The Volunteer Friendly Award

We involve volunteers because they are motivated, have fun helping and tell us it lets them give something back to the community. Volunteers are crucial to Brae.

Mary Sneddon, Centre Manager,
Brae RDA Partnership (Riding for the Disabled).

There are five strands to Volunteer Friendly:

  • Commitment to Involving Volunteers
    Understanding why your group uses volunteers
  • Making Volunteering Happen
    Allocation of adequate resources, i.e. money,
    management, staff time and materials
  • Fair & Equal Volunteering
    Volunteer diversity, equal opportunities, fair recruitment and reference checks
  • Volunteering Tasks and Getting Them Done
    Developing task descriptions, training and the support needs of individuals
  • Celebrating Volunteers' Contributions

For each strand, Volunteer Friendly offers a checklist of best practice, supported by guidance, examples and templates available in an online toolkit.  Access to the Checklist and accompanying resources is given to staff at licensed Volunteer Centres and interfaces as well as to groups and organisations which have signed up for the Volunteer Friendly Award with their local licensed Volunteer Centre or interface. 

For further information about areas in Scotland offering the Volunteer Friendly Award or to contact the Volunteer Friendly office, please click here.

In their own words

"The Volunteer Friendly Award has ensured that the policies and practices which we already had in place are now much more stringently adhered to."

Volunteer Friendly