Reach Volunteering, the UK’s leading skills-based volunteering charity, has launched an upgrade to its digital platform to make it even easier for charities and community groups to tap into professional expertise.

Established in 1979, Reach Volunteering first launched a digital volunteering platform ten years ago, since when the number of people volunteering their skills through the charity has increased tenfold.

Last year alone, more than 16,000 people volunteered through Reach, contributing skills worth an estimated £60 million to charities, community organisations and grassroots groups across the UK.

Importantly, at a time when charities are struggling to recruit to their boards, Reach is now the largest single source of trustees for the voluntary sector, filling 1,515 board vacancies in 2024.

Reach’s CEO, Janet Thorne, explained how the platform upgrade will help the charity continue this success: “Reach’s mission has always been to help charities and social purpose organisations build a better society by connecting them with the skills they need to thrive. Our online platform has been key to this – enabling us to grow at scale while responding to the real needs of both volunteers and organisations.

“In recent years, we’ve seen a more collaborative kind of volunteering emerge – organisations are inviting volunteers to help shape their role, and even the organisations themselves. Our platform supports this by focusing recruitment on the difference volunteers can make, and by providing tools that encourage purposeful, two-way conversations.

“These roles offer volunteers the opportunity to make a really meaningful difference, and they have attracted a broad range of volunteers – of different ages, backgrounds and professions – who are eager to contribute their skills to causes they care about.

“With this strong and more diverse community and a growing appetite for flexible volunteering, our new platform upgrade will help us build on this success. It will enable new features such as our ‘Ask a Question’ pilot, giving charities quick access to specialist expertise, and volunteers will have even more ways to make a difference in just a small amount of time.”

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Dom Tinley, Digital and Strategy Consultant at Tinley Media, was a trustee with Reach when the original platform launched. He said: “Reach always understood that technology was there to support its mission, not change its mission, and to work for its users above all else. It’s this clarity that made the project such a success, and the reason it’s still here ten years on.

“The project was truly transformational for Reach, taking it from a paper-based volunteer matching service that was constrained by available resources, to a digital service that could grow at scale, while keeping to a tight budget with a lean team.”

Commenting on the launch of the new platform, Jane Ide, Chief Executive of ACEVO, and Chair of Trustees at Reach said: “I’m very excited to see Reach Volunteering’s new platform go live – as a proud Chair, I know only too well how much work and commitment the team has put into it behind the scenes.

“It’s a further iteration of Reach’s superb service to our sector which has enabled thousands of skilled volunteers to make connections, give their time and their ability and have real  impact across thousands of charities and voluntary organisations over the years.”