It’s Global Volunteer Month - Bring Community Impact into your Workplace

It’s Global Volunteer Month! An opportunity to celebrate building stronger, more vibrant communities through volunteer service.

Over the past year, there has been a renewed energy for civic engagement in the workplace, as people around the world use their voice and actions to respond to a global pandemic, racial justice, and social equity. 

While the COVID-19 pandemic presents challenges to gathering en-masse, facilitating social impact engagement doesn’t have to be an in-person event. Read on for HBR and Beth Bengtson’s take on reimagining corporate volunteerism.

Identify and match the needs and the skills on both sides.

First determine who should lead the employee volunteer efforts at your organization (HR, affinity groups, departments, individual employees, etc.)? What are your corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals? What are your strongest employee skill sets? How can you translate all this into a well-defined project that can be accomplished by an individual or team of volunteers? Can this be built upon for future projects? This step establishes a trusting and open relationship between the two partners from the beginning.

Building purposeful partnerships calls for a longer and deeper commitment than your employees may typically have available, and it’s not always easy to make the right match. To do that you need to identify the organization(s) that aligns with the values of your business and might most need your help. For example, if equity and diversity is important to your business,  one direction to consider would be to look for nonprofits that help elevate more women into the workforce.

Once there’s a well-defined project and two willing partners, develop a detailed brief for each engagement.

Outline objectives, expected outcomes – short- and long-term; timeline; roles and responsibilities; and indicators. The leads from the nonprofit and businesses involved  should discuss, provide input and agree on a final plan.

Do the work to understand what your nonprofit partner does and who they serve.

Employees may only have cursory understanding of the social context that a nonprofit partner is addressing. Therefore it is important that your team does the advance work to contextualize their knowledge and skills for the project, and invite your nonprofit to either aid in this effort or direct you to the best resources. Taking the time to build that relationship with the nonprofit and understand their challenges is a key factor for a successful outcome for all.

Measure impact after each engagement, and before planning next steps.

Were the short-term outcomes of the program met and how will that inform next steps? What longer-term impact needs to be tracked and by when? Use a combination of vital assessment tools, including: surveys of all participants — your staff and the nonprofit leadership and attendees; comparisons of your staff responses to other volunteer efforts; in-depth follow up discussions between company and nonprofit leaders. Whether everyone feels the project succeeded or missed the mark, the feedback is critical and should be the basis for future engagements.

Replicate and scale as needed.

Scaling, which maximizes resources, is at the core of this model — each engagement should be built with that in mind. It can be done on both the business and nonprofit end. For instance, a business with multiple locations can replicate and tailor a successful project for different local communities, multiplying its impact.