For the past 14 years, Volunteer Centre Hackney has provided support to local residents and organisations in volunteer recruitment, retention, recognition and appreciation. We are an infrastructure organisation with focus on volunteering. As the volunteer centre in Hackney, VCH carries out the core functions of infrastructure support as defined by Volunteering England. We are also a recognised training provider, running accredited training courses for local residents and organisations.
VCH Annual Report and Accounts 2011
What VCH does
VCH aims to become a benchmark of best practice in volunteering and organisation management. We see ourselves as match makers, putting people together to improve each other’s lives – whether those people are organisations who need volunteers, individuals who want to become volunteers or people who need support in the community. We act as brokers and trainers, supporting organisations to get the very best out of their volunteers and developing connections and networks to promote good volunteering practice across Hackney.
Over the past 14 years we’ve worked with over 9,000 volunteers and will keep working hard to give organisations the skills they need to manage volunteers effectively. We’re here to make sure that volunteering works – for volunteers, for the organisations using them, for the people they’re helping – but also for Hackney, making a positive impact on the local economy and promoting a culture of understanding and mutual respect across the borough.
VCH will ensure that the impact of volunteering in Hackney is quantified in terms of its impact on the local economy and will endeavour to make volunteering a pathway into employment for those who want to.
Here at VCH we believe that Hackney should have the best quality services and are proud to state that we hold the following quality standards: Investing in Volunteers (IiV), Investors in People (IiP); Volunteering England – Volunteer Centre Accreditations; PQASSO Level 3.
At Volunteer Centre Hackney we’re part of that community that is multi-layered, energetic and full of adventurous people looking for a way of moving on with their lives. We’re pretty adventurous ourselves, to be fair – curious to learn new skills, find new ways of helping people (both volunteers and those they’re working with), and putting diverse people together to make one another’s lives better.
So our role at the Volunteer Centre is simple: to help people take a step out of their normal life, accept a new challenge, change their own lives by changing those of others.
Volunteering is another adventure – who knows where it will take us all?
To find out more about what a volunteer centre does, take a look at What is a Volunteer Centre? (PDF).
Read our 2009-10 Annual Report (PDF).
