As a Campaigns Ambassador, by volunteering your time, energy, and skills, you are supporting life-saving research. Your charter will guide your involvement as a campaigning volunteer. Please read this alongside your Welcome to Volunteering handbook(PDF, 4.35 MB).
The Public Affairs and Campaigns team works within the Policy department to bring together our supporters, staff & scientists to inform and influence decisions. We work across the UK, in Westminster and in the devolved nations, to develop campaign strategies and messages to empower and enable you to deliver key political asks.
As a volunteer Campaigns Ambassador, you’re part of a community across the UK influencing change to cancer survival through prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment.
As a campaigner, you will strengthen political impact by sharing your personal experiences and local influence as a constituent. By building relationships through regular campaign activities with your politicians and influential decision makers, you are part of a powerful campaigning force to bring about a world where everybody can lead longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.
The charity welcomes volunteers of all ages and backgrounds and will not discriminate against any volunteers in the selection process.
Because of the responsibilities involved in being a Campaigns Ambassador, all volunteers must be:
18+ years old
A UK resident
To carry out the role effectively, you’ll also need basic digital skills.
Cancer Research UK has Volunteer Fair Treatment Guidelines. Your Welcome to Volunteering handbook covers topics not mentioned in this Charter including equal opportunities, safeguarding, data protection, whistleblowing, and much more. As a volunteer, you can also find out more on your Volunteer Hub.
We will respect your views; we will listen and learn from what you have to say, and we will ask for your feedback at regular intervals.
Members of the Campaigns team will receive appropriate training and materials to effectively support you and will abide by all the charity’s policies relevant to working with volunteers.
We will respect the privacy of all Campaigns Ambassadors, protect the data we hold about you, and contact you appropriately, respectfully, and politely.
Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility; any safeguarding disclosure must be reported to the Campaigns team as soon as possible. In an emergency you must call 999 and give details of the incident.
As part of the role, you are expected to meet with your elected representatives. We will provide guidance in your induction, and at relevant campaign moments, to protect the health, safety and welfare of all volunteers whilst undertaking campaigning activities, especially those undertaken alone.
All issues and concerns will be handled fairly and promptly. When necessary, we will involve experts in our compliance and safeguarding teams.
We will update you regularly about campaign activities and invite you to events with as much notice as possible.
Timely and accurate information will be provided to you about any relevant research, policies, and procedures.
You can expect a reply to all email queries sent to campaigning@cancer.org.uk within five working days.
We will provide all new volunteer Campaigns Ambassadors with an induction to campaigning within one month of joining.
We will make sure you feel ready and supported prior to any campaigning activity and provide you with appropriate information and skills development.
We will recognise your contribution to the charity and celebrate your successes.
When considering exclusive invitations to events and opportunities, we will always apply a fair approach to making decisions based on your suitability and recent engagement and activity with campaign asks.
You will be enthusiastic in your volunteering, whilst upholding the charity’s reputation, including through any use of its name and logo. We ask you not to smoke when wearing a branded badge, branded clothing or anything that would link you to our charity.
When contacting your MP or other political representatives you must only reference you are volunteering for Cancer Research UK when undertaking a specific campaign activity that has been set by the Campaigns team. In these instances, please refer to yourself as a “volunteer Cancer Research UK Campaigns Ambassador”.
Cancer Research UK doesn’t endorse or support any political party, and it’s really important that we remain politically neutral. You must be mindful of this when campaigning within your volunteering role. Learn more about this here.
As a volunteer, we expect you to protect any personal or confidential information you have access to in line with our Information Security and Data Protection Key Policy. This will include any information shared about campaigns ahead of activity being shared publicly. Make sure you tell us about any conflict of interest i.e. any association with tobacco, asbestos or sunbed companies or their subsidiaries. If there is any doubt, please check with the Campaigns team.
You will support the charity’s commitments to equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion by treating everyone fairly, and with dignity and respect, including those who hold different beliefs and views to you.
Campaigns Ambassadors are not directly supervised. We trust that you take reasonable care of your own safety, health and welfare and that of others who might come into contact with our work.
Read our safeguarding guidance
We ask all Campaigns Ambassadors to take at least one action per campaign moment.
We regularly review the activities of our volunteers to showcase the impact of your involvement and provide further support as needed. Please report every campaign action and feedback useful information to help keep our records up to date.
We value your experience and feedback, in a polite manner, to help achieve the aims of the charity and expect you to respect the expertise and knowledge of the Campaigns team. We ask you to know let us know if there are any changes in your personal circumstances that may affect your volunteering.
You will respect the privacy of other volunteers, protect any data you receive about them, and ensure any contact with them is appropriate, respectful, and polite.
We understand that circumstances change, and Campaigns Ambassadors may decide to step down. If you do, we’ll ask for feedback so we can keep improving the volunteer experience. To keep our volunteer community active, we regularly review engagement. If we haven’t heard from you for over six months, we’ll offer support with your campaigning or suggest other volunteering opportunities.
We may also ask a Campaigns Ambassador to reduce or stop volunteering if continuing could affect their own or others’ health or safety.
When you click on the link below, it will open so you can save it in PDF. If you require an alternative format, email us.
Read the charter in PDF