Should you make a budget for volunteering?

Being a volunteer at a radio station typically means giving your time for free when you’re available, but there can be some costs involved. Although volunteering can be a great way to learn new skills or train others based on your experience it might be a good idea to keep an eye on what you spend.

When you join a community, hospital or student radio station you may have to pay an annual membership fee. This covers some costs of providing the volunteering opportunities, such as insurance, training materials or an entry fob for the building.

As you get involved in presenting a programme or helping behind the scenes there can be some other expenses.

Transport and equipment

Once you’ve joined a station you might have to travel to a building for your induction, training and volunteering. If you hosted a weekly programme you might have to pay a bus or train fare or pay for petrol and car parking. A cost of £4 per week for a bus fare might seem reasonable, but if you presented the show for 50 weeks of the year it would come to £200.

Getting the chance to interview someone in London or having media access to a festival could be an amazing opportunity. If you’re a volunteer doing something for your own programme the radio station might not be able to contribute towards your costs. You may need to decide whether it’s worth spending the money to make the trip.

Equipment should be provided for you to do your volunteer role. However, you may find that you don’t want to share something like headphones with other presenters. In-demand equipment like a portable recorder or microphone may be unavailable or difficult to use, so you may be interested in finding your own. These don’t need to be expensive items and you could consider a microphone to use with your smartphone.

Small but unexpected costs can also creep in. If you’re at an outside broadcast you might find that a radio mic needs new batteries or a 4G dongle needs a £10 top-up. For these it’s worth knowing the station’s expenses policy. You may be able to claim for something like batteries or car parking on station business, but only if you get permission first from the correct person. In any case you will need to keep receipts and submit them in a timely manner with the correct forms provided by the station.

Fundraisers and nights out

Many stations organise fundraisers, quiz nights and team events to bring all of the volunteers together. If you host a Monday night show you may see the presenter before and after you and never meet the rest of the team. It’s definitely worth going to these sorts of events so that you can meet others at the station.

These tickets can be expensive and you shouldn’t feel pressured into spending a lot of money on a dinner, raffle prize, taxi, childcare and so on. You could explain that you can’t make it but you’d be happy to help in another way, such as by volunteering extra time or other skills which you don’t normally provide at the station.

Some volunteers and organisations may feel that volunteers who ‘show and go’ - i.e. turn up to do their programme and leave without contributing to the rest of the station - aren’t doing their bit to help the station overall. Not everyone can contribute financially or with more time, but if you can help in some small way it will be appreciated by others. For example, you may be able to work on social media posts, help fill in grant applications or support other volunteers.

Creating a volunteering budget

You could work out that the cost of your show would be £25 in membership fees, £200 in travel, £30 on equipment and £10 on sundries. Budgeting £22 per month might be quite reasonable for the personal benefits you receive.

If this would be too much you could see if you could pre-record some programmes to save money on travel.

Extra costs may come up from time to time, such as the need to buy music for a show or a piece of station merchandise. These costs can balloon quite quickly. You could set a budget for buying your music or keep track of purchases in a basic spreadsheet. If you’re only buying music for your programme you can first see if it can be provided to you by a label or promo company.

Volunteers may sometimes want to contribute something that the station needs but can’t afford, such as a vinyl banner or a piece of equipment. It might not cost you much but speak first to those involved in finance at the station. There could be grant funding available for something like that and you could help fill in the application form. Alternatively the project may be desperate for something else and if you were going to be generous with £50 it might be better spent on overheads or another priority.

How much each volunteer spends and whether it seems cheap or expensive could be down to individual circumstances and attitudes. Having a budget may help ensure that the volunteering experience is as affordable as possible.