Volunteers’ Week 2024: Celebrating the benefits of volunteering

This Volunteers’ Week, Newcastle Building Society is celebrating the benefits and community impact of colleague volunteering.

Volunteers' Week (3^rd – 9^th June) recognises and celebrates the amazing contributions volunteers make to  our local communities, the voluntary sector, and society as a whole.

We have volunteering-friendly policies so that colleagues can use their time flexibly to support good causes. This includes two paid volunteering days.

Not only does colleague volunteering help deepen our community relationships, research shows that it has a positive impact on wellbeing. Colleagues who volunteer their time and skills to help others benefit from improved self-esteem and confidence, feel rewarded for making a difference, and can gain valuable work experience.

Donna Stubbs, helps engage colleagues to get out and give back to their communities. And as a regular volunteer herself, she leads by example: “One of the best things about volunteering is that it’s for everyone. The range of volunteering opportunities that people can get involved in is so broad, and you can find a good cause to support based on your interests, skills and experience.”

"I have seen first-hand the impact of a warm meal for someone who is homeless, or the pride on a young person’s face when completing a mock interview successfully."

Donna Stubbs (on the far right)

Community Manager

“However volunteering doesn’t just have an impact on the beneficiary, but also on the volunteer, and I’ve also seen a change in my own confidence since I started lending my time to help others. Although I am a ‘people person’, I often feel nervous when in new situations for the first time, but if I hadn’t left my comfort zone I would have never met some of the most inspirational people I have ever come across.”

With over 670 colleagues volunteering in 2023, Donna has heard countless stories about the positive impact of volunteering.  

“So often I hear from colleagues that they didn’t fully understand how important the services are that charities are providing. They’re surprised to see the wide range of individuals from all walks of life that access support from these charities and they come back with a better awareness of the key challenges at play within our communities.” 

Through our partnership with the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, we’re also looking at how we can deliver greater, more focused impact through volunteering.

In line with some of the Vital Signs data that the Foundation recently published, we’re focusing our volunteering efforts around these themes.

These themes are not just for volunteering but help guide everything we do from a community point of view, providing us with a framework for supporting our communities.

"Since focusing on these key themes we have seen an increase in colleagues utilising their professional skills to support good causes, with over 230 working days dedicated to supporting our strategic themes in 2024.”

Volunteering with YMCA North Tyneside

For a number of years now, we’ve been building long-standing relationship with the YMCA North Tyneside.

Colleagues from across the Society regularly support a range of YMCA projects, including volunteering at the onsite café, helping provide community meals, and gardening at the allotment.

Most recently our Property Services team visited the YMCA North Tyneside’s Patterdale estate in the Lake District to support the charity with some estate management.

Craig Garbutt, our Head of Property Services, said: “Not only was the work highly rewarding, but colleagues also benefitted from what was a great team building exercise. Our challenge now is how we can ensure our approach to volunteering work with the YMCA is coordinated, and that as many colleagues as possible from across our Society can get involved to maximise our impact.”

Download the press release (PDF, 161kB). 

Image caption:  A group of colleagues outside of our Cobalt headquarters as part of our Earth Week litterpick.

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