The Royal Voluntary Service
"It's most impressive that the end result is what we wanted it to be. We now offer a system for our coordinators that ticks all the boxes!" - Rebecca Kennelly - Director of Volunteering
Who are Royal Voluntary Service?
Royal Voluntary Service is one of Britain's largest volunteering charities with 20,000 volunteers providing much needed support in hospital, at home and in the community. The simple acts of kindness volunteers provide, from setting up a regular lunch club to running chair-based exercises on hospital wards, help make communities stronger and relieve the pressure on overstretched public services.
The charity is also one of the largest retailers in the NHS, with its network of cafés and shops providing valued haven in hospitals.
The Problem
Royal Voluntary Service recognised that its infrastructure needed strengthening to enable growth. Reaching such a wide network of volunteer coordinators, the charity wanted to provide access to a seamless system; ensuring multiple communities could connect, share and communicate.
They required an online platform that interfaced with their current system and offered a hub where they could securely store documents and create a library of volunteer and participant information for their Branches and volunteer led groups.
Royal Voluntary Service were looking for a digital solution to ensure volunteer coordinators could access documents with ease, and help them run their groups safely and compliantly. As a charity, they recognised that their existing systems simply did not achieve this.
Groups were using various tools and following differing processes for storing, saving and sharing documents; from Dropbox and email to paper. It was pivotal that their new system would centralise everything onto a safe and compliant piece of technology that everyone could use easily and securely.
The Objective
Royal Voluntary Service wanted to reach a wider network, but to grow, the charity needed dedicated volunteer coordinators to form groups. The only way to achieve this was by finding technology that eased the management process and could support the differing groups on the compliance front.
The Solution
Royal Voluntary Service was impressed with the capabilities of Groop. Our platform provides, a library store, a rota facility, a volunteer village, ease of communications and other core functionality for volunteer coordinators, to help them run their activities with ease. What stood out to them even more, is how they could view overarching key performance indicators and statistics, across all groups.
Groop also provides the ability for secure data handling, so all Royal Voluntary Service documents and personal details could be stored safely in sovereign cloud storage, guaranteeing the safety of their user information.
The Result
Groop became the single system for Royal Voluntary Service's many clubs and groups, enabling groups to be compliant. On top of this, each individual group could have their own group/club network.
The support from our customer team was another key benefit. Royal Voluntary Service's staff and volunteers commented that Groop were always ready to help and quickly respond to our questions.
Along with the use of our system, the charity formed a collaborative relationship with us. We were both able to learn and adapt with one another. The partnership made complete sense. We are both ambitious organisations that both share a passion for volunteering.
We're excited to continue our journey with Royal Voluntary Service and are interested to see how the charity continues to expand.