UEA Employer Supported Volunteering

UEA’s Employer Supported Volunteering (ESV) scheme enables staff to contribute their time, skills and experience to support local causes – reflecting UEA’s commitment as a Civic University.

As part of the scheme, every employee is entitled to one paid day per year (pro rata for part-time staff) to volunteer with a charity, community group or informal initiative.

Volunteering gives UEA staff the chance to actively contribute to the local community by applying their knowledge, skills and experience to support organisations in the Voluntary and Community Sector – whether through service delivery or strategic development.

It’s also a valuable opportunity to develop new skills, take on rewarding challenges and build connections with people outside the University.

This site helps connect UEA staff with voluntary organisations that could benefit from their time and expertise.

UEA employees bring a broad and diverse range of skills – from estates and buildings management to administration and policy-making, from health and safety to IT, and from academic expertise to event planning, retail and hospitality.

Whether it’s facilitating complex meetings, designing workflows or offering hands-on support, UEA staff have valuable experience to offer across many sectors.

Staff can take a day per year in one go or break it up, depending on what works best for you and for UEA. In this time they could prepare and deliver training, facilitate a meeting, advise on a tricky issue, build a process, write a first draft policy, give expert advice, or paint a wall or two.

Getting Involved

There are two simple ways to take part in the ESV scheme – whether you’re a UEA staff member looking to offer your time, or a voluntary organisation seeking support.

• UEA Staff – Use our form to share your skills and availability. We’ll post your offer here and help match you with organisations in need. If organisations want to take up your offer, they can email law.clinic@uea.ac.uk and we’ll help make the connection.
• Voluntary Organisations – Use our form to share an opportunity identifying what help you need. We’ll share your opportunity here for UEA staff to view and respond to.

The opportunity must meet the definition of volunteering found on GOV.UK. 

You may choose to volunteer for a charity or established community organisation. Alternatively, you may want to undertake ‘informal volunteering’, where individuals come together around a shared interest, but the volunteering is not organised through an organisation or an institution. This might involve getting together with friends or neighbours in their area to offer help, or seeking opportunities to help via local platforms or social media sites. We would encourage you to check what is involved and be open to these valid and worthwhile opportunities.

If you are intending to volunteer for an organisation, it must be non-profit. If you are unsure, you can check Register of Charities or its status with Companies House e.g. to see if it is a Community Interest Company. Please note that not all organisations will be listed here but it would be a useful starting point.

The volunteering :

• cannot adversely impact on service provision at UEA, so staff will need to discuss this with their managers and look at our internal ESV policy
• cannot bring the university into disrepute
• cannot involve any actual or potential conflict of interest with the university or its activities
• the activity must be non-party political

We advise all staff to take steps to ensure that the environment in which you're volunteering will be a safe one. For example you may ask to see risk assessments or policies about health and safety. For some opportunities, you may need to undergo an enhanced DBS check. A number of colleagues will have recent enhanced checks already in place.

Neither the University nor its partner charities/organisations are responsible for any travelling expenses incurred by staff volunteering under the scheme. However, some organisations may offer this and employees can accept this at their discretion.

If you are disabled, neurodiverse or have a mental health or long-term health condition, adjustments might help you to apply for and undertake a volunteering opportunity. You can talk to the host organisation about adjustments and explore what might work in relation to the specific opportunity. While there is no legal duty for organisations to consider adjustments for voluntary work (as there is with paid work), it is good practice for organisations to offer adjustments and many do.