About
Previously Under One Sky supported rough sleepers ad hoc, but at the beginning of April 2020, its operation shifted to become a daily nightly food outreach service. By June, it had also set up a breakfast service and was giving out other provisions such as clothing, toiletries, sleeping bags and mobile phones.
Under One Sky is able to provide its services thanks to an army of volunteers, many of whom stepped up to volunteer during lockdown. The non-profit was keen to learn how its volunteers were finding the experience. It wanted to understand their motivations for joining and continuing to volunteer; to recognise how the experience was impacting the volunteers; and to offer volunteers the chance to give feedback on how the operation was running. This information would allow Under One Sky to respond more effectively to its volunteer needs; to fine-tune its overall operations; and to promote the need for more volunteers, as it looks to grow its operation across more cities in the UK and Europe.
Common conducted a volunteer workshop, survey and letter of gratitude exercise, to uncover more about the volunteer experience. We were able to give Under One Sky an array of useful insights, and have summarised the volunteers’ core experiences in the article below we published on Medium. In addition, we provided Under One Sky with a tool (from lived experience insights, contrasted with academic research and data) to demonstrate the power of volunteering for improving mental health and overall wellbeing, which in turn could help them raise further funding in the future.
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Thank you for letting me help you
People
Iria Lopez, Sharon Allen, Katherine Jennings
Disciplines
Design research, Social research