FEATURE ARTICLE - Corporate Volunteerism: Trends and Insight

In 2004, 57% of volunteers with an employer received some form of support from their employer for volunteering. More than 25% of Canadian employers allowed their employees to modify their hours so they could volunteer. Recent studies show this trend is quickly increasing. What is corporate volunteering and how can your organization take advantage of this trend?

Corporate volunteer programs can range from low to high employer involvement. Some organizations do not outwardly encourage volunteering but don't implement or enforce any restricting policies that prevent employees from using work time or a small amount of work resources towards their personal volunteer activities. For example - an employee is allowed to make or receive a phone call regarding their volunteer activity.

The most common level of support includes allowing employees to change their schedule, providing a letter of thanks or recognition from their employer, and receiving paid time off to volunteer. Employers that are highly involved in supporting volunteerism will assist in finding volunteer activities for employees that can be done on company time. The employers may also have a person designated to support volunteerism.

The most supportive industries are finance, insurance, real estate, leasing and public administration.

How Can Agencies Access Corporate Volunteers?

Volunteer Canada has developed an excellent resource outlining a strategy to access corporate volunteers called: "Volunteer Connections: The benefits and challenges of employer-supported volunteerism". In this manual is outined the following steps that agencies should take:

1. Prepare yourself and your organization - make sure a solid foundation of plans and policies are in place
2. Establish your goals and needs - knowing these will make any future relationship with a corporation more successful.
3. Research your options - find out about the corporation and their volunteer program before you suggest a partnership. Find out the goals of the company’s volunteer program – is it to enhance teambuilding? Enhance corporate image? Assist community agencies? Improve the environment? Also, find out the parameters of the volunteer program they provide their employees – for what type of organization can employees volunteer, who can participate, how much time can they volunteer, and when can they volunteer. All this information will help you screen out corporations that don't match your goals and needs.
4. Plan and make "The Pitch" - Just like any proposal, planning your approach and presentation is important to making a good impression and opening the doors for developing a mutually beneficial relationship.
5. Establish the relationship - This may mean helping the corporation develop their corporate volunteering program and showing them how to support volunteers. This is definitely when you want to iron out the details of each party's responsibilities into a formal agreement.
6. Engaging employees as volunteers - Now is when you finally get to include the employees in your agency's volunteer activities.
7. Recognize employers and the corporate volunteers - This is a critical part of any volunteer managemetn program. You may be involved in assisting the corporation develop their own recognition program.
8. Evaluate your efforts - Review your agreement, your goals and needs as well as the corporation's goals to determine if adjustments are required to improve the relationship.

Corporate volunteering is an emerging trend and smaller organizations can access these potential volunteers with some planning and willingness to initiate the process. Remember, the #1 reason people don't volunteer is because they haven't been asked. It's up to the agencies to make corporations aware of the volunteer opportunities that exist.

Statistics gathered from the 2004 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering & Participating