Furlunteering UK – matching furloughed staff to charities needing support
Howard Lake | 13 April 2020 | Blogs
Furlunteer: to give time or skills to a charity, whilst being furloughed from an employer.
For many of the UK’s 166,000 charities, this is not the time to be onboarding new volunteers.
For many of the estimated nine million Brits who will be furloughed under the government’s Job Retention Scheme, this is not the time to be thinking about supporting a charity.
That said, for some charities, and for some furloughed workers, there is a connection to be made.
Matching skills with need
On balance a charity may feel that they can benefit from a few hours, days or weeks with an accountant, graphic designer, data scientist or marketer.
An employee, prevented from working for the employer who has furloughed them, may decide that they want to make a difference, to an organisation and to others.
A timely idea
Furlunteering is nothing more and nothing less than a timely idea. It is not an “organisation”, “scheme” or “initiative”.
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• Individuals can begin to identify as potential furlunteers, through their LinkedIn profiles and Twitter handles, to more easily be found.
• Charities can share that they are seeking furlunteers, to more easily be supported.
• Agencies and job-boards can begin to use the language of furlunteers and furlunteering.
Furlunteering is not for every charity, and it is not for every employee. For some though, this simple idea, connecting furloughed workers with charities, will make a difference. Charities, employers and agencies are encouraged to unleash this into the mainstream and promote furlunteering to their stakeholders and networks.
More than 9m workers are expected to be furloughed (BBC)
Thousands of charities are under threat.
Here's an idea;
Furlunteering UK.
Thousands of furloughed workers, giving their time and skills to help others. Enabled by @LinkedIn @Twitter and @Facebook #iFurlunteer pic.twitter.com/yG0vIKwQaj
— Oli Barrett (@OliBarrett) April 8, 2020
#iFurlunteer #Furlunteer #Furlunteering
Oli Barrett MBE is a serial founder who enjoys making useful connections between people and ideas. He created Tenner, the UK’s largest schools enterprise challenge, in which over 250,000 pupils have made money and made a difference in a month, starting with just ten pounds. He co-founded Volunteer It Yourself (VIY), the social venture, which has helped thousands of young people to fix their own youth clubs. He is also the founder of TOTS (Turn on the Subtitles), the children’s literacy campaign.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.