The feedback and survey responses that we receive from volunteers and their volunteer managers is invaluable. It tells us a lot about the volunteering experience at Guide dogs - from the ‘big picture’ or national trends to the details at role or local level. Thank you for taking the time to share your views - whether this was part of our bi-annual Volunteer Impact Assessment, or in-depth research into puppy raising.
As a volunteer, you will already know that the time you give to Guide Dogs enables us to together deliver our mission- to support people living with sight loss to live the life they choose. Volunteering alongside you is another 17,000 volunteers and together, you donate approximately 20 million hours of your time a year! Wow! Guide Dogs simply could not do what we do without you.
Volunteers give time in a lot of different ways, from supporting the development and welfare of our dogs, to fundraising and from sighted guiding, to raising awareness and supporting the smooth running of our sites. Whichever way you give your time, we want to thank you for your support. We also need you to help us understand what we are doing well and what we can improve. The Volunteer View survey is one way for us to hear your views and opinions.
In previous years we asked volunteers to complete the Volunteer Impact Assessment (VIA). You fed back that you wanted to share your views, but we were asking too many questions, and that the survey was too complicated and time consuming to complete. We listened and in response created the new (and hopefully you will agree improved) Volunteer View survey. This survey, sent to you in September 2023, was designed to make it quicker and easier for you to give us your feedback and for us to respond to what you told us.
We are pleased to say it worked, and you responded. We saw an uplift of 7% on the previous survey, with 2973 responses, a figure we hope will continue to grow with subsequent surveys. If you did not respond this time round, please do watch out for coming surveys, we will send out the Volunteer View every two years, but we will email out shorter pulse surveys between these. Pulse surveys enable us to quickly hear your views throughout the year.
The Volunteer View contained scaled response questions (strongly agree to strongly disagree) and free text responses. It was anonymous, which means we were able to draw out general themes from our volunteer community, however, it also means we are unable to respond to individual feedback.
Since you completed the survey, we have been busy collating the responses and we are now pleased to share the findings with you. As you read this summary, we know that you’ll be thinking ‘what next?’
While we are thrilled that 84% of you would recommend Guide Dogs as a great place to volunteer, we acknowledge there are some areas that we need to improve.
Your feedback has helped us to identify four key areas of focus. These are:
Over the coming months we will be focusing on the above areas. Our commitment to you is that we want Guide Dogs to be a fantastic place to volunteer. In return, we ask that you continue to give your time (a huge THANK YOU for doing so) and each month you read our volunteer e-newsletter, The Guide, where we will be sharing improvement updates in a ‘you said, we did’ section.
You will note this month in the ‘you said, we did’ section (April 2024) our focus is on improving communication with volunteers in dog related roles. You told us it was of upmost importance to know how puppies you raised were. So, we looked at our ways of working and from this month you can contact us at any point in a dog’s journey to find out how your puppy (now likely a fully grown dog) is making a difference.
Looking ahead to next month, we are keen to tell you how we’re making it easier for you to get involved in your local fundraising group. You told us you want to connect with fellow volunteers and give your time in lots of different ways, so we are making it happen.
Thank you once again for sharing your experience in the Volunteer View.