How we review opportunities

Reach reviews all organisations, opportunities and volunteers that are posted to our site before publishing them. We do this to ensure they all meet our criteria and acceptable use policy.

FAQs

How do you review opportunities?

Our Service team checks each opportunity to ensure that it meets our criteria. Primarily, we check that the role:

  • Is based in the UK.
  • Requires three or more years professional experience in one of our skills areas.
  • Is unpaid.
  • Is not overburdensome on the volunteer (for example, line managing paid staff or required to do more than 15 hours a week).

We can also accept opportunities specifically for trustees with lived experience of your cause, either with or without specified professional skills. 

After these initial checks, we ensure that:

  • The skills selected match the role/person description.
  • The opportunity does not contain multiple distinct roles in one description.
  • The opportunity does not contain contact details or links to external recruitment pages. We remove any attached documents that contain contact details. We ask that all initial communication with volunteers takes place on the Reach platform so that we can track applications and placements. As a small charity, we rely on this information for our funding.
  • The opportunity is not repeated, as we only allow one role per region. 

We may also check your submitted role against other instances of the role you may have published (i.e. on your website) to ensure transparency and accuracy.

If your opportunity does not meet our criteria, we will ask you to amend your opportunity or signpost you to alternative services. 

Why do you review opportunities?

Reach is a charity that supports other charities and non profit organisations to find skills-based volunteers. We aim to help organisations by ensuring our service meets their needs and that the volunteer opportunities that they promote through us attract the best possible match. In order to do this, we review all opportunities submitted to Reach against a set of criteria.

The most successful placements happen when the organisation is clear about the specific skills that they require; to support a successful outcome, as part of the screening process, we may ask you to amend or clarify your advert.

If your opportunity does not meet our criteria, we will ask you to amend your opportunity or signpost you to alternative services. 

How do you determine if my opportunity meets the criteria?

Our Service team reviews the selected skills and the content of role descriptions, in particular the person description, to ensure it meets our criteria.

We will review your person description carefully to ensure it is clear that you are explicitly looking for someone with professional experience in the skills that are selected or reflected in the role description. If this is not clear in the person description, we will ask you to either amend your role or suggest different services that would be more suited for your opportunity.

We ensure that your role reflects the need for a volunteer with existing experience. We are unable to publish roles where the skills selected appear to be desirable rather than essential, or where it is clear from an organisation’s posting of the role in other places, that the role does not require expertise in one of our skills areas. 

Please note, we are not able to accept roles where no prior experience is required, including where full training is offered, with the exception of lived experience trustee roles. 

We do allow organisations to recruit for trustees with lived experience, either or without specified professional skills. In these roles, we will check that all other criteria is fully met.

Does Reach accept volunteer counsellor/ therapist opportunities?

Yes, as long as the organisation and opportunity meet our criteria. People have many reasons for wanting to volunteer their professional expertise, including wishing to help a specific cause or community. Social purpose organisations provide support to communities where the state and private sector can’t or won’t. We believe that volunteering can provide significant benefits to the volunteer, the recruiting social purpose organisation, their service users and wider society. To ensure good practice in voluntary counselling roles, we have put specific guidelines in place. 

We do not accept counselling roles that:

  • Have been created as a substitute or replacement for paid roles.
  • Are overburdensome in terms of responsibility or time, for example a role which includes supervising paid staff, or exceeds more than 15 hours per week.
  • Are inequitable and not accessible to everyone with relevant expertise. For example, a role which includes the expectation that the volunteer will pay for their own training, supervision or insurance, or make a financial contribution to the cause.

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