Register your organisation Service level agreement Organisation login
Register as an external provider
Falmouth and Exeter Students' Union offers a volunteer support service to the students of Falmouth University and University of Exeter Cornwall Campuses during their time in Cornwall. The SU has over 600 students year on year who are eager to engage in a variety of volunteering activities within the local and wider community.
If you are a local or national charity, voluntary or not for profit organisation interested in promoting your volunteering roles to our students, then please take a look at the Advertising to our Volunteers section below to find out how you can get involved.
Please email activities@thesu.org.uk for more information or support.
Advertising to our volunteers
Step One: Register Your Organisation
Complete our online registration form to create a profile. Organisations can have more than one member of staff who can administer this profile using their own log-in details.
Before registering, please make sure you look through our Service Level Agreement and FAQs to ensure that your volunteering opportunities are something that we are able to advertise. You will also need a copy of your Public Liability Insurance, a volunteer risk assessment and organisation logo to complete the registration process.
Step Two: Upload Your Opportunities
Once we have received and approved your registration form, an email will be sent out inviting you to log back in and start uploading your volunteer opportunities. Once your advert has been approved by our team, students will be able to search for your organisation and opportunities on our database and register their interest in volunteering for you. You will hold full editing rights over your advert and can log in to make edits at any point. When uploading your opportunities, try to include as much detail as possible on the role within the word limit (location, time commitment frequency, time of day, level of flexibility, etc) so students know what is expected of them.
Step Three: Contact Interested Volunteers
When a potential volunteer expresses interest in your opportunity, you will receive an automatic email which will invite you to make contact with them. You will then be able to discuss the recruitment process and expectations further.
The contact details of the volunteer can be retrieved under the 'Volunteers' tab once you're logged back into your organisation profile and relevant opportunity. Students should not be expected to make contact with an opportunity provider directly, and we ask that you make contact within five working days of them expressing an interest.
Step Four: Promotion support from the Students' Union
We will do what we can to promote your opportunity to students via social media, our e-newsletter, website and communications with individual academic schools.
Registered organisations will also receive an invite to our annual Volunteer Fayre and are welcome to host events (for example, training and induction talks) on campus throughout the term and book stalls free of charge, dependent on covid regulations.
Please let us know if there is something that we can do to support you to recruit the right students for your roles.
Step Five: Keep in touch!
In order to ensure that we are offering our students the appropriate level of support and recognition, we require all partner organisations to keep a record of the names of students who are volunteering with them, and we will be in touch periodically to request this information.
We also like to know about your experience and how well our students are working with you. Please do let us know if you have any concerns so we can appropriately assist you. Drop us an email at activities@thesu.org.uk.
FAQs
What is a service level agreement?
This is a set of terms and conditions regarding the responsibilities to student volunteers, which we both need to agree to. This was introduced in light of child protection and adults at risk legislation and guidance and to ensure that we promote the best opportunities to our students.
Read the full service level agreement here.
Does the service cost anything?
Registering is completely free to all local and national charity, voluntary and not-for-profit organisations.
What kind of volunteering are students looking for?
Students respond really well to both long-term and one-day volunteering activities. Students want to be given a meaningful role with a sense of purpose and clear benefits. Availability varies from student to student, however, opportunities on Wednesday afternoons, in the evening (4.30pm onwards) and on the weekends are the most successful when trying to attract larger numbers of volunteers.
Opportunities that offer support with travel expenses will be more attractive to students with the rural nature of Cornwall. When uploading volunteering opportunities try to include as much detail on the role, location and time commitment (frequency, time of day, level of flexibility, etc) so that students know what can be expected of them. Additional training can also be a big draw.
What roles won't we promote on our website?
We want to promote volunteering opportunities which students genuinely want to do- roles that challenge them, develop their skills, or provide the opportunity to work directly with end users.
All roles advertised need to be open to all students (regardless of personal attributes such as faith, gender, age, background, etc) and roles cannot involve students recruiting members for or promoting the tenants or a particular faith or political leaning. Roles cannot be roles in which volunteers and paid staff have the same responsibilities, or roles which ask for a time commitment of more than the equivalent of one day per week.
The Students' Union holds the right to refuse any advert they deem unsuitable and may request further information.