Pop-Up Business For Dummies
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If you’re doing something interesting with your pop up business and it has some social, community or ethical benefits, you may be able to harness the power of volunteers. Volunteers provide an obvious benefit to your pop up, thanks to extra staff and more support. And, of course, any social, community or ethical benefits help your pop up get even more media profile.

But you can also deliver benefits to your volunteers. Perhaps you can help your volunteers:

  • Learn or develop new skills.

  • Feel more engaged in their community.

  • Boost their job skills and consequently their career options.

  • Meet a diverse range of people and improve their social skills.

For more about recruiting and working with volunteers, or to post an opportunity for volunteers, visit Do-it. For youth volunteers, go to vInspired.

For an informal way to get volunteers together for a particular job, such as cleaning up your shop, look at #WeWillGather.

Volunteers and employees are two different models of working, so do be careful not to confuse the two. If you treat volunteers the same way you do employees and use them to carry out something essential to your business, then you may have a legal duty to pay them.

In several legal cases, volunteers have taken legal action against unfair dismissal or discrimination or requested the minimum wage for their activities.

About This Article

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About the book author:

Dan Thompson is an artist, writer and founder of the Empty Shops Network. An expert in the creative use of empty shops, Dan has pioneered the use of shops as community hubs and has written about the problems facing town centres for The Independent and The Guardian.

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