Be apart of the positive change
Be inspired, become inspirational. Start volunteering with us to have direct positive impacts on others and the community.
Volunteer now . Be inspired . Be inspirational . Positive impacts . Act now . Volunteer now . Be imspired. Be inspirational . Positive impacts . Act now
We always welcome and value the support from you and we are always happy to have more people on the team! So if you have some spare time and want to give back to the community you can do so by registering your interest now.
Why volunteer?
Helping Others
Volunteering is a powerful way to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others, transforming not just their circumstances but also your own perspective.
Personal Growth
Increase your confidence and develop a strong sence of purpose from witnessing the positive impacts. Volunteering empowers you by taking you out of your comfort zone, embrace new opportunities, and emerge as a more fulfilled individual, ready to inspire others in turn.
Experience
Volunteering presents different opportunities which allows you to develop a variety of skills that are applicable to a range of things, helping you find and progress in a career.
Community
Volunteering gives you a sence of belonging, where each act of kindness connects you to a vibrant community. By dedicating your time and skills to help others, you form relationships with a diverse group of indivuduals, creating a sense of unity.
Skill development
Volunteering is an opportunity to enhance your social skills in a real-world setting. As you engage with diverse communities, you improve communication, empathy, and teamwork. This helps you become an effective communicator, equipping you with essential skills.
Volunteer Roles at DLAG
Store Volunteers
Store volunteers are the lifeblood of DLAG and our model is brilliantly unique.
Friendly volunteers supervise our tables at stores and let customers know what
is needed on their way in and thank those who donate on the way out. Knowing
what items are needed makes it easier for people to donate and means no wastage
either. A small uplift in hours covered can lead to a significant rise in numbers of
people we can support. Shifts are either done alone or in pairs and range from 1.5 to
3 hours in length, depending on the store.
Hubsters
The Hub is seen as where a lot of the magic happens. It is normally fast moving and
a really enjoyable volunteering atmosphere. Food comes into here and the hubsters
prepare the one week food boxes and bulk orders for our referred clients and
partners, such as foodbanks. Most people do a set time each week, which is really
welcomed.
Welcome DLAG
The Welcome DLAG team is a really important new team. This team conducts
group intro calls twice a week. They use an agreed structure but can input their
own style to share information on the need for and impact of DLAG volunteering
as well as answer questions the new volunteers might have. We are looking for
additional people to run these intro calls, so that we can meet the two per week
requirement and prepare for an uplift in volunteer numbers once the volunteer
marketing campaign ramps up.
Help Line
We are looking to relaunch the Help Line to better manage the distribution of
enquiries. The whole Help Line structure is up for discussion. In the first instance,
please get in touch if you feel that you might be interested in helping to plan an
efficient operation or alternatively if you would be happy to take calls on Help Line
shift. We tend to get between a couple and a dozen calls a day.
Event Team
DLAG events are a vital part of the whole fundraising and awareness strategy. We
run sleep outs, family fun days and have more exciting events being planned. We are
looking for volunteer Event Directors, Managers, Team Members and people who can
help make our event team continue to rock. We have already had some outstanding
successes, such as raising £75,000 at the 2022 Big Sleep Out. Help us take our events
to the next level, whether that is looking after a DLAG stall at the Wimbledon Village
fair or helping with our own brilliant events.
Furniture
The Furniture team is always looking for people to help with van driving and van driver
support, basic maintenance in our new Furniture Hub, sourcing stock and handling
referrals, along with other administration.
Delivery Drivers
Our drivers use their own vehicles to collect food from the hub in Wimbledon and
distribute to those in need around our three boroughs. Usually, the shifts are 1 to
1.5 hours long and will cover three or four addresses. Drivers get a real feel for the
impact of what DLAG does as you come face to face with the people needing our
support. A DLAG DBS is required, which we pay for. Sometimes drivers will collect
food from stores. In addition, we are looking for additional drivers of the DLAG van. Some manual handling/lifting is required for drivers.
Onboarders
Without the Onboarders we wouldn’t have volunteers. They make sure that
volunteers know how to book shifts and get fully onboarded so that they can be as
useful as possible and as happy as possible in their volunteering. Much of what they
do is about submitting necessary links, paperwork and contacts to new volunteers.
Leavers
Understanding why volunteers leave DLAG is crucial for us, as we seek to make
the whole experience as positive as possible. This new team will reach out to those
leaving and ask why. Often the leaver’s issue will be “fixable” and the leaver could be
encouraged to rejoin. We would use this information to improve the experience.
Newsletter Team
Our newly revamped monthly newsletter aims to attract and engage volunteers,
encourage increased involvement and better highlight DLAG activities to the whole
community. We are looking for volunteer writers, editors, proofreaders, designers,
email specialists and project coordinators to support the team on a monthly
(preferable) or ad-hoc basis. We want to ensure that we produce exciting, engaging
and eye-catching content that people want to read!
Fundraisers
We are always looking to work with experienced charity fundraisers. If you have
experience in donor acquisition, management and funding proposals or other aspects
of fundraising we’d really like to hear from you.
Keep Kids Connected
We are always looking for drivers, to collect and drop off devices, IT specialists, to help
wipe devices and restore to factory settings and coordinators.
Miscellaneous
1. Survey Monkey Specialist
We are looking for somebody to put together surveys, with experience
of Survey Monkey.
2. Infographics
If anyone has good experience of producing high quality infographics,
we’d love to hear from them.
Store Leaders
Store Leaders are Hidden Stars within the whole DLAG operation. They do what
they can to make sure that as many shifts as possible are covered and to make sure
that the store volunteers understand what is required of them. We almost have a
full quota of Store Leaders but we would welcome, in some cases, understudies and
people who could move into Store Leadership when we open new stores or existing
Store Leaders become permanently or temporarily unavailable.
Silver Youth Clubs
Whether your talent is in sandwich making, running quizzes, calling Bingo,
serving teas and coffees, clearing plates and washing up or simply being a good
conversationalist the Silver Youth Clubs need people like you. Come and volunteer
in a fun and worthwhile environment. Make new friends.
Marketing
Our marketing team is central to everything we do. They help to create awareness,
attract volunteers, raise funds and much, much more. We are looking for people
who can help in all marketing disciplines from PR to graphic design and from
blogging to social media reels and many roles in between. If you would like to
contribute to our high energy and varied marketing activities, we’d love to hear
from you.
Research
We have many research tasks. From compiling lists of community events, to
identifying marketing channels for attracting volunteers, to listing potential funders
and much more. If you have a couple of hours or more a week to help on research
tasks let us know
Corporate Outreach
Corporate volunteering is becoming increasingly popular. Companies very often
allow staff to volunteer for local community projects. We are already benefiting from
this. We would like to build a corporate outreach structure and team where we build
strong relationships with local businesses and help them to support DLAG in terms of
both volunteering and, at the right point, financial support, if appropriate.
Partner Outreach
As a community organisation we have many partners, including social services and
schools who refer people to us. And we work with schools for various initiatives, such
as “Foodbank Fridays”. We are keen to make sure that our partnerships are as good as
they possibly can be. So we will need people to look after certain current partnerships
and to build then manage others.
Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to their collection points at supermarkets across the area. Dons Local Action Group turned with not one, but two minibuses FULL of nappies, wipes and toiletries. Absolutely amazing!!