There’s a clear trend in corporate and public sectors to get staff engaged and involved away from their desk to feel re-energised, reinvigorated and bring new experiences back to the day job, so to show how skills-based volunteering benefits volunteers, Media Trust spent a few minutes with David Watson, senior campaigns manager at No.10 Downing Street and a volunteer speaker at their recent Marketing essentials seminar.
As David explains, there’s a move towards “getting civil servants out of the office and into the community: to be civic servants, participating in the community”, so a Media Trust presentation that outlined how his expertise was going to help charities directly, and have a lasting impact on their beneficiaries showed him a different, and very practical, way to support an initiative he believed in. “It was really powerful because I could see the benefit for the people coming along. I’d already been doing some voluntary work and this seemed an ideal way to bring that together.”
Events are a great way to see the immediate impact of your volunteering because your beneficiaries are there in the room, asking questions and reacting to your words. As David says, “I was really impressed by the way the delegates engaged with the session: you can see them visibly learning”. His experience was energising, taking him back to the office on a high and with real benefits to show for his time: “I’ve got a whole bunch of new contacts, new presentation techniques from other presenters, and most importantly feel I’ve helped people from some fantastic organisations do their marketing better – and so helped them do more social good.”
With feedback from the event’s participants including “The best bit of the event? David’s guidelines”, “the speakers were very informative and engaging”, and “I’ll be taking back new confidence and understanding about marketing”, there’s no doubt David’s warm and fuzzy feeling is deserved.
Media Trust’s well-established programme of communications workshops and conferences enables charities, community groups and social enterprises to develop skills, increase knowledge and build confidence in all aspects of communications.
Professionals from all sectors volunteer their time to share their knowledge with non-profit audience so that through improved communications they can achieve better results for their cause. It’s a mutual benefit, because their volunteers are learning too: delivering thought-provoking presentations, developing engaging workshop exercises, explaining tricky concepts, chairing discussions and encouraging participation.
What could you learn by contributing to Media Trust’s events programme? Take a look and see where your skills fit. If you’re interested, please register as a volunteer. Alternatively if you want to talk through how your skills might help, or want to attend any of the events yourself, get in touch at events@mediatrust.org or call 020 7871 5600.