Volunteer with Made of Money, QSA’s financial wellbeing service, supporting people on lower incomes to have a better quality of life due to more disposable income and reduced stress.
What is this role about?
Made of Money achieves our goals by enabling participants to gain tools and reflect on how they approach money and what their financial priorities are, in a non-judgmental environment. We offer training for financial capability practitioners to support people with money in a way that is sensitive, empowering and more effective.
Much of this work involves producing written information for use on our website, in workshop resources, publicity and increasingly online work, as we offer more information geared to reaching our target audience online. We are seeking one or two regular volunteers who are skilled in proofreading, to support this work.
- Contact: Carrie Comfort
- Location: Quaker Social Action, 17 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, E2 9PJ
- E-mail: carriecomfort@qsa.org.uk
What does this volunteer role involve?
Money is a topic which many people find confusing and intimidating. This makes it very important that our written communication is clear and simple to understand. It is equally important for our communications to have a friendly, welcoming and non-judgemental tone. This is a constant balance for our team to find, and at times we will choose a word which may be less precise but sounds more friendly.
The volunteer role will involve:
1) Proofreading a range of:
- Learning materials and resources
- Social media posts & flyers
- and more occasionally reports
You’ll be looking for spelling, grammar & weblink errors in text and reflecting them back to us. You might also see ways we could say something more simply and we’d welcome that. Usually, you’ll let us know about errors in writing (in Word or Outlook, often using track changes), but sometimes we will ask you to talk us through them.
2) Interacting with Made of Money staff by email, phone or Teams/Zoom to get a sense of the context and audience for pieces of work. We don’t anticipate that this will take a lot of time, and we will try to accommodate your preference between phone or Teams/Zoom.
NB. You won’t be expected to advise on content, so a lack of money knowledge is not a problem.
When can I volunteer?
- This role would be home-based but if there is an occasion when you carry out work lasting several hours then we could arrange a date and time for you to come into the office if you preferred, on a case-by-case basis.
- You do not need to be based in London to do this work, and it could be undertaken at a time that suited you, within an agreed time, which would typically be between a couple of days and a week.
- This is a new volunteering role, and we are open to exploring how it may work.
NB, we aim to give at least 2 week’s advance notice of an upcoming piece of work. We might occasionally ask if you could proof something more last minute, as we occasionally respond to opportunities at short notice, though we would fully accept that this might not be possible for you to do.
What is the time commitment?
- We anticipate that the time commitment would usually be an hour or less each week and is unlikely to be more than 2-3 hours in any week. Sometimes we would not need to call on you for several weeks at a time.
- You will be offered quarterly check in meetings to keep in touch and support your wellbeing in the role. This time commitment would be in addition to your work with us.
Will you pay expenses?
- While we don’t anticipate this role will incur many expenses, QSA expects to pay for reasonable out of pocket expenses. For example, if you ever needed to come into the office we would pay reasonable travel expenses.
What experience do I need?
- A sound knowledge of grammar
- An eye for detail
- Good IT skills including:
- Ability to easily receive and send emails,
- Ability to open and use documents in Microsoft Word
- Ability to edit Word documents using track changes & comments.
What personal qualities do I need?
- Good written and verbal communication skills
- To reliably undertake tasks in an agreed timescale
- Sensitivity to the shame and fear people can feel about money and an understanding of how our written work can convey a sense of empathy and a lack of judgement to our clients.
What will I gain from this role?
- Being part of a team where your skills will be valued.
- The reward of playing a part in supporting people to lead happier, less stressful lives by gaining new money skills and having greater control over their money.
- You may also gain transferable skills including:
- Admin skills
- Written and verbal communication skills
Other:
- You will be working in a professional and friendly environment.
- You will be offered quarterly check in meetings to keep in touch and support your wellbeing in the role.
- After four months volunteering, we will provide you with a reference if you would like one.
How to apply, and the next steps:
To apply, please click here to fill out an online form or get in touch with Carrie Comfort, Made of Money’s manager carriecomfort@qsa.org.uk.
This current advert will close on Thursday October 17th.
If shortlisted, we will arrange to meet with you for an informal conversation (in person or by Teams/Zoom) and ask about your experience and what you hope to get from volunteering with Made of Money.
We will also give you a piece of writing to proof so we can see how you work and you can get an idea of the kind of content you would be working with.
If we decide to work together, QSA treats the first 3 months as a trial period with an opportunity for review at that point. If we continue, we’ll ask if you can commit to a further 6 months at a time.