Recruiting Volunteers through Sainsbury’s employees and customers

The Scout Association has embarked on an exciting 3-year project with Sainsbury’s and the new youth volunteering charity v to promote volunteering opportunities to young people aged 16-25.

Sainsbury’s is donating £150,000 to the Scouts, which will be directly matched by v, with the aim of recruiting over 1,000 new youth volunteers into Scouting.  This money will be spent on marketing the opportunities that Scouting offers to Sainsbury’s colleagues, their families and customers. This will be done through a number of different methods including advertising in Sainsbury’s magazine and websites, in store events, articles and interviews in employee newsletters as well as the presence of Scout Groups in their local stores during Scout Community Week.

By engaging its own colleagues into the recruitment drive, Sainsbury’s hopes that colleagues will benefit from the personal development opportunities available through the Scouts training programme. All volunteers will be eligible for full accreditation that reflects the skills and knowledge learned; skills that are easily transferred into the work environment.

Imelda Walsh, Sainsbury’s HR Director commented: “Through our own ‘flagship’ volunteering programme Local Heroes, we recognise and reward our colleagues that volunteer or fundraise in support of charities and other good causes in the local community. We have a target of engaging 5,000 colleagues through Local Heroes. Young volunteers are under-represented; so our plans for the Scouts and v give us the opportunity to better engage the younger members of our workforce.”

To see the advert in the June issue of Fresh Ideas magazine click here.

To find out more about v, go to www.vinspired.com

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