Tweet chat tonight: what is O.R. and how can it help charities? #charityhour

Join @CharityHourUK using the hashtag #charityhour for a tweet chat today from 8-9pm (GMT) 

We will be exploring the following questions:

• What role does pro bono consultancy have to play in the Third Sector?
• What's your experience of using pro bono consultancy?
• What tips do you have for others considering using pro bono consultancy?
• What type of projects benefit most from pro bono consultancy?
• Big data is a big thing! What tips do you have for getting insights from your data?
• What is Operational Research and how can it be used to help the Charities?

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Thanks for your support!

Pro Bono O.R. newsletter (issue 2)

The OR Society: Pro Bono O.R. newsletter - issue 2

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A flying start to 2015

Well what a busy start to the year 2015 has been.  Before you know it March has arrived, the sun is starting to shine and we are almost into spring.  In this second issue I want to tell you about all the latest news from Pro Bono O.R. including collaborating with Career Volunteer, what it’s like to be a volunteer and an update on the projects.

Volunteer Experience

Are you considering skilled volunteering? Wonder what it might be like? This guest blog from Alessandro Arbib tells you about his team’s experience of Pro Bono O.R. with RSPCA.

http://probonoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/volunteering-with-rspca-or-canine.html

Have you got a story to tell?  If so I’d love to hear from you and would happily publish the article as a guest blog and promote via my social media channels.

Project updates

Since the start of the year we have completed 4 projects including London Quadrant Housing Trust and two with Elfrida Rathbone (keep an eye on the webpage for the case study slides).  We have had 15 new enquires and have started 3 new projects with Ethical Property Foundation and two with Diabetes UK.

Mentoring

Did you know that many projects are suitable for individuals, pairs or teams of volunteers?  Additionally if you would like to undertake a project but feel that you would benefit from the support of a mentor we can also offer that.  Here a volunteer comments on the benefit of having a mentor: ‘We really appreciate the support you have given us over the course of the project. I would never have had the confidence to embark on this if you had not agreed to be a mentor’.

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.

Finding out more

Click here to find out more about volunteering                   Click here to find out how to receive support

Click here to see all the completed case studies                For further information please visit the webpage

Thank you for your support of Pro Bono O.R.

Best wishes

Felicity McLeister

Using Pro Bono O.R. to address a wide range of operational improvements

Pro Bono O.R. (Operational Research) – free consultancy for third sector organisations

UK based organisations in the third sector can benefit from O.R. consultancy at no cost. The Operational Research society is offering third sector organisations the opportunity for free consultancy to address a wide range of operational improvements – for example greater efficiency, better customer service, higher quality or lower cost.  Whatever the aim, O.R. can offer the flexibility and adaptability to provide objective help.

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?’

 Here are some of the issues the projects we've already completed have addressed:

• Strategic planning/review
• Impact measurement
• Process improvement
• Data analysis
• Business planning
• Efficiency improvement
• Options appraisal
• Decision making

O.R. consistently delivers significant value – strategic to tactical, top-line to bottom-line – to the organisations and executives who use it.   

 Since launching in September 2013, Pro Bono O.R. has completed twelve projects and is currently working with a further fifteen organisations.  In addition to that there are several organisations that have expressed an interest in receiving support.  We have over 250 volunteers across the UK and these range from retired professionals to analysts in their early career, consultants and others in the O.R./analytics profession who either volunteer in their own time, are given company time or a mixture of both.  Forty four of those volunteers have already worked/are working on projects and many more are eager to get involved with helping support third sector organisations.

Hear what the organisation have to say:

"We are enormously grateful for being able to benefit from the advice and support of such a knowledgeable and experienced professional, who was able to raise challenging issues in a sensitive and helpful way"

"We've benefited hugely from your work and support in all areas of the project, and from an organisational perspective you've enabled us to take a highly professional approach to increasing the efficiency of our charity"

Hear what the volunteers have to say:

"I've really enjoyed working with third sector organisations and found the staff extremely positive about the contribution we make"

"Working as a pro bono volunteer is a great way to contribute some professional expertise to some truly worthwhile causes.  The Third Sector is full of people who feel passionately about their Mission, so working with them is invariably a positive learning experience"

For further information about the scheme please visit: http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/Probono.aspx

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Would you pay volunteers' expenses?

I came across this great blog the other day from guest blogger Mel White on Rob Jackson's blog.

The blog covers the issue of volunteer expenses.  As someone who manages a volunteer scheme I fully endorse organisations covering volunteers travel expenses (where ever possible).  In most cases we try to find a volunteer demographically close to the organisation in order to reduce any travel costs.  As the article points out, by not offering to covering expenses it is financially discriminating against those who are not able to cover their travel costs but are more than willing to give up their time for great causes.  

Volunteers should at least be given the option to claim expenses.  Many may not, but to not have the option will reduce the number of people taking up voluntary positions.

To read the fill blog please click here

Pro Bono O.R. does ask the organisations to cover volunteers expenses and this is made clear right from the outset.  Organisations wishing to take up the offer of Pro Bono O.R. are required to complete and sign a registration form which has a clause in it relating to expenses.  If volunteers do want to claim expenses these are agreed between the volunteer and the organisation before the project commences to ensure the organisations has the necessary funds.  We have found all the organisations we have worked with have been happy to do this and in cases where the organisation's budget is minimal we have specified that the volunteer needs to be local.

Having had this debate with several people I am aware that there are some organisations who choose not to pay expenses and others that simply can't afford to.   One person I spoke with said they volunteered for two charities, the first one did not pay expenses because they thought the volunteers' "passion for their cause was enough", the second one did.  The volunteer pointed out that "the two organisations are very different and it would be unreasonable for the first one to dip into its funds to compensate its hundreds of volunteers".

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this subject and what you do if you have volunteers.

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