How to map skills across a charity, including staff and volunteers

To map skills across a charity, start with the work you need to deliver, gather comparable information from staff and volunteers, then review whether those skills are available where and when you need them. Keep experience, willingness and availability separate. Someone knowing how to do a task does not mean they have agreed to take it on.

The useful output is a shared overview of capability, not a directory of impressive biographies. It should help you decide who to approach for a project, where to offer development, which activities depend on one person and what you may need to recruit or buy in.

Start with the work, not a list of every possible skill

Choose a defined planning period, such as the next service cycle or annual delivery plan. List the activities that matter during that period: running community sessions, preparing funding applications, managing finances, supporting volunteers or improving your website. Describe the tasks behind each activity before deciding which skills to record.

For example, an illustrative fundraising project might need prospect research, bid writing, budget preparation and evidence of service outcomes. A single heading called fundraising would hide those differences. Equally, a catalogue containing hundreds of specialist skills would make a first exercise unnecessarily difficult.

Assign one person to coordinate the map, with input from whoever leads staff, volunteering and service delivery. Agree which decisions the first version must support. If the immediate question is whether you can run a new programme, focus on that rather than attempting to document the whole charity at once.

Use one framework without treating everyone as interchangeable

Use common skill names across staff and volunteer records so you can review the charity as a whole. Add role-specific questions where needed. A volunteer coordinator and an occasional event volunteer should not have to complete identical questionnaires, but their relevant experience should be recorded in a comparable way.

Keep role and responsibility visible alongside skills. A staff member's contracted responsibilities are different from a volunteer's offer of occasional help. If someone holds more than one role, keep one person record with those roles attached, rather than counting them twice when assessing coverage.

Treat board capability as a related but distinct view. Oversight of financial reporting is not the same task as preparing the accounts. You can use consistent categories while keeping governance needs separate from operational delivery. For board-specific collection methods, see trustee skills audit questionnaire or AI conversations.

Record enough detail to make a sensible match

Build your first record around a small set of fields. Each should answer a practical question when you are looking for help:

• Skill and context: what can the person do, and in what setting have they used it?
• Experience and recency: what relevant task have they completed, and when?
• Support needed: could they assist, work independently or guide someone else on this particular task?
• Qualifications: what relevant credentials do they report, and has anyone checked them where necessary?
• Interest and availability: would they like to use or develop this skill, and what commitment could they consider?
• Record status: who provided the information, when was it updated and what still needs clarification?

Use task-based descriptions rather than an unexplained score out of five. Someone may confidently prepare a newsletter but need help with a donor database. Preserve that distinction instead of assigning a broad digital proficiency rating that suggests more than the answers establish.

Keep self-reported experience separate from checked competence. A skills conversation can identify a possible match; it does not itself confirm that someone is ready for a safety-critical or specialist responsibility. Use the appropriate checks, supervision and approval before assigning that work.

Gather answers in a way people can manage

Explain the purpose before sending invitations. Say what information you want, who will see it and how you intend to use it. Keep skills discovery distinct from decisions about performance or changes to roles, and explain any intended connection openly rather than allowing people to guess.

Ask for examples beyond current roles, including previous employment, other volunteering and relevant interests. Invite people to share lived experience only if they wish to, without requesting personal histories to demonstrate a skill. Offer a supported conversation or another accessible route for anyone who cannot comfortably use your chosen format.

Pilot the questions with a small mix of staff and volunteers. Check whether they understand the labels, can describe their experience and know how to indicate that they do not want additional work. For detailed volunteer participation guidance, use the guide to auditing volunteer skills.

Compare coverage, not just the number of people with a skill

Bring the answers into a skills matrix: a grid showing people against the capabilities your charity needs. Group similar terms, but retain the original examples so a broad category does not erase useful detail. Ask participants to clarify ambiguous summaries rather than guessing what their answers mean.

Mark unanswered questions as unknown, not as evidence that a skill is absent. Review missing responses by team, location and role before drawing conclusions about the charity. A map dominated by head-office staff cannot reliably describe the capability of a wider volunteer network.

Then compare the map with actual delivery requirements. In a hypothetical example, three people have experience leading community workshops, but only one is available on the day a new group meets. The skill exists within the charity, yet the programme still has a coverage problem.

Distinguish a missing skill from limited capacity, outdated experience or dependence on one person. These need different responses. Training may help someone refresh a skill; it will not create extra hours for someone already fully committed. A capable deputy may address a continuity risk more directly than general recruitment.

Turn the map into a short action plan

Prioritise gaps by their effect on planned work and the time available to address them. For each priority, record the activity affected, the evidence behind the gap, a proposed response, an owner and a review date. Include uncertainties that need resolving before you commit resources.

Choose the response that fits the problem. You might invite an interested person to help, arrange supported practice, develop a deputy, recruit for a defined capability or commission specialist support. Discuss the task and commitment with the person before adding their name to a project plan.

Give managers the detail needed to arrange work, and give trustees an overview of significant coverage risks and planned responses. Avoid circulating everyone's full profile simply because it is available. Tell participants what the exercise has led to, including where a suggestion cannot currently be taken forward.

Choose a tool around the process you need

A controlled spreadsheet can be a sensible starting point if one owner can maintain it and access is manageable. Consider dedicated software when collecting updates, searching records or combining teams becomes difficult. Assess question flexibility, accessibility, permissions, export options and how easily people can correct their information.

SkillDrill supports paid staff and volunteers together in one place. Its charity setup lets you choose templates or create your own question set, then invite people to an adaptive AI conversation. If that approach suits your pilot, explore SkillDrill for charities and volunteer organisations.

Keep it current through real decisions

Choose a review point that fits your planning cycle, and update records when people join, leave, finish training or change their availability. Ask what has changed rather than repeating the whole exercise. Give the map owner responsibility for resolving unclear entries and following up agreed actions.

Start with one upcoming activity, identify the skills and commitment it needs, and test your map against those requirements. You have a useful first version when it helps you decide whom to approach, what to check and which gap must be addressed before work begins.