Across Berkeley Group, hundreds of colleagues sign up to volunteer each year. It’s a brilliant way to spend a day supporting a cause close to your heart and learn more about our charity partners and their impact.
We’re hugely grateful to everyone who takes time out to volunteer, and we hope that it’s a rewarding experience for everyone who signs up. To capture feedback, we launched a survey in June 2024 and have already had over 100 responses. Headline data demonstrates that 49% of respondents were volunteering for the first time.
100% of respondents said they’d like to volunteer again, which is a fantastic success rate! In addition, respondents selected ‘Strongly agree’ or ‘Agree’ to the following statements:
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93% - I feel that I made a difference
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84% - I feel better connected to the communities in which the Berkeley Group operates
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85% - I feel better connected to the Berkeley Group as a responsible business
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99% - I feel spending time volunteering gave me a sense of positive wellbeing
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96% - I feel the sign-up process was well organised and I had the information that I needed in advance
All Berkeley businesses have a volunteering policy, so do check in with your line manager for an update on the policy for your office. You can volunteer with any charity, but if you choose to do so with one of the Foundation’s partners, your time will also be match funded.
Our Winter Volunteering Campaign ran between November 2024 and January 2025. During this time, 98 staff gave over 500 hours of time generating over £32,000 of match funding.
Andie Shore, Contract Co-ordinator at Berkeley’s Head office, spent a day with our Strategic Partner MyBnk. We asked how she found it:
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Tell us what happened on the day?
- I had previously been briefed, through various communications including a training video, and MyBnk’s trainer Debbie introduced me to the other people who would be carrying out presentations and explained the timetable for the sessions.
The students arrived for their introduction briefing in the main room, before they were split into smaller groups. During each session Debbie spoke to the students about scam texts, showed them things to look out for and advised how they could check if a text was genuine or a scam. We took time to go round and speak to pairs of children about their thoughts on the exercise, helping to refer them back to the points Debbie had raised in order to help them with the task. Once they’d had time to identify if the texts were scams or not, Debbie rounded off the session by asking them what they thought, and reiterated some points for them to take away with them.
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Would you recommend volunteering to your colleagues?
- Absolutely! Firstly, it’s good to get out of the office and try something different. Secondly, it’s a great opportunity to work closely with our charity partners, get an understanding of what they do, what they stand for and see first hand how they’re helping people. Finally, it’s really good to be able to give something back to our local communities and get that sense of achievement.
The added bonus that we get to do this on company time, as well as the match funding that Berkeley offers the charities, makes it a no brainer!
Follow Andie’s example and sign up now for your volunteering day. All current opportunities are on our Volunteering Hub.