We have made it easier for your VCSE organisation to add volunteering opportunities to our website with the launch of a new system on 11 September.
To explain a little more, we’ve answered the following questions depending on whether you had an account on our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management System (powered by Be Collective), whether you had active roles you were recruiting at the time we changed over to our new system, and whether we have contacted you for more information about them.
If you had an account and active roles on our previous system (and we haven't asked you for more information)
Are my roles on your new platform?
Any active opportunities you had on our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective) have been copied over to our new simplified system. You can see them by going to our usual Volunteering Opportunities page, and under “Refine search by” “Organisation Name”, selecting your organisation.
If you want to make any amendments to these roles:
Get in contact with us via Volunteering@YorkCVS.org.uk and we can any amendments on your behalf.
If you want to add any more roles:
Just head to our usual Volunteer Recruitment page and fill out the simple form.
Can people still apply or contact me via your old platform?
Yes. Any opportunities you had on our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective) will still appear nationally on Be Collective’s website until the closing dates you’ve set (or indefinitely if they don’t have a closing date).
If you don’t want to advertise or receive applications through Be Collective as well as our new incoming simplified system:
Go to Be Collective’s website and login using the email and password you usually used to login in to our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective). Then follow this guide to shut down your organisation’s account on Be Collective. Be Collective will notify any volunteers who applied through the system that you’ve stopped using the system so you may want to warn volunteers in advance to expect and ignore any notifications from them.
If you still want to continue using the features of our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective):
For example, for monitoring your volunteer hours etc, you can do, you will just need to do it directly through the Be Collective main website, as our previous portal to this platform is no longer be available on our website. Please note your use of Be Collective+ features will end in January 2024.
If you had an account and active roles on our previous system (and we have asked you for more information)
Are my roles on your new platform?
Any active role(s) you had on our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective) were copied over to our new simplified system, however we were missing some information relating to how volunteers can apply for your role(s) so it was hidden from public view until we received this information from you.
If you haven’t already replied with alternative application information:
We need you to do either of the following options:
1) Please check your emails from Volunteering@YorkCVS.org.uk and respond with alternative application information. This might be:
- An application form Word document that you want emailed to a specific address
- A link to a volunteer application form on your website
- An email address or a phone number for interested volunteers to contact first to learn more about applying
2) Upload your opportunities afresh, by going to our usual Volunteer Recruitment page and filling out the simple form.
If you have already replied with alternative application information:
Your roles will have been updated and made public. You can see them by going to our usual Volunteering Opportunities page, and under “Refine search by” “Organisation Name”, selecting your organisation.
If you want to make any amendments to these roles:
Get in contact with us via Volunteering@YorkCVS.org.uk and we can any amendments on your behalf.
If you want to add any more roles:
Just head to our usual Volunteer Recruitment page and fill out the simple form.
Can people still apply or contact me via your old platform?
Yes. Any opportunities you had on our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective) will still appear nationally on Be Collective’s website until the closing dates you’ve set (or indefinitely if they don’t have a closing date).
If you don’t want to advertise or receive applications through Be Collective as well as our new incoming simplified system:
Go to Be Collective’s website and login using the email and password you usually used to login in to our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective). Then follow this guide to shut down your organisation’s account on Be Collective. Be Collective will notify any volunteers who applied through the system that you’ve stopped using the system so you may want to warn volunteers in advance to expect and ignore any notifications from them.
If you still want to continue using the features of our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective):
For example, for monitoring your volunteer hours etc, you can do, you will just need to do it directly through the Be Collective main website, as our previous portal to this platform is no longer be available on our website. Please note your use of Be Collective+ features will end in January 2024.
If you had an account on our previous system but no active roles when we transferred
Are my roles on your new platform?
No. You didn’t have any roles you were actively recruiting for at the time we changed from our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective) to our new simplified system.
Can I add roles to your website?
Absolutely, we’d love to help promote your volunteer vacancies; just head to our usual Volunteer Recruitment page and fill out the simple form.
Can people still apply or contact me via your old platform?
Maybe. Any opportunities you had on our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective) should have expired or been closed by you in the past. However, your organisations group will still appear nationally on Be Collective’s website so people using that website may still try to contact you via it.
If you don’t want to receive applications or messages through the national Be Collective website:
Go to Be Collective’s website and login using the email and password you usually used to login in to our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective). Then follow this guide to shut down your organisation’s account on Be Collective. Be Collective will notify any volunteers who applied through the system that you’ve stopped using the system so you may want to warn volunteers in advance to expect and ignore any notifications from them.
If you still want to continue using the features of our previous Volunteer Recruitment and Management system (powered by Be Collective):
For example, for monitoring your volunteer hours etc, you can do, you will just need to do it directly through the Be Collective main website, as our previous portal to this platform is no longer be available on our website. Please note your use of Be Collective+ features will end in January 2024.
If you didn't have an account on our previous system
You will be unaffected by any changes.
Can I add roles to your website?
Absolutely, we’d love to help promote your volunteer vacancies; just head to our usual Volunteer Recruitment page and fill out the simple form.
What has changed?
Recruitment only
Our new website facilitates Volunteer Recruitment only. There won’t be Volunteer Management features anymore, but we’ll still be hosting our Volunteer Management Forum and our other usual volunteer management support services.
Less admin
No setting up accounts. No logging in. No setting up different admin. No complicated help guides necessary. Just a short simple form that will prompt all the information we need.
No paywalls
No features will be behind paywalls – it’s really important to us that all our services are free for you to use!
More feedback
It’s a difficult climate for the VCSE sector and volunteering. We’ve seen a lot of Volunteer Centres across the country close down. We’ll continue to offer our services for free, but with ever more challenging impact targets, we may be asking for your help and support. We may need more feedback and details about the numbers of volunteers who come through our service so that we can evidence why this service is needed in our city now and in the future.
Why the change?
Simpler processes and more accessible
We received feedback from organisations that a simpler, less IT-reliant system, would make volunteer recruitment more accessible for them.
Keeping our services free
With our previous system, we took on additional costs to ensure VCSE organisations had access to all the free features the platform offered. However, when Be Collective changed their pricing plans, which meant lots of features started required individual organisations to pay, we decided it was time for a change.
Achieving York’s City Wide Volunteering Strategy
With our new process we can continue to achieve our intended aims for the system for recognition, sharing skills, and monitoring outlined in York’s City Wide Volunteering Strategy.
Able to easily fix things
Our previous system encountered a lot of errors and when things went wrong we were reliant on an office based in Australia to fix them. Our new system will be entirely owned by York CVS, so we’ll have more freedom to make the changes you want and fix things if they go wrong.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our York Volunteers Team via Volunteering@YorkCVS.org.uk