What better way to embrace the spirit of the season than by giving your time and skills to a cause close to your heart? King’s Volunteering offers the opportunity for you to connect with charities and community partners where you can make a difference through volunteering.

Whether you’ve volunteered before or are new to it, King’s Volunteering is here to guide you every step of the way, with hundreds of roles available, support to help you find the right opportunity and rewards and recognition to celebrate and thank you for your contribution to your community.

Don’t let your Service Time go unused

King’s staff members are entitled to up to 21 hours of Service Time each year (pro-rated for part-time staff) to volunteer for a cause of their choice. This dedicated time for volunteering is a fantastic way to give back while contributing to King’s mission of service to society.

Service Time is flexible, meaning you don’t need to use it all at once. Whether you take a full day, half day, or even just an hour a week over several months, the time is yours to use to support a cause that matters to you.

Within the King’s Volunteering Team, we all use our Service Time in different ways. Anna Joynson, our Engagement Officer, uses her Service Time to make weekly half-an-hour befriending calls to an older woman experiencing loneliness with Re-Engage, choosing to spread her Service Time across the year. Whilst Naureen Abubacker, our Partnerships Manager, chooses to volunteer with organisations like FoodCycle and Little Village who offer one-off volunteering days.

You can volunteer for a wide range of activities and your chosen activity can be with any charity or community organisation outside of King’s, giving you complete freedom to support a cause that resonates with you.

Don’t forget to log your Service Time hours (and any other volunteering you do!) on the King’s Volunteering platform to help us track our collective impact. By doing so, you’ll also be eligible for our reward and recognition scheme, which includes digital credentials that can be shared with your network on LinkedIn.

Service Time renews annually on 1 January, just like your annual leave, so make the most of your remaining hours before the clock resets!

Find out more about Service Time here.

Service Time Spotlight: Vin Cox, Senior Enterprise Systems Analyst, uses his Service Time to support his passion for cycling whilst gaining valuable leadership experience

“I found my volunteering roles away from the official King’s Volunteering platform but was very much prompted to volunteer by engagement with the volunteering team and by the Service Time policy. These factors encouraged me to step forward, rather than say I’d not got time or needed to focus on my family or career.

“First, I took up a role as a director of a Community Interest Company trying to create a bicycling facility near our Cornwall IT office. Then, boosted by that experience, I took up a role on British Cycling’s technical commission for cyclo-cross, becoming a member of the executive which directs the sport nationally. I’ve served on that commission for over a year now, chaired a national conference recently, and will take a Service day this month to attend an in-person meeting in Manchester at the National Cycling Centre with the other commissioners and the staff of British Cycling.

“This opportunity to help the sport through volunteering is great leadership experience, aiding my personal development and helping me to gain skills which may be transferable to my future at King’s.” 

 

Discover Opportunities on the King’s Volunteering Platform

If you’re looking for a way to use your Service Time or you’re looking for a volunteering role outside of your working hours, the King’s Volunteering platform is a great place to start. With over 150 volunteering roles available from nearly 100 trusted charity and community partners, there’s something for everyone.

The platform is easy to use—just log in with your King’s credentials, create your profile, and browse opportunities. You can filter roles by location or cause to find one that fits your interests and schedule.

Sign up to the King’s Volunteering platform today.

Charity Partner Spotlight: The Felix Project

The Felix Project is a London-based charity partnered with King’s Volunteering. At The Felix Project, they rescue good, surplus food that cannot be sold and would otherwise go to waste and deliver it to hundreds of food banks, charities, primary schools and holiday programmes across the city.

This festive season, The Felix Project is seeking volunteers to help redistribute surplus food to those in need. Shifts are available between 23 December and 3 January, making it a wonderful way to give back over the Christmas period.

The Felix Project is just one of almost 100 charities seeking volunteers from King’s via the King’s Volunteering platform. Explore all available volunteering opportunities.

Other ways to get involved with King’s Volunteering

Join a King’s Volunteering event

King’s Volunteering runs a variety of events throughout the year to inspire and engage the King’s community, creating pathways for meaningful action. These include webinars, tours to our local community partners, including to the Royal Ballet and Opera and the London Transport Museum, one-off volunteering days and micro-volunteering craft workshops to name just a few.

The King’s Volunteering Fairs are flagship events held during Student Volunteering Week in February. These fairs serve as vibrant hubs for staff and students to connect with charities and community organisations offering a wide range of volunteering opportunities to get involved in.

In February 2025, we're excited to bring you two King’s Volunteering Fairs, taking place across Guy’s and Strand campuses! Stay tuned for more details by registering to receive event updates, but for now, make sure to save the dates:

King’s Volunteering Fair (Guy’s Campus): Wednesday 12th February 14:30-17:30 in the Jean Hanson Room, Henriette Raphael Building

King’s Volunteering Fair (Strand Campus): Thursday 13th February 11:00-15:00 in the Studio (next to The Shack), Bush House, South East Wing

Be part of a King’s Volunteering campaign

King’s Volunteering runs campaigns throughout the year to raise awareness and inspire action. Our current campaign focuses on tackling period poverty in partnership with The Pachamama Project, encouraging the King’s community to sew reusable sanitary pads for refugees around the world.

If you have a sewing machine, you can create “Pacha Pads” from home and drop them off at our Donation Stations across King’s campuses. Alternatively, you can make the fabric bags they’re gifted in—no sewing machine required.

Gillian Sherwin-Lee, CRM Operations Manager within Brand and Marketing, has already made 29 beautiful pads (pictured above) to contribute to the campaign:

“I’ve been interested in the intersection between craft and activism since I began crafting as a teenager. This project is a perfect fit as I want to support those dealing with period poverty and I learnt how to machine sew this year. Many women are placed in harrowing situations because of period poverty and I want to help in any small way I can.”

 

Read more about this project and find out how you can get involved

Sign up to the King’s Volunteering platform and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn (@ServiceAtKings) to stay updated with future campaigns.

Take part in a King’s Board Bank programme to become a charity trustee or school governor

Designed to support staff and students in becoming charity trustees or school governors, King’s Board Bank offers two programmes to open doors to high-impact roles in governance and leadership.

King’s staff can apply to the Board Bank: Aspiring Trustees Programme run in collaboration with Organisational Development and undertake comprehensive training on what it takes to become a charity trustee. The programme is aimed at anyone who is looking for an opportunity to gain leadership experience and new skills whilst also supporting a deserving cause.

Join our in-person information session on 6 February 2025 to find out more before applications open in February 2025.

Samantha Wright, Head of Global & UK Payroll and Pensions at King’s, participated in the programme for aspiring trustees last year and went on to secure a role with Resonate Arts, a charity who produce a programme of creative activities with and for people living with a dementia, their families and carers:

“I really enjoyed being part of the programme, more than anything it was great to be part of a group of people at King’s who are passionate about making change, and who are willing to give their time, effort, and energy to make change in their community.”

Read more about how King’s Volunteering is supporting the King’s community to become charity trustees and school governors, including information about the Pathway to Governance Programme run in partnership with Governors for Schools.

Already volunteering? Log your hours and share your story.

If you are already a seasoned volunteer, we would love to hear from you! Logging your volunteering hours on the King’s Volunteering platform makes you eligible for rewards and helps us to measure King’s collective impact. We also love to hear your volunteering stories as they can help to inspire others at King’s to volunteer too.

Our Reward and Recognition scheme has been designed to celebrate and thank King’s staff and students for their contributions to our local, national, and global community, through volunteering. By logging your hours on the platform, you will receive digital credentials which can be embedded on your LinkedIn profile and other rewards including King’s Move points and King’s Volunteering tote bags.

As well as logging your hours on the platform, you can also share your volunteering story via our submission form to motivate fellow staff and students to get involved and to highlight the incredible work of the organisations you're supporting. If you'd like to encourage others to make a difference or shine a light on a cause you care about, we’d love to hear from you!

Stay updated with King’s Volunteering’s events, activities and opportunities by signing up to the King’s Volunteering platform and following us @ServiceAtKings on Instagram and LinkedIn.