Making contact with a charity

When you request details of an opportunity through the website you'll receive an e-mail containing the contact details for the charity.

Once you've got these details you should contact the charity as soon as possible. The charity has been sent your details and are waiting for you to make the first contact

Your initial contact will probably be by phone or e-mail and at this stage you'll need to introduce yourself and perhaps offer to send the charity a copy of your CV and references. After that, if you're both still interested you should arrange an initial meeting.

Your first meeting

In most cases this will be a face-to-face meeting but it could simply be a phone call.

During that meeting you will want to check out a number of issues. You will want to make sure:

• that you and the charity are going to be comfortable working with each other. You might want to find out more about the charity's aims and objectives and equally they will want to make sure that you have the skills and experience that they need.
• that the project in question is deliverable within your time constraints as a volunteer.
• that any issues of liability and insurance are covered, both by you and the charity. What happens if you fall down a dodgy stair in the charity's office or your work ends up losing all the charity's data? We don't want to be pessimistic about this - most volunteering works without any problems but it is sensible to make sure that you and the charity have discussed these eventualities.
• that you both understand the scope and requirements of the project. Check that the charity isn't expecting you to develop a database when you thought you were going to write a requirements spec. If it's a development project check that the technology you plan to use is acceptable - and available - to the charity.

You should also discuss any logistical issues at this point. You need to know if the charity contact is only available for a few hours a week or if the office is closed every third Wednesday. If you are going to claim for travel expenses you should agree it now so everyone knows where they stand.

Getting this stuff right at the outset is worth the time spent and makes sure that you can then concentrate on delivering a great project.