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Agent of change: How he mobilised over 10,000 people to distribute food to the needy
The volunteer manager is key in recruiting and supporting volunteers – to inspire them so that those in need can be better served
Mr Victor Poh (second from left) with a group of student volunteers taking part in Project Aspire to improve the homes of low-income families. PHOTO: TOUCH COMMUNITY SERVICES
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A question that Mr Victor Poh sometimes receives from friends and family is whether he gets paid.
This is because the 48-year-old works as the head of volunteer management at TOUCH Community Services. Rather than take offence at these comments, he would take this opportunity to explain about the importance of managing volunteers so that they can be better placed to serve the organisation’s goals and beneficiaries’ needs.
As a volunteer manager, Mr Poh is responsible for recruiting volunteers to ensure that there are enough resources to help out at centres, activities and events.
Some of his recruitment strategies range from participating in school fairs to posting on social media, the SG Cares App, Giving.sg and TOUCH Community Services' website. He also works with corporates to get them interested in volunteer partnerships.
“Social service agencies have limited resources. This is why we need to tap on volunteers to better support our beneficiaries,” he says.
One of his biggest achievements to date since he joined TOUCH Community Services in 2018 was mobilising volunteers for the Meals-on-Wheels service, which delivers meals to homebound beneficiaries during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The team placed a call for volunteers on its website and social media platforms and managed to get an extra 200 volunteers on top of the usual 10,000.
Mr Poh believes that it was because of the restrictions that people realised the less fortunate needed help. In total, 12,000 meals were delivered over 26 days in the Toa Payoh area.
“It was a really trying period (as it was difficult to get volunteers during Covid) but we were thankful and encouraged by the volunteers coming forward,” he says.
On top of managing volunteers, Mr Poh is also passionate about mentoring new volunteer managers. He is part of the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) Volunteer Management Champion Initiative which identifies passionate volunteer managers to share best practices within the community.
Ms Priscilla Gan, director of NCSS volunteer resource optimisation, explains, “Volunteer managers play a pivotal role in caring for those we serve because they work faithfully and passionately in recruiting, engaging and retaining volunteers every day. Volunteers and volunteer managers, like Mr Poh, are critical in augmenting the social service tribe to increase the capability and capacity of their organisations. Through this, we can strengthen service delivery, as well as bring about a fundamentally different society where we put the needs of others ahead of our own.”
As a volunteer management champion, he speaks about the profession and also mentors those new to the sector. Since the mentorship programme was implemented in 2021, he has mentored four new volunteer managers.
“We can be agents of change to enhance the volunteering experience to mobilise more to come on board,” he says.
Bringing people together for collective impact
Besides recruitment, keeping volunteers engaged and retaining them are important parts of the role.
A study conducted by NCSS from 2016 to 2018 found that organisations with a dedicated volunteer manager were more successful in increasing their volunteer numbers and retaining them for longer.
Ms Shikin Ahmad, a manager at the volunteer management department at Dementia Singapore, says: “People tend to think of volunteers as extra pairs of hands and legs. As volunteer managers, we need to craft the right narrative and see volunteers as valued partners to journey with social service agencies for the long run.”
She wants people to think of volunteer management as a role that brings people together. To do this, she comes up with ways to inspire, train and support volunteers so that they have the relevant skills to help beneficiaries.
The 39-year-old left a 17-year career in advertising to join the social service sector because she was drawn to helping people. She says that working with volunteers, and especially with corporate volunteers, requires her to put on her client servicing hat to nurture long-term partnerships.
Since joining Dementia Singapore in April 2021, she had to think of ways to match volunteers with beneficiaries’ needs.
For instance, she designed an initiative to have volunteers visit persons with dementia and caregivers at their homes when Dementia Singapore’s centres were closed to visitors due to Covid-19 restrictions. However, this required extra training for the volunteers. Ms Shikin herself sought out other community partners with home-befriending experience to learn more before collaborating with her team to develop the right training materials.
The whole process took about six months and even then, there were volunteers who didn’t feel comfortable going to a home setting after being trained.
Ms Shikin persevered with her plans to carry out the initiative, and today, the befriending service is still ongoing and she has received positive feedback from both caregivers and volunteers.
Having career progression as a volunteer manager
To Ms Shikin, her job feels most rewarding when she sees opportunities to work with different people, foster and build relationships, and be creative in solving challenges.
“If you’re naturally a people person, and the thought of nurturing relationships energises you, this is a role for you,” she says.
She adds that there are also opportunities for volunteer managers to move up the ladder to management roles, as well as opportunities to build different skill sets. This is echoed by Mr Poh whose own career began as a volunteer management executive with the Children’s Cancer Foundation before climbing the ranks to his current role.
However, he says that the biggest fulfilment from the job is seeing former beneficiaries giving back.
“When I see those who benefited from our efforts come back to volunteer for our programmes and pay it forward, that encourages me that my efforts are not in vain. If you press on, you’ll see the community being transformed,” says Mr Poh.
Visit Social Service Tribe portal at www.ncss.gov.sg/social-service-tribe to find out more about job opportunities to become a volunteer manager.
Volunteer managers can visit the NCSS Volunteer Resource Hub at http://go.gov.sg/ncssvolunteerresourcehub for more information on how to better attract, engage and retain volunteers.
