It's all Hands on Deck at the Anchorage Project

Sacha Johnston — 2010-07-27T15:05:29Z

The Anchorage Project is a community centre in operation since 1996 from the lovely old Mission Hall on York Road in Ringsend. The services provided include a pre-school playgroup, a children's club and the big space out back is used for growing flowers and breeding rabbits, guinea pigs, budgies, canaries and finches. All of which are then sold on and the profits used to help community development projects in poorer countries overseas.

Activities at the project focus on supporting young people, families, the elderly and children with additional needs. The project has several paid staff but it is largely dependent on volunteers.

At present there is major renovation work taking place; project director Joe Donnelly is managing the development of a new community café. It will be wonderful to be able to sit outside and appreciate the history and architecture of the building, listen to the birds and admire the flowers. The Café will be also be used to stage various events and cultural evenings using music and food to help bring the community closer together. The Anchorage has also received donations of some computers from a local business so it will also have an Internet zone and training resource in the new café.

The Anchorage Project has grown from strength to strength over the years and a key part of this success is because of its approach to volunteers. Since its inception the Anchorage has engaged with an average of 1000 volunteers annually on a multitude of projects and objectives.

Joe Donnelly states, “The number of ways in which any organisation can involve volunteers is literally endless! An organisation that has not yet embraced volunteerism really needs to think about this question and ask themselves why not."

The Anchorage has a longstanding relationship with its local Volunteer Centre, Dublin City South who connects the Anchorage up with volunteers on an ongoing basis.

"When it's a big job such as decorating, gardening or clearing etc Dublin City South Volunteer Centre will connect me up with a local business. Last year for instance a group of volunteers from Yahoo! left a lasting impression completing a quality decorating and gardening job" says Joe.

Joe is taking advantage of local businesses wanting to develop their Corporate Social Responsibility programme through volunteering having also engaged Diageo, KPMG and Coca Cola. In the past Joe also involved the Probation and Welfare Service where he received amazing quality work from a dedicated team of clients who needed to complete community service work.

Joe is emphatic “You must not give volunteers the work that nobody else wants to do!”

“Think of a work project as a gift or present you are giving to a volunteer, volunteers must be treated like gold dust, remember volunteers want to leave a lasting impact, they have needs and expectations that need to be met too.”

The range and diversity of how organisations can involve volunteers is vast. No one organisation has all the skills it needs under its roof. The Anchorage maximizes its potential by tapping into Dublin City Volunteer Centre's local pool of skilled volunteers. Over the years the Anchorage has involved a town planner to help with planning permission applications, a HR manager to help develop policy documentation and best practice for staff, they have also involved fundraisers, gardeners, administrators and a solicitor to advise on legal matters. More recently architects and interior designers are helping to plan and design the layout of the new extension and café and making sure it will be contemporary whilst maintaining the features of a beautiful old building.

At present, a local business, DCOY, is creating a new logo and brand for The Anchorage. Joe comments, “we are really lucky DCOY are top designers and they happen to be based around the corner from us.”

As a by-product Joe also feels that by embracing volunteerism, organisations can to a certain extent “recession proof” themselves. By creating a sustainable business model and extending services through the involvement of volunteers simply demonstrates good business sense regardless of whether funding is secured each year.

And finally comments Joe, “If you have a bad experience with a volunteer thank them profusely anyway, don't ever quench the spirit of volunteerism. Secondly and more importantly if things go wrong it is most likely your fault because you didn't plan properly or you just weren't sufficiently organised."