New research identifying the need for an organisational approach to resilience and wellbeing
New research into loneliness and older men and its implications for services
Putting psychologically and trauma-informed management training into practice in the workplace
Supporting workers, ameliorating stress, and providing a more trauma-informed approach - a programme run by Leicester women's organisation New Dawn New Day , and Ideas to Impact .
Feedback from participants about how they do or could implement actions towards trauma-informed working
Why and how to use resources and evidence from the Office of National Statistics and other verified sources to improve your impact measurement and needs analysis, including a download of suggested indicators
With a lot of people in flux at the moment with working patterns, with workplaces starting to open up and people going back to working elsewhere, I was reflecting on my early morning walk on what Gretchen Rubin calls the strategy of the clean slate to make habit change. For me, the change is not my own, but my daughter's. She has recently started an apprenticeship at a medical centre in a town around 12 miles away. In the morning she gets on the bus at 7.45am, so I have got into the habit of leaving the house with her and having an early morning walk, usually along the canal above, before settling to work. For some reason, the last bus back leaves at 3.25, before the schools and work has actually finished for most people (and then they wonder why it's not used much!) so I pick her up every night. Her work is closer to my gym than where we live, and now the pool is open again it motivates me to finish work an hour earlier and to have a swim before I get her as I'm driving halfway there already. Hopefully my daughter will soon be driving herself now lessons and tests have started again, so I was wondering whether I would keep these activities up when our routine changes again. This is where the power of habit takes over. Habitual behaviour happens in a different part of our brain from conscious thought ( this blog I wrote earlier talks a bit about this) and can easily over-ride other intentions. Habit change is about reprogramming our neural pathways until we do that activity "without thinking". If we repeat an action enough times, then our brains start to associate one thing with another in an "if...then" pattern, e.g. if my daughter is leaving the house to get her bus then it's time for me to go for a walk. Think of this rewiring as a route across a park - as more and more people walk along new route the grass gets worn away and the pathway gets more established, like these . Hopefully by the time my daughter passes her test and I wave her off on her own, my morning walk routine will be so established that I will carry on doing it, same for the early evening swim. It's difficult to say how long it will take any individual to form a habit, a study by Philippa Lally and colleagues at UCL identifies an average of 66 days, but so many factors come into play that it can vary, for example some of these could be how committed are you to the habit, how convenient/inconvenient it is, what social reinforcement you have for doing/not doing it. With some provisos Lally's article identified a range of 18-254 days. Action point When you are facing a change in your life such as changing where or how you work as you may be doing at the moment, think about whether this could help you to make or break any habits. If the strategy of the clean slate doesn't work for you, Gretchen Rubin in her book Better than Before has many other practical strategies that you can try. Using psychology for individual and organisational development I am working with colleagues to develop a series of courses, workshops and resources around using psychology in the VCSE to improve individuals, organisations and services, for example around areas of motivation and engagement; personality in the work place; working effectively including looking at habits, understanding yourself and avoiding procrastination; and the effects of trauma on the brain. If you are interested in any of these, please sign up below for my newsletter where they will be announced later in the year or contact admin@ideastoimpact.co.uk
Background The Investing in Volunteers standard was last reviewed in 2010, so it was due for a refresh in line with changes in volunteering and the wider world. Ideas to Impact won the tender, and working with colleagues Janet Lewis-Jones (IiV lead assessor) and Ann Gilbert (formerly chief executive of Northampton Volunteering Centre) and assistant Marlen Tallett, we undertook desk research and a consultation to refresh the standard, working closely with Jo-Ann Maycock, Trish Kiss, and Adam Fox at NCVO and liaising with leads from the other UK organisations, WCVA , Volunteer Scotland , and Volunteer Now . The project was overseen and the final version agreed by the UK Volunteering Forum with representatives from each of the four countries. Aims of the refresh included: Streamlining the standard and updating practice and language in line with current volunteering good practice and wider developments in volunteer-involving organisations. Ensuring that it is relevant to a wide range of volunteer-involving organisations, including specific guidance for different types and sizes of organisation and different types of volunteering opportunities. Focusing more on the volunteers' experiences, including incorporating the findings from NCVO's research with over 10,000 volunteers Time Well Spent . We engaged with around 200 people through an online survey, online workshops, individual telephone calls, attendance at the National Volunteering Forum, individual email conversations, and three workshops held by country leads in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Once we had a draft standard, 24 organisations filled in a self-assessment against it, we undertook 17 volunteer and trustee mock interviews, and a focus group of different types of organisations reviewed the materials. Comments that we received on the new standard included, “I really like the way the standard is now more readable, and easier to use as a tool to explain to others not so knowledgeable about volunteering what underpins a good quality volunteer involvement process." “I think it hits the big picture elements for diversity and inclusion and reminds people that we need to be pro-active in reaching out to encourage people to get involved." “I think it's great to see people as the first point in the explanation of the quality area. Volunteering is about people first and foremost." Main changes in the 2021 standard There are now six quality areas instead of nine: Vision for volunteering Planning for volunteers Volunteer inclusion Recruiting and welcoming volunteers Supporting volunteers Developing volunteers Some of the main changes include: A greater emphasis on volunteering being part of the wider organisational strategy and a requirement that the impact of volunteering is understood and communicated - impact assessment has changed a lot in the 10 years since the standard was last reviewed. This is crucial so that organisations value their volunteers, but also so that volunteers can see that their work is important and makes a difference - feeling meaning and purpose is key to volunteer engagement and satisfaction. This includes ensuring that any volunteer managers are appropriately integrated into the organisational structure so that there is an ongoing mechanism for communication across the organisation. Detail relating to specific processes removed to guidance, with indicators focusing more on outcomes and the bigger picture . Included in this category of changes are: thinking through the purpose of holding information about volunteers (not just data protection), having a positive and managed exit process (not just collecting feedback from volunteers who are leaving) and supporting volunteers' future aspirations (not just providing references). Following feedback in Time Well Spent that many volunteers found volunteering overly bureaucratic we've also included making sure that systems and processes are proportionate and volunteers know why they are in place. "Volunteers feel..." statements that focus on how volunteers experience the organisation, for example volunteers feel supported rather than the organisation provides support. Other "volunteers feel" statements include that there is good communication, their contribution is meaningful and rewarding and they feel valued and a part of the organisation. Some consultation respondents were concerned about whether these would be difficult to assess, but when we interviewed volunteers we found this was the sort of information they naturally provided, often without us actually asking specifically! From the perspective of organisations, finding out whether volunteers do feel these things is part of day-to-day activities anyway through formal and informal processes, and is important in ensuring that volunteers have a quality experience and remain volunteering. We also broadened out the scope in the indicators relating to equity, diversity and inclusion , relating what happens with volunteer inclusion to the aims of the organisation as a whole, and ensuring that the whole organisation is welcoming to a wide range of volunteers. Ensuring that organisations are proactive in increasing volunteer diversity and tackling under-representation was also strengthened, along with further guidance for organisations that work with a specific section of the population, for example particular health conditions, or select volunteers from members or service users. In quality areas five and six we used our experience of assessing IiV to make strengthen areas where we'd heard frequent comments from volunteers about their experiences but that were not explicit enough in the previous version. This included making sure that volunteers were able to discuss how they are doing - not all volunteers want feedback on their "performance" but they do generally want to know what has happened as a result of their volunteering. The indicator on volunteers being able to learn and develop was changed to include organisations recognising the skills and experience that volunteers bring with them where appropriate, as it's not infrequent that volunteers say they have skills that could be put to use that organisations are unaware of. Also in this section we emphasised that volunteers often say they would like more contact with other volunteers - we found research that indicated that peer support from other volunteers was more highly correlated with volunteer engagement and satisfaction than support from paid volunteer managers. The new version of the standard will be available on the Investing in Volunteers website following the launch on 24 March 2021 About Ideas to Impact Ideas to Impact provides a range of services to organisations and individuals including relating to volunteer management and developing and assessing quality standards. This includes consultancy, research, workshops and one-to-one support in coaching or through a one-off Power Hour where we can talk you through any issues you have with volunteering and what we know from research and evidence and our experience of talking to hundreds of volunteers. Our news and blog gives more information about different aspects of our work. This includes courses that fit with Investing in Volunteers, including Encouraging Inclusion , Volunteers' Voices , and How to have happy and engaged volunteers , which also incorporates psychological research around engagement, motivation and wellbeing. Please email becky@ideastoimpact.co.uk if you would like to be added to the list to be informed when open versions of these courses will be run, or sign up to the newsletter below.
If you're anything like me, your heart might be sinking at all the things that you were overwhelmed by at the end of last year that went onto the "I'll think about it in the new year" list, because that time has now come and things possibly don't feel any easier. This post describes one mechanism to identify and prioritise the things that you need to do - this activity it is aimed at individual workers rather than whole organisations. Take some Post-It notes Or similar sized pieces of paper (I once worked in an organisation that didn't allow us to have Post-It notes - or decent coffee - in case funders visited and thought that we were frittering away their money on luxury items). On the Post-Its write down all the things that are on your mind that need doing - one per Post-It so that you can move them around to rearrange them. These may range from small to large items, e.g. send out agenda for team meeting or prepare forms for annual development reviews to finalise and submit tender for main services or develop new strategic plan. Once you have completed this, for each item put a score out of ten where ten is high and zero is low: (a) in the top left corner for what impact this activity will make to progressing you towards your organisational mission if you achieve it (for people familiar with the urgent - important matrix, this is the importance element); (b) in the top right hand corner for how urgent the action is; and (c) in the bottom left hand corner for how much mental or emotional energy this is taking up - this isn't a traditional way to plan and prioritise, but since your wellbeing and mental and emotional state is crucial to how well you perform, it is critical to consider this. Do not use a 7 for any of the scores. I heard this on a podcast but can no longer remember who suggested this, but the idea was that a seven is a cop out and it's easy to end up with lots of sevens with no way of differentiating between them - make them a 6 or an 8. The next bit is more of an art than a science (sorry to anyone who was hoping to add up the scores and get a neat formula to make the decisions for them!) Make sure you have a system for recording tasks now and into the future. I use ToDoist - there are other similar apps or you can just use a diary and a notebook. This gives me the ability to sort by projects (which I review weekly) and by discrete tasks to do on specific days. It gives me a list of the activities that I need to do in the shorter term, and the ability to note things that need doing in the future - I may not have dealt with the actual task, but at least I know when I need to start thinking about it so it's not cluttering up my brain. (I also have a separate "sometime maybe" list of things that I want do but aren't time critical to stop cluttering up my daily to do list.) First try to get rid of anything that doesn't need to be done or can be done some other way. For anything that has a low impact score - ask why you are doing this at all. If it does need to be done, how can you minimise it, automate it, or delegate it? One issue I often see in not-for-profit organisations is lack of admin support for managers or team leaders - there's a pressure to reduce core/administrative costs, but ultimately this is generally not effective or efficient. If it's not appropriate to employ someone, think about a freelance virtual assistant who might help you a few hours a week or month. In terms of delegation, you don't want to dump things on other people who are over-loaded themselves, but it's worth considering delegating authority and decision-making to empower workers to deal with more activities which then don't need to come back to you - this may help to make everyone's lives easier. Identify anything that can be done quickly (e.g. in about 10 or 15 minutes), start by clustering these Post-Its in preparation to them in - most of these are probably not going to be things that need a lot of brain power, so batch it with other similar tasks and put it into a time in your day that's not your best thinking / quality work time. (However, recognise if you're someone who needs to get some of these things out of the way before you settle on bigger pieces of work because otherwise they are sitting there bugging you! There is no one-size-fits all approach to effectiveness.) For anything that has a high impact score - this is a priority and needs to be in your (or someone else's) diary. Separate out the larger and more significant pieces of work. These are often the things that make most difference, yet don't get enough time allocated to them. How are you going to make time for them? Who else needs to be involved? Where can you get help from? When do you need to start thinking about them to give you the time you need to work on them? See organisational psychologist Adam Grant's TED Talk about scheduling work for optimal creativity. For anything that has a high mental and emotional energy score - the things that are bothering you - ask yourself why to think about what you need to do about it. Is the problem that you don't know what to do but haven't put aside the time to think about it in more detail? Do you not have the knowledge or skills or time to do it? Does it involve difficult conversations or relationships? Is there a particular emotion you are feeling about it? Procrastination is often about avoiding negative emotions, sometimes it's helpful to just recognise this - read this New York Times article around the work of Dr Fuschia Sirois. Otherwise you might just want to "Eat the frog" and get on and do them, so they are not continuing to have a negative impact on you. (Mark Twain possibly said something like "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day".) Go through each of the Post-It notes and put an activity and timescale into whatever system you have. Hopefully this has helped you feel more in control and either demonstrated that you are able to manage the work you have and to get it out of your overloaded brain, or it's demonstrated that there are more fundamental issues requiring a revision of your wider organisational strategy or structure to ensure that your organisation's work is more realistic. Need some help? Ideas to Impact can help you work through planning and prioritisation through Power Hours - a customised mix of coaching, mentoring and/or consultancy depending on your needs, or through workshops and facilitation for your organisation or through various workshops and training sessions . Contact Marlen Tallet, admin@ideastoimpact.co.uk if you would like to book a specific session, or Becky Nixon becky@ideastoimpact.co.uk for a more general discussion about how we can help you.
An increasing number of charities are producing high quality impact reports to promote what they do. These have more of a “marketing” approach and different from impact reports that are more evaluative, for example this one that Ideas to Impact researched and wrote for Clinks. I've been working with a few clients recently to plan, collect information for, and design impact reports, and to get ideas I analysed other organisations reports, so to help others, here is the information I collected: this post contains a list of some of the things that you can include in your impact report to give you ideas about the content and the format. Impact reports are sometimes linked with the annual report, and sometime separate. Here is a report that Ideas to Impact produced in partnership with VASL’s Community Champions project. Some other examples are linked below.