Volunteer Passports: The Future for UK Charities?

‍The arduous task of verifying and screening volunteer candidates has long been a perennial challenge for charitable organisations. Often dubbed as a "screaming process" rather than a "screening process," it's a headache that has confounded even the largest charities in the UK.

Many have resorted to outsourcing extensive, costly projects to heavyweight consultancy firms like PwC and Accenture. Yet, the end result is often a bespoke, expensive system tailored to that specific charity alone.

For smaller entities in the sector, fully automating these types of processes seems like a distant dream. Consequently, manual screening remains an exhausting administrative burden.

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Can AI Make a Difference?

Yes, but it can't do it alone. At Do It we are unveiling what we term the "Volunteer Passport" - a repository of volunteer data that empowers volunteers with full control over their information.

We're consciously disassociating this initiative from the Do It brand for a simple reason: this calls for a vendor-neutral solution. To reap collective benefits, it must be a decentralised platform built by the sector, for the sector.

Therefore, we extend an urgent invitation for a sector-wide "Volunteer Passport Focus Group" aimed at guiding the development and safeguarding of this personal data resource.

If you'd like to contribute to this transformative initiative, please comment below, and we will reach out to you.

Why is a Volunteer Passport Necessary?

1. Enhanced Trust & GDPR Compliance: Volunteers choose how and with whom to share their data.
2. Streamlined Onboarding: Eliminates the need to enter details across multiple platforms.
3. Improved Volunteer Experience: Streamlined processes lead to happier volunteers.
4. AI-Enabled Efficiency: Enables AI adoption in the early application stages, reducing costly manual work.
5. Sector-Wide Standardisation: Avoids fragmented and siloed systems, saving tens of millions of pounds annually.
6. Social Ads for Volunteer Rewards: Charities can divert advertising budgets to reward volunteers in exchange for data-driven targeting.

What Will the Volunteer Passport Include?

1. Criminal Background Checks
2. Qualification Verifications
3. Identity Authentications
4. Volunteering History
5. Content Preferences

We believe that the Volunteer Passport can contain even more useful data, and that's why initiating a sector-wide dialogue is so crucial.

We welcome your thoughts on this endeavour. Please comment below to join the conversation.

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