Did you know... Hospices need to raise over £1 million per day to keep going

Employee volunteering

Would you like your colleagues to support their local hospice? Your workplace and your hospice can benefit when employees volunteer. Help the Hospices can put your company in touch with local hospices across the UK to provide volunteering opportunities.

How volunteering helps us

Without volunteers hospices could not continue the work that they do. A study by Help the Hospices in 2006 found the economic value of volunteers to independent charitable hospices in the UK is estimated to be over £112 million.

Whether they provide professional advice or get their hands dirty weeding a garden, your staff’s skills and time could be invaluable to a local hospice.

How your workplace can help

With over 200 hospices in the UK, there is probably one near your workplace which some of your colleagues already support. If not, you can find your nearest hospice by using our hospice directory. Then just phone and ask to speak to the person responsible for recruiting volunteers.

You could help your local hospice in many ways, either individually or as a group, by:

promoting volunteering opportunities on your company’s intranet or noticeboards, in newsletters or at staff meetings
helping at hospice fundraising events such as sponsored walks, ‘Light up a Life’, charity balls or concerts
setting up team challenges involving garden ‘makeovers’, decorating or general maintenance
using your company’s specialist skills, for example in IT, marketing or retail
getting your employer to match money raised from your colleagues’ own fundraising events.

How volunteering helps you

Taking part in a volunteering activity could help to motivate your staff and build team morale, as well as providing them with important life skills.

"We gained so much from working with Help the Hospices on our community event. Because the hospices were located near to all of our places of work, our people were able to volunteer at a local hospice in their community. This really helped build employee engagement; our people were able to get to know one another while doing something that made them feel really proud and that made such a difference."

Simplyhealth volunteer, 2007

Employee volunteering in practice

Watch the Simplyhealth volunteering video to find out how they made a difference to their local hospices and how the employer, employees and hospices benefited.

Further information

You can find out more about volunteering on the main volunteering page of our website.