Pro Bono O.R. collaborates with Career Volunteer

I am delighted to announce that Pro Bono O.R. will be working with Career Volunteer.

Career Volunteer works with charities and social enterprises around the world to assist with trustee recruitment, skilled volunteers and Board members through corporate volunteering, employee engagement, skilled volunteering programmes and executive search.

Career Volunteer works with skilled volunteers - people with strong skill sets looking to add to their careers through volunteering. Their aim is to make skilled volunteering or being a trustee a normal part of working life for the majority of people; to unleash their skills in a way that builds capacity and resources for charities worldwide. 

They are keen to see more large companies provide structured time and support for their emerging leaders to engage in supporting charities as trustees and skilled volunteers through their CSR, corporate social responsibility programmes and their leadership development programmes, seeing this as good for everyone concerned. 

Career Volunteer's vision to unleash the talents and skills in the corporate and public sector for the benefit of charities and social enterprises has great synergy with Pro Bono O.R., whose aim is to use skilled volunteering to help third sector organisations, give volunteers opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills and to increase the awareness of Operational Research.

Working together will enable Pro Bono O.R. to carry out more projects by being able to advertise projects through the Career Volunteer website and therefore having a wider pool of volunteers who are able to apply for projects.

I am really excited by this collaboration and look forward to seeing how we can provide mutual support for one another; ultimately providing benefit to the third sector and providing more opportunities for skilled volunteering.

To see more about Career Volunteer and the types of volunteer roles they are currently recruiting for please visit their website

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If you are not already a member of The OR Society and are interested in joining please visit https://www.theorsociety.com/or send an email to carol.smith@theorsociety.com

Additionally you may be interested in becoming a member of our Third Sector Special Interest Group (ORiTS). For more details visit:  https://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/SpecialInterest/ORThirdSector.aspx

Other pages that may be of interest:

http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx 

http://www.LearnAboutOR.co.uk

http://www.ScienceofBetter.co.uk

Why volunteering makes sense

Through first hand experience of Pro Bono O.R. I can see why 'volunteering makes sense'.  Both the volunteers and the organisations benefit from the volunteer placement.  Volunteers have said it gives them a sense of achievement, builds their networks, enables them to practice their skills in a different arena, enhances their CV and gives them a 'feel good factor'.  The organisations have benefited from free skilled volunteering that has provided lasting impact and really made a difference.

This great blog from Hannah Morton-Hedges talks further about 'Why volunteering makes sense', from greater employability, confidence, diversity to reward.  Read the full article here

Pro Bono O.R. making a difference

It's so rewarding to get such great feedback from the organisations Pro Bono O.R. works with.

Here is some feedback from two projects we've recently completed:

Fly2help

Fly2help is a small charity supporting families and individuals facing a wide range of trauma or tragedy and encouraging aerospace careers. 

The charity was about to embark on an expansion of its services and wanted reassurance about their plans.

When talking about their Pro Bono volunteer they said this: 'He was absolutely brilliant. He was able to review complex issues and get straight to the heart of what was going wrong. He was then really flexible and agreed to work with the Chair and myself to resolve our roles and move forward together.'

The Dachshund Breed Council

DBC is a community group that works with breed clubs and breeders to improve dogs’ health and welfare.  

The problem they faced was that some Miniature Wirehaired Dachshunds suffer from a form of epilepsy called Lafora Disease.  2 DNA tests are available, but are not yet used by all breeders. The DBC wanted a tool to help predict the probability of breeding puppies with Lafora Disease.

They said about their volunteer 'she clearly understood the problem we were trying to solve and came up with a tool (in Excel) which is easy for us to update each quarter as we get new test result data. She also kept the solution “simple” while keeping the options open should we manage to collect more sophisticated data in the future.' 

Could Pro Bono O.R. help you? Find out here

New Pro Bono O.R. Case Study: A tool to help dog breeders identify genetic risks

The Dachshund Breed Council (DBC): A tool to help dog

 breeders identify genetic risks

Two of our Pro Bono O.R. volunteers, Dr. Sophie Carr (Bays Consulting Ltd.) and Ian Seath (Chairman of the DBC) undertook a project with the DBC. 


Some Miniature Wirehaired Dachshunds suffer from a form of epilepsy called Lafora Disease. 2 DNA tests are available, but are not yet used by all breeders. The DBC wanted a tool to help predict the probability of breeding puppies with Lafora Disease.

To see the case study please click here


The feedback from DBC 'Brilliant-it makes the predictions of risk visible.  This will be so useful' 

The value of LinkedIn for Third Sector organisations

Having recently read Alex Swallow's post on 'How LinkedIn changed my life' it really struck me how valuable LinkedIn has been for Pro Bono O.R. (Operational Research). It has helped me build up connections with people I would never have been able to otherwise and has enabled me to explain what O.R. is and how it is and can really benefit Third Sector organisations in the UK.

To then back this up I then received an email yesterday from Karen Weaver (CEO of HARCVS) who has written an article on how LinkedIn offers opportunities for charities:

Linking In offers opportunities for charities

'Volunteers find their way to charities via many routes and of course take on a wide
variety of roles. In recent years social media has become a valuable additional channel and HARCVS has just benefited from excellent support from a volunteer which commenced with LinkedIn.'

To find out how Karen discovered Pro Bono O.R. and how the project went please read the following article on pages 6-7: Care in Action Newsletter

How small charities can have a big impact

Just came across this article from The Guardian on the voluntary sector network blog. I have taken excerpts below...

'Small charities are increasingly having to innovate and do more with less to survive.

It is no secret that charities are facing tough times. Demand is up and funding is down meaning that charities – especially the smaller ones – are having to think outside of the box to survive.'

During a live debate hosted on 20th June the following questions were raised:

'• What innovative techniques small charities can use to maximise and measure their impact

• How small charities can cut costs while maximising social outcomes

• Where to begin and what to consider when approaching impact measurement'

If you missed it, don't worry.  These are exactly the type of questions that Operational Research can help you with.  

O.R. is about finding ways to apply analytical methods to make better decisions. Third Sector organisations face extremely complex decisions about the direction they should take and how to allocate scarce resources.  These are some of the issues the organisations we've worked with have faced:

 ‘We have lots of different options for the future but it’s impossible to decide which to choose in such uncertain times.’

  ‘We’re under huge pressure to do more with less, and we don’t know how we’re going to do it.’

  ‘It’s hard to stay objective when we’re faced with such emotionally charged decisions.’

  ‘We know we’re doing a good job – but how can we prove it?’

UK based organisations in the third sector can now benefit from O.R. consultancy at no cost. The Operational Research Society is offering third sector organisations the opportunity for free consultancy to help reduce costs and improve utilisation of limited resources.

The society wants more organisations to benefit from operational research and recognises that third sector organisations have an even greater need to be more efficient.

For more information please contact me at felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com

How much is volunteering really worth?

Pro Bono O.R. is dependant on its volunteers in order to operate.  Without our volunteers, the third sector would not be benefiting from all the free consultancy hours.  These hours of face to face support and remote support that have so far been given to over 12 charities and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

We are currently trying to measure the 'economic value' that Pro Bono O.R. is worth by measuring the number of hours/days a volunteer works on a projects multiplied by the hourly/daily rate of an O.R. consultant/analyst.  We know that our volunteers are providing significant value but how much?  Read the interesting blog below from NCVO on how much volunteering is worth to the UK

“It’s the economic value, stupid”…but is volunteering really worth £100bn to the UK?

Pro Bono O.R. is making a difference

One of our volunteers recently ran a workshop for AYME (Association of Young People with ME).   Here's what the Chair of AYME  had to say: 'I wanted to officially thank you on behalf of myself and my fellow trustees for the very helpful and enlightening session. I very much believe it was exactly the kind of help/input that we needed to help us focus on the future. The follow up work that you have so far provided to help us make sense of and prioritise the results of the session is also proving to be invaluable and we very much look forward to meeting you again for a follow up session at a future board meeting.'

To find out more please visit: Pro Bono web page

Pro Bono O.R. May Update #ProBonoOR

Pro Bono O.R. Update- May 2014

Another busy month for Pro Bono O.R.  Since starting in September 2013 we have had over 40 third sector organisations get in touch, we have completed 5 projects, are currently working with a further 10 and have another 4 about to commence.  Both the volunteers and the organisations have been really positive about the Pro Bono O.R. project.  The organisations have really benefitted from the volunteers expertise and time and the volunteers can practice their skills and gain wider experience amongst other things.

We now have almost 200 registered volunteers, 40 of whom have already worked or are working on projects.

On June 13^th Pro Bono O.R. will be running a workshop at #EvolveGtrMcr hosted by GMCVO and in partnership with NCVO.  The workshop will explain how Operational Research can make third sector organisations more effective.

We are really pleased with how the project is going so far.  If you are interested in receiving Pro Bono O.R. support, becoming a volunteer or just want to find out more information, please email felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com or visit the Pro bono webpage: http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx

If you are not already a member of The OR Society and are interested in joining please visit https://www.theorsociety.com or send an email to carol.smith@theorsociety.com

Additionally you may be interested in becoming a member of our Third Sector Special Interest Group (ORiTS). For more details visit:  https://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/SpecialInterest/ORThirdSector.aspx