experience in volunteer management? In terms of volunteering I can only do weekends and a few hours in the evenings after work. I have been signed up to CharityJobs and MK Community Action (I am based in Buckinghamshire) for volunteer/job alerts. 

Question 2: I have noticed in some alerts that there are paid Volunteer Management Administrator roles which sound great and open to applying to, but I was wondering if any of you started out in a role similar to mine or somewhere different and wanted to know how you progressed to a volunteer manager/coordinator position. I would love to know through private messaging (if you would like). 

Question 3: Was there any training I would need to do such as courses and public speaking? Also did I need to sign up to networking events and memberships? I have been finding loads of stuff online but just wanted to know of anything that you recommend 😅

I understand it might be a hard area of work to get into which is why I am also open to roles in supporter care and being in direct contact with supporters/customers (which I have experience with via email and the phone). 

Thanks and looking forward to hearing your responses! 😊