Our volunteers are digital or business experts who are willing to provide people from small business and charities with practical help and advice on their specific issues. This support is delivered via 1-to-1 conversations online on specific learning subjects. All mentoring sessions are 60 minutes long and free for small businesses and charities. Volunteers also lead Workshops, 60 minute sessions for multiple learners on a particular topic.
We need people with skills, passion, and purpose! Our volunteers come from a wide range of businesses big and small. They work in many different types of roles, from IT, product development and marketing to legal, customer service, and HR. The level of the individual doesn’t matter, though typically we would recommend that you have 3+ years experience in the topic you will mentor in.
The service is for anyone who works for a charity or a business with less than 250 employees. They come from a wide range of sectors and from all over the country. Most of our mentees are based in the UK, but we do have some from outside the UK. You can let us know if you’d prefer not to mentor people from other countries.
We have 55 different topics that people need help with. When you register, you let us know which of those you have experience with and would feel comfortable helping small businesses and charities with. Be realistic about which ones you are genuinely an expert in!
Each session lasts 60 minutes and there is no minimum commitment. The beauty of Digital Boost is that it’s highly flexible - you choose which requests to accept, based on your schedule. You tell us how many hours you’d be open to volunteering each week and we’ll send you requests that you can accept, propose a new time for, or decline.
Most of our volunteers really enjoy using their skills to help businesses or charities in need. You will play an important role in driving inclusive economic recovery and can choose to help businesses and charities linked to things you are passionate about. You will also be able to expand your own network and acquire new skills - such as leadership, collaboration, coaching, teaching and communication!
No. We’ve designed Digital Boost to allow small businesses to get help from many different experts in different fields. So you’ll receive requests from different companies. But if you have a good experience with one, we make it easy for you to meet again.
Digital and business experts volunteer on a pro bono basis. You do not get paid as a mentor from Digital Boost nor from the organisations you mentor. It is prohibited to inquire about pay from the organisations you mentor. If a volunteer does not to adhere to the agreed terms, they will be removed as a volunteer. Please read our “Volunteers Guide for 1-to-1 Mentoring Calls” and our “Volunteers Guide for Boost Workshops” for further information on our policies.
Our policy is that volunteers should not promote their services. All advice should be impartial. We ask that you enter into this as an expert who can help people who want to learn and grow their businesses. If we receive reports that a volunteer is selling services, they will be removed from the service.
Our Resource Library is packed with articles, toolkits and courses on each of our topics. You can use these to help structure your conversations or provide tips and recommendations.
It’s simple! Go to digitalboost.org.uk and click the “Sign up” button. Next fill in all your details. We recommend signing up with LinkedIn for a faster signup process. As a last step, agree to Digital Boosts’ Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy to create an account.
Yes, please! Digital Boost welcomes any person leading or employed by a small businesses or charity to use our services. We’d appreciate your help getting the word out. Social media can be a great way to do this.
Yes. Any business or digital expert is welcome to participate in this programme. Please note that since most Digital Boost learners are in the UK at this time, you might have to work to find a mutually convenient time with your mentees.
Small businesses and charities request 1-to-1 mentoring sessions by selecting the learning subjects they need help with and potential mentors they’d like to meet with. They provide a description of what they need help with and suggest 3 potential time slots for a 60 min call. If your skills and preferences match their request, you will receive an email and notification on your personal Dashboard. If you feel that you can help the mentee and are available at one of the proposed times, simply accept it. Both you and the mentee will then receive a confirmation email, and all the session details will be available on your Dashboard. If you feel you’re not the right person to help the mentee with this particular request, please feel free to decline it.
Small businesses and charities request 1-to-1 mentoring sessions by selecting the learning subjects they need help with and potential mentors they’d like to meet with. They provide a description of what they need help with and suggest 3 potential time slots for a 60 min call. If your skills and preferences match their request, you will receive an email and notification on your personal Dashboard. If you feel that you can help the mentee and are available at one of the proposed times, simply accept it. Both you and the mentee will then receive a confirmation email, and all the session details will be available on your Dashboard. If you feel you’re not the right person to help the mentee with this particular request, please feel free to decline it.
Both you and the mentee will receive a confirmation email. All details of the confirmed session will also be in your personal Dashboard, including a “Join The Call” button.
When a session is confirmed, you will receive an email and notice on your Dashboard with all the call details. Please note: the meeting is not automatically added to your calendar. Make sure you press the “Add To Calendar” button in the email or on your Dashboard. This integrates with all major calendars such as Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook, and allows you to add this event to your preferred calendar. When adding the meeting to your calendar, we recommend that you set a 24 hour and a 10 minute reminder. Please be mindful that cancelling the session in your personal calendar does not cancel the event for the other attendee. You must cancel it by logging in to the platform - we will then let me know. Please be sure to do this, or else the mentee will be waiting on the line for you!
Don’t worry - that’s not a problem. Simply “Decline the request”. We’ll then try to find someone more suitable to support the mentee. Don’t feel pressured to accept it. You do not need to specify a reason for declining.
Unfortunately, at the moment, we do not have the functionality to reschedule the meeting via the platform, only to cancel. If you cannot make it anymore, please cancel the meeting via the Dashboard, and we will reach out the mentee on your behalf and suggest booking a new session with you for another time. Or we will find them another volunteer who can help.
It all depends on what requests we receive from small businesses and charities! If you have skills in an area that’s high in demand at the moment, you’ll likely get a request pretty quickly. Sometimes it might take a bit longer. The topics that are high in demand change often. Watch your inbox and / or Dashboard.
We are sorry to hear you haven’t received any requests lately. Demand for support in specific skills from small businesses and charities varies greatly week by week. You might want to check that your profile is complete, since rich profiles with a compelling description tend to be requested more frequently. Please log into your Dashboard, check your profile and make sure it’s up to date. If your profile is complete, be patient - requests will probably come soon!
It’s likely that the skills you have are in very high demand from small businesses and charities at the moment. However, we understand that you’re busy so please don’t feel obligated to accept them all. Feel free to decline those you can’t support, and we’ll try to find someone else to help the business. You may also want to review your profile and adjust your settings. To reduce the number of requests you receive, you could reduce the number of skills you want to mentor in and / or change the number of hours per week you’d like to volunteer.
As our service is available globally, sometimes you might receive requests from small businesses or charities that are based outside of your local time zone.If you prefer to only mentor organisations that are based in specific countries (or time zones), let us know via your Account Preferences, in the “Preference for location of mentees” section: Digital Boost Volunteer
To join a 1-to-1 mentoring session at the scheduled time, simply press the “Join Call” button in your Dashboard or email. Please note - you will NOT receive an inbound phone call. You must join the video link at the time of the call.
We are truly sorry to hear that the mentee was not able to join the call. Please let us know that the mentee was a ‘no-show’ using the feedback form you can find on your Dashboard under the tab ‘Completed'. From there, select ‘Leave feedback for the mentee’, select 0 and check the first checkbox 'The mentee did not show up'. 'No-show’ will then be captured in our system. We will contact them in order to understand what happened and whether they have experienced any technical issues that led to them missing their call.
Don't worry - that's not a problem. Simply click "Decline the request" in your dashboard. We'll then try to find someone more suitable to support the mentee, or someone who has the availability at the requested time. We would be grateful if you could take the time to hit the decline button, because that notifies our platform instantly and will re-allocate the request to another volunteer who can help. If you don't hit the decline button, the system will keep the event pending, until it expires.
Yes! If you had a great experience speaking to the small business or charity, and you would be happy to speak with them again, you can offer them a follow-up call. After each call, you are asked to provide feedback. If you rate the session a 9 or 10, you will get the option to offer a “follow-up” with the organisation, so they can book a second call with you. This will send them a notification that you enjoyed speaking to them and you are open to speak to them again if they want to. If they want to meet again, they’ll suggest times.
Boost Workshops are interactive virtual learning sessions designed for people who work for small businesses and charities who want to learn about and use digital to grow their businesses. They are led by volunteers and are for multiple learners who have asked for mentoring on one of our learning pathways.
We hold sessions in each of our 55 learning topics. There is one topic per Workshop.
Look out for an invitation! When we receive significant demand for mentoring in a particular topic, we will look for volunteers to hold sessions for multiple learners. When you receive an invitation, simply choose a date / time that works for you and we’ll set everything up!
Workshops allow you to support several learners at once - in just 60 minutes of your time. People who work for small businesses and charities turn to Digital Boost in order to upskill themselves and their colleagues on a variety of digital subjects. They often have an urgent need to digitise to grow their businesses.
We’ll do all the leg work. Just let us know if you feel comfortable speaking to more than one person at a time - and propose a date & time you can make. Once you confirm that you are able to lead the session, then we’ll get the session confirmed and invite the participants. All sessions are held on Zoom. We will let you know nearer the time what the audience make-up looks like and what their questions were when they made their initial mentoring requests.
Our policy is that speakers should not promote their services. We ask that you enter into this as an expert who can help people who want to learn and grow their businesses.
Check out our Boost Workshop Guide.
Boost Workshops are designed for small business and charities. Unless you are leading the Boost Workshop, you can unfortunately not attend as a volunteer.
We are sorry to see you leave us, you can delete your account and all related data through the account preference (You can find it at the bottom of the preference). All your data will be deleted according to GDPR regulations.
We recommend to all of our volunteering digital experts to read the following guides before starting to mentor: 1-to-1 Mentoring Call Guide and Boost Workshops Guide.
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