Case Study: Impart

IMPART

A non-profit organisation in Singapore that pioneers volunteer-driven community solutions to enable transformative youth development.

How might we create a culture of mutual aid and open sharing among the volunteers so that they can get emotional support and obtain help from one another?

“What we want is to understand the mental health of the volunteers and what are the various resources and support provided to them so that they can reduce the risk of volunteer burnout.”

DESIRED OUTCOMES: Clearer understanding of (i) how our volunteers feel/not feel supported by existing mental health initiatives, (ii) why that might be the case, and (iii) what else we can do.

Research Process & Findings

The organisation conducted 13 interviews with Impart volunteers and discovered 3 key points from their interviews: value, interactions, and ability gap.

They then decided to narrow down the scope and look at the ability gap.

The organisation discovered the following key findings:

Volunteers who were in a less positive mental state are those who do not ask for help when they require it.
Volunteers who did not have a positive volunteering experience are least likely to seek help.
Volunteers who did not have a group of friends were less likely to ask for help.

This led the team to consider how might they foster a culture of mutual aid among the volunteers which would see volunteers being open to asking for help.

Key Learnings

One solution does not fit all: The team thought they needed a solution to help make sure all volunteers were not at the risk of burning out. But what they came to realize is individual volunteers manage stress and workload differently. Understanding that, the team then identified the characteristics these people have in a common and it led to the insight was that it was not because they were in a less stressful environment or had less workload. Instead, it was the presence of a strong support system that they could rely on and feel comfortable approaching for help in times of need.
Experiencing tension between the desire to connect and ability to connect: The team noticed that while there was keen interest and desire to connect, this may not translate into reality as the team recognised that building trust and relationships with each other takes time. Additionally, the foundation of having a relationship with each other supports the volunteers’ ability to approach and seek help from one another.
Tiny details matter: The team realised that it was important to pay attention to details on how the prototype was worded and administered (anonymously, non-anonymously). These may be the factors that lead to the results of the prototype and it was important to understand what factors influence them.
Test your riskiest assumption: The team realised it was important to validate initial assumptions before moving on to validate other assumptions. They wanted to test whether volunteers would be open to working on a pet project together so that they can come together to provide solutions to problems faced by volunteers. They wanted to find out if the pet project would help them build deeper connection. However, this notion was built on the assumption that the volunteers desire to have deeper connection with one another. Upon realising this, the team decided that a lunch tag could be a more direct way of testing that hypothesis and also tackle one aspect of the commitment required for a volunteer to participate.

Prototype

The team decided to prototype an initiative called Lunch Tag.

A lunch tag poll was decided on to check in if volunteers are keen to get to know other volunteers. Another factor that led to this decision was that a lunch tag would likely require a lower commitment level from a volunteer as compared to a project. The team did not want the level of commitment to be a factor which may deter volunteers from expressing their interest to connect.

THE PROTOTYPE JOURNEY

While the initial idea was for the team to prototype Lunch Tag, the team recognised that one solution does not fit all, and are revamping their care programme instead of going ahead with the lunch tag.

Moving forward, they are giving volunteers more autonomy over what level of support they would like to receive. While all volunteers will be enrolled in a “basic” level of support where they will be given programme support through their volunteer managers, volunteers will be able to opt into a more “comprehensive” level of support that will comprise small groups of 6-10 volunteers led by a care lead. The care lead for the “comprehensive” level of support will be in charge of organising bonding activities, co-creating care plans with the volunteers, and providing them their assigned volunteers with psycho-social support. They will also be given the autonomy to initiate their own events, which might include a lunch tag event.

In 2022, they came up with two levels of support, 1) basic support, and 2) opt-in support (as everyone may want different things) such as geographically, where groups of 4 to 5 will be able to co-create goals together. Instead of a 1-to-1 relationship, they considered a 2-to-1 instead. This has since been validated in implementation phase - there is better attendance, and volunteers have been more responsive. However this came with a new challenge as outreach becomes reduced.