Completing a project

Once you've had your initial meeting with an organisation and decided to go ahead and work with them you can work at a pace that suits you both.

As the IT expert it might be up to you to drive the project and make sure that everything that needs to happen does. But remember that voluntary organisations may not always be able to respond as quickly as you'd like so please be patient!

A successful outcome

In an ideal world you'll work with an organisation, everything will go smoothly and you'll quickly produce the results they wanted.

In real life things might take a bit longer or you might have to compromise on the solution but, in the end, you'll usually complete the project.

When you complete a project, celebrate!

When you complete a project the first thing you should do is celebrate. Hopefully, the charity will feel like celebrating too.

And tell everyone about your success. If you tell us we can use your experiences as a case study on our website to inspire other volunteers and charities. You, or the charity, might like to publicise your efforts in your local press. Let us know if you need help with that.

If there's something special about the project then you might considering nominating it for one of our annual awards.

Problems along the way

Sometimes things don't go as smoothly as you'd hoped.

Other things can get the way and you find that you can't commit as much time as you'd like. Or the charity can't find the time to answer your questions.So you're stuck with a half finished project that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Sometimes the only option is for the charity to abandon the project. Perhaps they were unrealistic in their aspirations. Or the situation changed. In this case, ask them to let us know. We can withdraw the project.

If you feel that the project could be completed by another volunteer please let us know. We'll ask you to provide as much handover information as you can. We'll then re-advertise the revised opportunity.

Don't feel bad if things go wrong. Take stock, learn from the experience and try again.