What you said about volunteering at Sacred Heart Mission

If Sacred Heart Mission has a heartbeat, it’s our volunteers. Every day you serve meals, sort clothes, help customers, plant gardens, build databases, start conversations, grow friendships, hold art and tai chi classes, and do a thousand other things that keep our services and op shops running.

This year, we asked volunteers and staff to participate in an honest review of our Volunteer Program, so it can remain meaningful, relevant and rewarding. Hundreds of people participated in surveys and focus groups.

What we heard from you

First, the best news: we’ve learned that volunteering here gives people a real sense of purpose and connection – and we absolutely love hearing that.

Volunteers and staff also gave us a clear challenge: to modernise the program and strengthen it in key areas such as onboarding, training, communication and volunteer recognition.

Five priority areas

Over the next 12 months we’ll begin work on five priority areas, including:

1. Improving how we support volunteers day-to-day by updating our strategy, systems, processes and the way we collect data.
2. Implementing a modern volunteer management system to better support people across the volunteer journey.
3. Improving learning opportunities and strengthening safety and support by developing new training in de-escalation and trauma-informed practice.
4. Strengthening our recruitment and onboarding, introducing screening and improved matching of volunteer capabilities.
5. Establishing a volunteer advisory group so volunteer voices are part of ongoing conversations and decisions about the program.

This work will take time

We want to get this right for our volunteers and staff, with the resources available to us. So we’ll work through it in stages. The next step is to develop a new volunteer strategy, based on the review outcomes and priorities.

Get in touch if you’d like a copy of the review or want more information.