LGBT Foundation - Volunteering Form

To complete this form you will need: 

• Your contact details including an email address and phone number.  
• Name and contact details of an emergency contact. If you don’t have anyone to include as an emergency contact, please put the contact details of your GP. 
• Name and email addresses of two referees. If you don’t have anyone who can be a referee, you can still complete this form! However, if you do have referees, we will need their details at this stage. 
• To know which volunteering roles you’re interested in. Please look at our current volunteering roles if you’re not sure. 
• If you’re applying for a counselling role with us, please have your DBS number ready if you have one.

If you have any issues with providing any of this information or need any support with this, please contact volunteer@lgbt.foundation.

This form is the first stage of your volunteer journey with us. Once we receive your form, a member of our team will contact you either for an initial chat or an interview depending on the role. If the role is a good fit, we’ll need to collect references, you will need to attend an induction with us and agree to our policies. Where relevant we will also complete a DBS check (this is indicated on the role profile).

An emergency contact could be a trusted friend, partner, neighbour or family member who lives locally. If there is no one that you can think of, please provide the name and phone number for your GP surgery.

We will contact them if something happens to you whilst volunteering that incapacitates you/means you are unable to contact loved ones, e.g. you are injured and taken to hospital. We may also contact them if we can’t get hold of you and are concerned for your wellbeing. 

We collect two references for each volunteer to safeguard our organisation, service users, staff and volunteers. Your referees could be current or former employers, teachers or academic supervisors (if you are in or have recently been in education), support workers, community leaders or someone else who could provide a character reference, such as a previous volunteering supervisor. Referees should not be friends or relatives. Where possible, please provide a professional reference. 

We understand people may be unable to provide references for many reasons. We’re committed to giving a fair chance to people interested in volunteering who may have had long periods of not being employed, in education or volunteering. We understand members of our community are more likely to be socially isolated and recognise volunteering’s role in reducing this isolation. If you’re unable to provide two referees, please add volunteer@lgbt.foundation into the boxes below and we’ll be in touch to give you more info about our procedure for becoming a volunteer without referees. Please only use this email address reference if you don’t have anyone who could be a referee for you.

We monitor the demographics of all our colleagues to ensure LGBT Foundation is as representative of our communities as it can be. Having a true picture of who our volunteers are better informs us on where we can refocus our efforts on promoting our opportunities and breaking down potential barriers to volunteering. We are on a journey to making LGBT Foundation more inclusive for all its people and in completing this form you would be supporting this.

We ask the next question to help us to meet the needs of all of our volunteers. We want to make getting support from us as easy as possible. You do not need to have a diagnosis or have been to see a doctor about a disability to tell us how we can help you.

Below we have our volunteer declaration, which explains a couple of things about your personal data like your email address. In order to volunteer, we need you to select yes. If you select no, LGBT Foundation will not be able to contact you, and will delete any record of your volunteering form within 2 working days. If you wish to volunteer you will have to resubmit the form fully again, and select yes to the declaration.

By selecting Yes, you agree to that you have read, understood and agree to the following:

• LGBT Foundation will use the details I have entered during the recruitment process. LGBT Foundation may contact me for an informal discussion, and will send updates and further steps of recruitment if my application is successful.
• My references will be contacted by a member of staff from LGBT Foundation if my application is successful. Any offer of volunteering with LGBT Foundation is subject to satisfactory references, as well as completion of all processes that form a part of LGBT Foundation’s volunteer recruitment.
• LGBT Foundation is committed to creating a volunteer programme which reflects the diversity of our communities. This includes dedicated efforts to be anti-racist and include more people of colour, to be trans-inclusive throughout the organisation, to empower women and women-aligned people, and to be inclusive of people over 50, as these communities are currently under-represented in our volunteer team. LGBT Foundation will use my demographic information to evaluate where further inclusion work is needed.
• LGBT Foundation may hold and use personal information about me to inform me about the Volunteer Programme at LGBT Foundation and to keep in touch with me about events and opportunities through the Volunteer e-bulletin.
• This information, including that contained in this form will be stored within computer files and data management systems. This information will be held for 7 years from your end date.
• All information given will be kept in the strictest of confidence and in accordance with General Data Protection Regulations. It will be held securely and only accessed by authorised personnel.
• I can request my data to be removed from the Volunteer mailing list at any time, and can do this by clicking on the link at the bottom of the Volunteer e-bulletin.
• I am responsible for urgently notifying LGBT Foundation of any changes to my personal details that affect my safety when I am actively volunteering, such as a change in phone number, email address, or emergency contact.
• I am responsible for notifying LGBT Foundation about any changes to my personal details such as my name, sexual orientation, gender, trans status or pronoun usage, where I am comfortable sharing this information.