Reach Skilled Volunteering

Reach (formerly REACH, The Retired Executives Action Clearing House) is the UK's skilled volunteering charity.

Reach Volunteering
Formation 1979
Type Charity
Purpose Providing skilled volunteers to the charitable sector
Location
Region served
 UK
Staff
 7
Website www.reachskills.org.uk
Remarks Key people:
Ian Anderson, Vice-President
Andrew Dent, Chairman
Janet Thorne, Chief Executive
Andrew Philips, Head of Fundraising

About the Charity

Reach was set up in 1979 to provide the voluntary sector with skilled volunteers who have a professional, business or managerial background. REACH originally stood for Retired Executives Action Clearing House,[1] reflecting the aim of the organisation to give purpose to the recently retired.

Over time the organisation widened focus to place people of all ages in skilled volunteering positions. Reach now places over 1000 skilled volunteers each year into a variety of organisations across the UK, with around 5,000 organisations benefiting from a Reach volunteer at any one time. It is estimated that over 45,000 end users benefit from Reach volunteers each year.[2]

The majority of Reach’s funding (68%) comes from charitable trusts and corporate donations.[3]

Reach’s volunteers

Reach’s volunteers come with a wide range of skills in areas such as finance, IT, training, social media and marketing, HR, strategic planning, the law and project management. They have at least three years' work experience, with the majority having much more. People are accepted whether in full or part-time work, on a career break, or retired.

They use these skills for the benefit of voluntary organisations. They also enjoy personal benefits from volunteering such as broadening their CV, sector experience, re-entering the workplace after a career break, keeping their CV current during periods of unemployment as well as the satisfaction of making a difference to a voluntary organisation.

Reach’s organisations

Reach supports a wide range of voluntary organisations from the very biggest such as The Prince's Trust and Oxfam through to small local and community organisations. Reach helps organisations across all sectors of the industry from the arts, children, environment, health, refugees and animals and well as many ‘second tier’ organisations.

The Reach service

Reach offers voluntary organisations a personal service to help define the role that they wish to fill and promote it to volunteers. When the role has been defined Reach searches its register of skilled volunteers and identifies those with the right skills and experience. Reach then contacts the volunteers on behalf of the organisation. If the volunteer agrees, their details are then passed to the voluntary organisation and a meeting is arranged between the two parties.

Reach is a volunteer-involving organisation itself and the majority of its services are personally delivered by skilled Reach volunteers.

TrusteeWorks

Reach has a dedicated trustee search service called TrusteeWorks service, run in conjunction with the third sector recruitment specialists ProspectUs.

TrusteeWorks helps trustees and boards through the trustee journey, helping recruit trustees with the right skills and experience and provide support and resources. Its website TrusteeWorks provides separate resource sections for those volunteering[4] and the charitable organisations[5] they are assisting, meeting all their information and support needs in one place.

References

  1. ↑ "Charity framework for 278837 - REACH VOLUNTEERING". Charity Commission. 2013-12-31.
  2. ↑ "Innovation In Giving, Nesta". Nesta. 2014-04-30.
  3. ↑ "View accounts for 278837 - REACH VOLUNTEERING". Charity Commission. 2013-12-31.
  4. ↑ http://www.reachskills.org.uk/trusteeworks-for-volunteers
  5. ↑ http://www.reachskills.org.uk/trusteeworks-for-organisations

External links