What volunteering means to us

“At the heart of our services are our citizens – the people we serve, and our volunteers – who are our citizen advisers, and who make us a very special organisation.”

– Tom Togher, Chief Officer, Citizens Advice Salford

What do we do

We provide free, confidential and impartial advice, and campaign on big issues affecting people’s lives. Our goal is to help everyone find a way forward, whatever problems they face.

People come to us with all sorts of issues. They may have money, benefit, housing or employment problems. You may be facing a crisis, or just considering their options.

Our dedicated volunteers

Every year up to 70 volunteers support the delivery of our work alongside a team of paid staff. Our volunteers come from all sorts of backgrounds and help with everything we do, IT, administration, fundraising, trusteeship – and of course giving advice.

Without the passion and generosity of our volunteers, we wouldn’t be here today.

We know that our volunteers benefit from the experience too – for example all our retired volunteers tell us that volunteering keeps them mentally active and nine in ten unemployed volunteers believe it helps them to move into employment of education. All our volunteers tell us how much they enjoy helping people!

What our volunteers say:

“Citizens Advice Salford helps me to develop as a person”

“Today I made a difference by assisting and advising vulnerable local citizens to solve their problems.”

“I want to give back to my community”

“I like meeting new people from different countries and learning new things”

We provide many different volunteering opportunities

People  volunteer with us for different reasons. Our volunteer roles are varied, challenging and rewarding and our volunteers really enjoy being able to make a valuable contribution and a positive impact on people’s lives.

Volunteering and inclusion

We welcome volunteers from all backgrounds, including Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) volunteers, disabled volunteers, volunteers with physical and mental health conditions, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual, Trans and and Non-binary volunteers, to join our service.

If you have any support, access or equipment needs, we will be happy to discuss this with you to enable you to volunteer.

For applicants who aren’t UK citizens, please note that you’re only allowed to volunteer if your immigration status permits it. Many will, but please do check that you are entitled to volunteer, to avoid breaching the terms of your status. You can find further information about different visa rules on this government webpage. Irish citizens, EU/EEA citizens with settled or pre-settled status, and refugees and asylum seekers are fully entitled to volunteer.

We all share one goal

Volunteer, employee or supporter, we all believe in the same thing; a society where everyone gets the advice they need, and every voice is heard.

How can you get involved?

• We have volunteer roles at all levels depending on your availability and what you want out of volunteering.
• You can volunteer for three months or three years, different roles suit different people.

See our role information and application form below. If you are not sure and want to talk to us about volunteering contact us by email and we will get back in touch!

How we use your data when applying to volunteer

How we collect your information

We collect information about you through your volunteer application form. These are completed online via our website.

Depending on the role we may also collect information through a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. You will be informed if such a check will be required for the role at application stage.

What information we collect

We’ll collect personal information such as name, address, telephone number and email address, previous job history and experience, qualifications, and any support needs you may have.

We’ll also ask for diversity information like your gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. You don’t have to tell us this.

Where it’s needed for the role, we might contact the DBS for a criminal record check. Once the DBS check is completed and you’ve received your certificate, we’d expect you to share this information with us as part of the background check process.

We may also ask for:

• references for your previous and current work

What we use your information for

The main reasons we ask for your personal information are to:

• check you’ve got the right skills for a role when you apply
• arrange an interview
• contact you to tell you the result of your application
• do checks when we make an offer, for example contacting your references 
• send you an offer email

We’ll treat any diversity information you give us as strictly confidential. We’ll anonymise this information and only use it to look at trends. This means we won’t look at your information individually or compare it to other people and we won’t use it as part of the recruitment selection process.

Who we share your information with

If you accept an offer to volunteer for us we’ll:

• get your permission to share your information with your references

We won’t usually share your personal information with anyone else in a way that could identify you. In some rare situations we have to share your information, for example if:

• we’re investigating a safeguarding issue
• the police ask for the information to help them investigate a crime
• a court orders us to share the information

We sometimes share anonymous statistics with organisations we trust so they can analyse the information.

Our lawful basis for using your information