Responsible to: Shop Manager

Accountable to: Head of Volunteering, Learning and Inclusion

Hours: To suit each volunteer. A shift is normally 3 – 4 hours either morning or afternoon. (Some volunteers volunteer 2 to 3 shifts per week, some will do 1 shift per week.)

Prospect Hospice’s vision is of a community where death is no longer a taboo, and everyone lives and dies well. We provide excellent, personalised, and compassionate care for everyone in our community who is affected by a life-limiting illness. We work in close partnership with other organisations – and specifically with local health and social care professionals – to ensure that anyone can access the best possible care whenever and wherever they need it, and we do so completely free of charge.

Description of role:

Our retail network plays a huge part in the local community, from raising vital funds selling preloved goods in our shops, to having expert knowledge they share about our services.  Our shop volunteers are crucial to spreading the word of how people can support us, and we support them at their time of need. As a retail volunteer you’ll be an important ambassador for Prospect Hospice.

Role Responsibilities:

As a volunteer in our shops, you’ll be at home talking to customers and making sure everyone gets a warm, friendly Prospect welcome.  Whether welcoming someone instore, on the phone, or when they leave, we make sure every customer engagement is important.  You’ll be able to get involved with accepting, sorting, and preparing donations for sale.   Helping customers find that all important item of clothing and talking them through how significant their sign up to the Gift Aid Scheme is.  You’ll have the opportunity to be trained on the till if you want to, as well as maintaining the overall shop environment to maintain that appeal and draw our customers in.  

Everyone at Prospect Hospice works to a set of core values – we are authentic, specialist, person-centred, inclusive, resilient and pursue excellence.

How we bring our values to life everyday:

• We take responsibility for our actions and behaviour, always being our authentic selves whilst being professional, welcoming, and caring to our colleagues and customers.
• We are experts educating, training, sharing our knowledge and influencing others. As an Ambassador of Prospect Hospice, we promote our services in the local community.
• We act with empathy, striving to listen to and understand others. Every customer receives an individual experience tailored to their needs.
• We work together as a team and a community by being approachable and non-judgemental.
• We excel in delivering the best service, always seeking to improve and learn new skills.

Keeping you safe:

Every volunteer role is risk assessed to ensure you and the people you come into contact with are kept safe, and the person overseeing your role will help you to familiarise yourself with the risk assessment for your specific role before undertaking activities. Alongside this, you’ll need to complete some mandatory training before fully starting your new role. Your safety and wellbeing is important to us, and we ask that you let us know if anything doesn’t feel right at any time.

In some roles you may be given a uniform you’ll need to wear, but we will make sure we let you know about that before you join the team.

Additionally, you can claim out of pocket expenses incurred travelling to your location on submission of a claim form and receipts. The person overseeing your role will be able to talk you through how to do this.