Foundation urges businesses to take part in skilled volunteering to help strengthen charities and gain mutual benefits 

 

Skills based volunteering has the potential to revolutionise corporate social responsibility, providing significant advantages to businesses, employees, and charities, according to a new report from Lloyds Bank Foundation marking Volunteers Week (3-9 June). 

 

For more than a decade, Lloyds Bank Foundation has fostered connections between volunteers from its funder Lloyds Banking Group, and small charities. In a new research report, Skills Based Volunteering: A Win, Win, Win’ the independent foundation analyses the mutually beneficial rewards skilled volunteering offers businesses, employees, and charities. It highlights the value added when employee volunteering goes beyond a one-off physical activity, to volunteers sharing professional expertise, such as management, finance, IT, HR and marketing, to help charities strengthen and develop their vital work supporting people and communities.  

 

To mark Volunteers Week 2024, this report aims to encourage businesses and charities to work together to embrace skilled volunteering as an opportunity for mutual growth that offers potential for helping transform communities. It provides valuable insights and evidence of the benefits of skills based volunteering for charities, volunteers and their employers: 
 

The report also captures learnings and recommendations for developing impactful skilled volunteering programmes, including: 

 

 

The Foundation encourages all businesses large and small to draw on these lessons and consider the opportunities in skilled volunteering, encouraging their employees to share and use their skills to help charities grow and develop. 

 

Kevin Barker-Lee, Senior Manager at Lloyds Banking Group, volunteers for The Hive Avon as a trustee and became the Chair of the board. He said: “When I first became a volunteer, I was looking for a new challenge and to give something back, but I found that it gave me the opportunity to develop personally and professionally, helping me approach things with more flexibility. I gained new skills in facilitation, managing, coaching and governance that I could apply to my work. It felt great to help strengthen a local charity and learn more about my community. I love being able to work for an employer that supports and encourages this. It has certainly given me increased confidence in my ability, what I can do, and how valuable my skills are.” 

 

Holly Quincey, Talent Acquisition Director, Lloyds Banking Group, said: “Skills based volunteering is a brilliant way for professionals to deepen expertise and develop new skills; connect with a community and learn about some of society’s most complex issues. The impact to the organisations supported is often immediate too, with genuine expertise and knowledge in areas such as finance, marketing and project management helping to support long-term solutions and creating a lasting impact. I’d encourage more businesses to build this into their employee development planning and recognise the power of skills-based volunteering for all involved.” 

 

André Clarke, Director of Charity Development at Lloyds Bank Foundation, explains: 

“Often, when businesses want to help a charity, they opt for a team day and some form of physical activity. Our experience shows there is another way: providing opportunities for employees to share their professional skills that can be of mutual, even greater benefit for employers, charities and volunteers themselves. We've seen from the 700 charities we support each year that they are overstretched and find it difficult to find or afford professional skills. Skills based volunteering offers huge payoffs not only for charities tackling complex issues, but for businesses themselves and their employees working together to help communities thrive.”  

 

To view the full report, visit https://www.lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk  

 

ENDS  

  

  

Notes to editors:   

 

 

For 10 years, Lloyds Bank Foundation has been connecting charities to its corporate funder, providing the opportunity for Lloyds Banking Group colleagues to volunteer, sharing their knowledge and experience. The Foundation’s skills based volunteering programme has created more than 2800 opportunities for volunteers to support small charities. Some initiatives provide groups of volunteers, with many charities and colleagues taking part multiple times. Since it started, nearly 1500 volunteer support activities have been created for charities.  

 

The success of the Foundation’s skills based volunteering programme has been mirrored across all four of Lloyds Banking Group’s independent foundations, with the programme expanding to Scotland, Northern Island and the Channel Islands and insights from the charities they support are captured in the report. 

About the report: Building on previous literature, the evidence outlined in this report is drawn from internal and external evaluations of the Foundation’s skills based volunteering offers as well as research carried out by Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales in 2024 to assess the value of skills based volunteering. To explore the impact to the three groups: charities, volunteers and corporates, we carried out a variety of research through literature reviews, interviews, surveys, and focus groups. More on the methodology can be found in Appendix B of the report.  

About Lloyds Bank Foundation     

We're an independent charitable foundation funded by Lloyds Banking Group. We work in partnership with small and local charities, people and communities, changing lives and working towards a more just and compassionate society. The needs and aspirations of people drive our work. We strengthen the small and local charities that support them and the communities they live in, and advocate for a better future.