Careers talk
"What my job is really like." About 1 hour.
Volunteering and skills
Your team's skills, where they're needed
A careers talk, an assembly, an hour of finance help or a team day. Local schools and charities ask for help, businesses offer it, and the school or charity confirms what happened.
Ideas that work well
Assembly
a short talk to a year group or whole school, for example on safety. 30 to 60 minutes.
Mentoring
regular short sessions with a pupil or young person. A few sessions over a term.
Finance, HR or legal help
a few hours of professional advice for a school or charity.
Digital and marketing
help with a website, social media or a poster.
STEM session
a science, engineering or maths club activity. 1 to 2 hours.
Team day
painting, gardening or a clear-out. Half a day or a full day.
Not everything has to be a full day. Short, flexible activities are often the most useful.
How it works
Schools and charities ask
Help wanted
A school or charity posts what it needs: what, roughly how many hours, where and by when.
A business offers to help. The school or charity accepts.
They agree a date.
Afterwards, the school or charity confirms the hours, the number of volunteers and how many people it reached.
Businesses offer
Skills on offer
A business lists what it can give, for example "Careers talk, 1 hour, available until March".
Schools and charities nearby request it.
The business picks who to help and they agree a date.
Afterwards, the school or charity confirms what happened.
For businesses
- Fits around your volunteering days. Offer as much or as little as you like.
- Every activity is confirmed by the school or charity, so your record is one you can trust.
- Hours, volunteers and people reached appear on your dashboard, in your reports and in a spreadsheet download.
- Optional: account owners can add a private staff time cost for HR or finance. It is never shown to the school or charity, never shown publicly, and never added to your giving total.
- Schools and charities can thank you publicly, with wording you can share.
For schools and charities
- It's free.
- Be specific. "Careers talk for Year 9, about 60 pupils, 1 hour, any Tuesday in November" gets more offers than "help with careers".
- Say what difference it will make, in a sentence.
- Please don't include anyone's personal details.
Checks and safeguarding
CommuniTie connects you and keeps the record. Checks, insurance and safeguarding are arranged between the school or charity and the business.
- The school or charity decides what it needs from visitors, and follows its own safeguarding policy.
- For visits on site, the school or charity confirms it has made its own checks before a date is agreed. CommuniTie records who confirmed it and when.
- CommuniTie does not collect or store copies of DBS certificates.
How volunteering is recorded
Volunteering is counted in hours, volunteers and people reached. We don't turn hours into a money value. People reached is the school or charity's own figure and counts once.
Questions
Does it cost anything?
It's free for schools and charities, and there's no monthly fee for businesses during the Bedford pilot.
Can our staff volunteer remotely?
Yes. Needs and offers can be remote, on site, or either.
What if the activity doesn't happen?
The school or charity can record that it didn't happen. It isn't counted.
Who confirms the hours?
The school or charity that was helped, after the date.