Corporate volunteering programs go skills-based to boost engagement, belonging
Employees today are placing more value on their employer’s corporate responsibility and impact they have on their communities. Volunteering programs can have a major impact on staff when it comes to their engagement and perceptions of their own employer, and companies today are turning to nontraditional opportunities beyond packing meals and running 5ks.
Some 95% of employees said it’s important that their employer is making a positive impact in the community and that they are also personally doing so, according to a Deloitte survey of over 1,000 U.S. workers. In-person volunteer opportunities with community organizations and other ways to put their professional skills to use are the best ways their companies can support them in those efforts, workers said in the survey.
“We know employees are looking for purpose at work and volunteering is one of the most powerful ways to deliver that in a way that also benefits the company,” said Sona Khosla, chief impact officer at Benevity, a corporate giving platform.
Skills-based volunteering is one way they can put their professional expertise to use for more good and an option more companies are turning to, said Leila Saad, CEO of Common Impact, an organization that connects companies and nonprofits for skills-based volunteering opportunities. Companies can define their social impact pillars and Common Impact works with a network of nonprofits to find a good match, whether it be an organization working around climate change, racial equity or domestic violence, for example.
“So many employees, especially Gen Z, really look to their workplace for rewarding, fulfilling, purpose driven opportunities, and this provides that,” Saad said.
In such arrangements staff with certain skills, like those on a finance team, will connect with a nonprofit in need of financial skills to work on a project together. It can either be a simple project done through a day of service, or longer-term, with staff reserving one afternoon a week to connect and do pro bono work. And because it’s mostly knowledge work, the volunteering can be done virtually or in-person.
During a recent longer-term project a small nonprofit developed its own CRM, but ran into some glitches and Common Impact connected them with staff at a tech company with technical expertise to resolve the issues.
Staff who’ve completed skills-based volunteering projects also say they serve as an experiential learning opportunity, giving them a chance to develop new skills like leadership, project management and presenting, Saad said.
“It’s outside of their typical work life, but within their work day, and they can come at a problem from a different direction, or take on a different aspect to the work that they don’t typically do,” she said. “It just provides this extremely rewarding experience for volunteers.”
“Employees share that they then really respect and like their companies because they’ve offered these engagements, which plays into retention and employee engagement and worker satisfaction.”
The projects are typically team-based, like other volunteering opportunities, and can boost engagement and foster a stronger sense of belonging to an organization. About half of employees say volunteering opportunities boosted their sense of purpose by helping them build connections with colleagues, and 45% said they learned new skills while volunteering while aiding their professional development, according to Deloitte’s survey. About half said the opportunity made them proud to work for their employer.
“Nonprofits are struggling to attract talent and recruit into their organizations now more than ever, and so, corporations have this incredible asset that they can lend to nonprofits at this time, which is their employees, skills and talents,” Benevity’s Khosla said.
Leadership can also have a hand in through board service programs, where companies place senior leaders on the board of nonprofits. “So those are really powerful programs that allow nonprofits to tap into the executive leadership and skills that are in the corporate sector, but that could really be powerful in the nonprofit sector,” Khosla said.
One key benefit of skills-based volunteering opportunities is that they tend to help develop stronger than longer-term relationships between the employees at both organizations through one-off volunteering activities, Khosla said.
“There’s so many positive benefits for volunteering, we just need companies to open the aperture a little bit on what they think of as a powerful employee program that drives business impact, employee impact and social impact,” she said.