It's Tuesday but what gives?

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day celebrating the good we can all do. Created in 2012 as a counter to the excesses of Black Friday (and the mostly forgotten Cyber Monday) Giving Tuesday encourages people to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity.

So what is giving? As a charity much of the focus on giving is donations and fundraising. Both hugely important (and with 24 charity shops contributing over ￡900,000 to our work at Shaw Trust, we're champions for preloved or unwanted items finding new lives through giving).

But giving is also about time and expertise. In the last year 200 people joined our 500 strong volunteer-force and gave their time to Shaw Trust. ?Around 200 volunteers support our shops, others support the young people, adults and disabled adults we work with through practical advice, and some give thousands of hours to people benefiting from getting into work programmes, through creating CVs, practising interviews, starting communities. Volunteers also lead and govern our organisation – as all of our trustees give their time, expertise and experience as volunteers.

Internally and externally we also give our time, expertise and experience through mentoring. Sometimes on an individual basis but also as an organisation supporting and nurturing smaller charities and social enterprises. This helps us build capacity across our networks as smaller organisations access our resources increasing their organisational knowledge, we've shared briefing packs on core topics such as safeguarding and modern slavery. By giving access to these materials we remove financial barriers to access this level of advice. Similarly Shaw Trust has supported smaller organisations to understand and manage their financial stability with accounting expertise and budgeting making sure necessary overheads were included in financial planning.

This Giving Tuesday is a great time to reflect on how we can all give our time, commitment and expertise as individuals but also as organisations.

To become a Shaw Trust volunteer contact [email protected] , or if you are interested in becoming a partner in delivering our contracts contact [email protected] .

Why not share your story about volunteering at Shaw Trust ?