Using digital badges for volunteering

Volunteering is highly valuable, contributing £17.8bn to the UK economy in 2020/21.  While volunteers can display vital skills and expertise and contribute to essential activities from cancer research to social services, the impact an individual makes, and what volunteering says about them as a person, is often poorly documented.

Issuing badges for volunteering is an effective way to reward and recognise the contribution that volunteers make to your organisation or project, and provides volunteers with a reference of this experience. Including transferable skills that are valued by employers is vital in this space – completing a volunteering experience could be a recipient’s first step in developing the skills required to embark on, or return to, an employment journey.

Use cases

Issuing badges for volunteering performs wonderfully as a professional reference of practical experience for activities such as:

  • Fundraising
  • Campaigning
  • Stewarding
  • Charity shop work
  • Practical activities
  • Pro-bono work
  • Trusteeship

Top tip

Consider discussing positive attitudes that matter to your organisation/charity’s mission. For some, finding volunteers with the right values and principles is as difficult as finding those with the right skillset. Recognising attitudes and values is a great way to show the personalities and values of volunteers, and the generosity they show by giving their time to a cause.

Exemplar badges

Due to the infinitely wide variety of roles, activities, and initiatives in which an individual can engage with volunteering, we have provided two exemplar badges. The first is for an Event Steward. Scroll down for an additional exemplar badge for volunteering as a Trustee.

Event Steward

Description
Earners of this badge have successfully undertaken a volunteering experience as an Event Steward.

Criteria

  • Earner has demonstrated initiative, commitment, and generosity with their time by volunteering as a steward to support the smooth operation of an event.

  • Earner has prepared for their role by undertaking a briefing about what their role entails and what is expected of them. They have had a basic introduction to health and safety and understood what is required of them to support a safe environment for their team and the public, including basic emergency response and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as high visibility clothing.

  • Earner has demonstrated interpersonal and communication skills by aiding with information or directions when required. They have shown excellent customer service by answering questions and providing a friendly and reassuring presence for the public visiting the event.

  • Earner has demonstrated teamwork and collaboration by working with others to monitor the event for safety and security concerns. They have contributed to crowd management by ensuring the flow of visitors remains steady and within event guidelines.

Tags

Events | Volunteering | Answering questions | Collaboration | Commitment | Communication | Crowd management | Customer service | Emergency response | Generosity | Health and safety | Initiative | Management | Personal protective equipment (PPE) | Security | Teamwork | Contribution | Friendliness

Alignment
The RSA Badge Standard – Practitioner
For demonstrated application of skills in practical settings. Aligns with the growing emphasis on portfolio-based evidence for education and employment. Recognises projects, tasks, or activities showcasing competence in specific areas.

This badge works as an example of a specific activity in which the recipient has given their time to a cause and demonstrated desirable skills. Its alignment with the RSA Badge Standard provides an avenue for a recipient to learn about their achievement in a broader context and how they might progress these skills in future endeavours.

This format could be adapted to cover a wide range of volunteering activities such as those listed above, and becomes a beneficial way for a voluntary organisation to track experience and progression within their pool of volunteers.

Charity Trustee

Description
Earners of this badge have successfully served as a trustee for a women’s football charity, demonstrating leadership in strategic planning, execution, and impact on gender equity in sport.

Criteria

  • Earner has demonstrated passion and leadership in gender equity in sport by advocating for initiatives that enhance accessibility, participation, and representation in women’s football. They have explored opportunities to expand engagement and improve the charity’s impact.

  • Earner has taken a proactive approach to overcoming challenges, conducting detailed research on barriers to participation, funding limitations, or structural inequalities. They have demonstrated critical thinking and attention to detail by ensuring a thorough evaluation of available solutions and partnerships to drive change effectively, and identifying appropriate strategies for improvement.

  • Earner has shown effective stakeholder management and collaboration by establishing partnerships with football clubs, community organisations, governing bodies and sponsors to enhance opportunities for women and girls in the sport, strengthening pathways for participation and development. They have demonstrated persuasive communication, problem solving, and effective data-driven decision making.

  • Earner has ensured compliance with safeguarding policies, anti-discrimination measures, and ethical governance in women’s football, protecting participants and promoting a safe sporting environment.

  • Earner has demonstrated excellent project management skills by executing strategic plans and overseeing the rollout of new initiatives, ensuring measurable progress in fostering inclusivity and sustainability in women’s football. They have successfully secured financial resources through grants, sponsorships, and fundraising campaigns to ensure long-term sustainability and accessibility.

Tags

Charity | Activism | Accessibility | Attention to Detail | Collaboration | Communication | Community | Compliance | Critical Thinking | Decision Making | Equity | Evaluation | Football | Fundraising | Governance | Inclusivity | Initiative | Overcoming Challenges | Passion | Persuasive Communication | Policies | Problem Solving | Project Management | Research | Safeguarding | Sustainability | Finding Solutions | Strategic Planning | Strategic Thinking | Proactivity | Leadership

Alignment
The RSA Badge Standard – Leader
Highlights strategic planning, execution and impact on broader organisational or community objectives. Focuses on measurable leadership and management achievements, providing value to individuals and organisations. Awarded for leading initiatives, managing resources, or making decisions with significant outcomes.

This badge goes a step further than recognising participation in a specific activity and instead focuses on leadership and execution of initiatives at a more senior level. Its alignment with the RSA Badge Standard highlights the measurable achievements and strategic thinking required to operate in this space.

This format could be adapted to cover leadership roles within all charitable or change-driven organisations in any sector, and is a worthwhile way to reward the immense contribution that individuals make in impacting broader organisational or community objectives.

Download and customise these badges

Want to use this badge? Click the link for an Excel spreadsheet containing all of the badge data, ready to be copied and customised.

To use an exemplar badge and make it your own:

  1. Download the spreadsheet and customise to your needs.
  2. On your digital badge issuing platform of choice, create a new badge and input the badge data from the spreadsheet.
  3. Edit and adapt the data to suit your needs.
  4. Publish the badge / make it available for issuing.

    Adapting an exemplar badge

    While all badges that follow the Open Badge Standard will contain the same core components, different issuing platforms can label and format them differently and often have different approaches to applying settings and attributes to a badge.

    Don’t panic – the excel file contains all the information you’ll need to build the badge on your chosen issuing platform (full list of Open Badge platforms) and come readily formatted with instructions for three popular issuing platforms: Open Badge Factory, Navigatr, and Credly.

    Consider these badges as templates – it is always recommended to ensure your badges are adapted to your needs and tailored to be relevant to your recipients. This will ensure that your badge is meaningful and valued by those you issue it to.

    Examples of customising an exemplar badge to fit your needs could include:

    • Expanding on the information to add specific detail about an activity you will issue the badge for.
    • Adjusting language to suit your organisation’s brand.
    • Adding a location.
    • Removing any elements you feel are not relevant to your badge recipients.

    Platform choice

    The platform examples provided in our exemplar badges are intended to help illustrate how a set of badge data may require adjusting to fit the issuing platform being used. Which badging platform you choose will depend on the on your individual use case and the functionality you require. The Digital Badging Commission does not endorse any particular badging platform. A full list of Open Badge platforms is maintained by 1EdTech.

    If you represent an Open Badge platform and would like to be included in our exemplar files, please provide us with an excel sheet containing our exemplar data mapped to your system and we will add you to the download files.

    Explore exemplar badges for…

    Exemplar badges for…