As a staff member at King's College London, you are encouraged to volunteer and give back to the community. King's offer all staff Service Time - up to 21 hours (3 days) to volunteer for a worthwhile cause. Many teams at King's like to use their Service Time to volunteer for a day as a team building activity so we have put together a handy guide to help you organise your own team volunteering day:
1. Work out your dates, numbers and budget
When organising a team day, make sure you know how many people from your team you expect to attend before you contact the charity. It's also important to consider your budget. Many charities offer corporate volunteering days at around a £50-80 per person due to the time and effort that goes into training people up and supervising. Finally, make sure you are giving plenty of notice to the charity when you suggest possible dates.
2. Find a charity or community organisation
Many charities and community organisations across London offer corporate volunteering days so there are lots to choose from! Consider what type of activity your team would like to do or if a particular organisation fits with your team values. Do you want to volunteer indoors or outdoors? What are the accessibility requirements of your team - will everyone be comfortable with manual labour roles? These are all things to consider in your search.
Below, you will find a list of King's Volunteering charity partners that offer team volunteering days but if these don't suit your needs and interests, there will be other options available through a quick Google search.
3. Reach out to the charity or community organisation
Once you've decided which charity or community organisation you'd like to go with, reach out via the relevant contact details on their website.
4. Let us know!
At King's Volunteering, we love to hear about all the volunteering that students and staff are involved in! Let us know once you have organised your volunteering day and we can help you to put a story together to share with other staff at King's. You can contact us at volunteer@kcl.ac.uk.
When you've completed your volunteering, make sure your team log their volunteering hours on the King's Volunteering platform to help us record the impact of the King's community and make them eligible for our reward and recognition scheme.
King's Volunteering charity partners that offer team volunteering days:
Please note that we cannot guarantee the prices below are all accurate and up-to-date. Please contact the charities directly for up-to-date quotes.
East-London based charity supporting people affected by homelessness.
Full day volunteering - £80 p/person, supporting the team in the kitchen to cook and serve food for beneficiaries.
London’s oldest central city Farm, that provides educational, recreational, and therapeutic support for children.
Half day volunteering - £36 p/person or full day volunteering - £62 p/person
Connects people and green spaces, working together to improve the places people live.
Full day of volunteering, £50 + VAT p/person
A baby bank providing families in need with clothes, toys and equipment for babies and children up to the age of 5.
Full day volunteering - £65 p/person
Rescuing goods and surplus food from the industry that would otherwise go to waste and redistributing it into the community.
Full day volunteering - £50 p/person
Cooking and serving meals from food that would have otherwise gone to waste to people in local communities.
They don’t typically have the capacity to take on big groups, but if you organise well – members of the team can register individually on their online portal and arrange to attend the same sessions as colleagues. These roles are really popular, so you will have to be sign up as soon as the window to volunteer is open.
Volunteers will help refurbish laptops, so that they can be re-used by those who need them.
Read about King's Business School Business Support Team's volunteering day with Community TechAid.
Amurt London Feeding Programme
Helps to reduce food poverty amongst the homeless and other vulnerable individuals, families and households.
They have a suggested donation for each type of activity.
Provides multi-sensory books for people with learning disabilities. Volunteers will be supporting the team to create multi-sensory books.
Approximately £80 p/person
A brokerage organisation that connect corporates to community organisations, and do all the management and organisation for you.
Related Opportunities
The role of a reading helper places you in the heart of primary school life. You’ll be leading reading sessions that bring a positive reading experience to children outside of the classroom. Children will benefit from someone giving them 1:1 support.
We run a monthly three course meal for isolated older people with live entertainment. Volunteers are vital to the dinner as with out them it would not go ahead. They provide a variety of roles.
In - Deep run music therapy sessions for children and young adults with send aged 3 - 25 with qualified music therapists and in age appropriate groups. Volunteers help support the children as well the running of the sessions.
