5 tips on how to design Corporate Volunteering programs

Corporate volunteering is an increasingly popular form of partnerships, where a company offers time and the expertise of its employees to non-profit organisations.

There are different ways for the company to get engaged: hands-on or high-skilled activities, performed individually or in a team, one-off or regularly. Here are some of the examples of the most popular approaches to corporate volunteering:

• Social team days: team building events for good, when employees spend a day supporting a chosen non-profit usually with hands-on experience such as cooking in a shelter, planting trees or joining environmental clean-ups.
• Pro-bono events: One-day events where employees & non-profits work together to solve problems or boost non-profits’ growth. For example, new online presence, fundraising campaign or HR strategy.
• Individual volunteering: time and opportunities provided and coordinated by the employer, which allow employees to independently schedule and manage their level of contribution.

There is no “one model fits all” corporate volunteering. Each approach can be successful – benefit the company, non-profit organization & society, it is however important to design the program having all stakeholders in mind. We also prepared 5 tips on how to make sure the program makes most sense for the company itself!

1. Set up clear goals – it is important to have different internal stakeholders aligned from the very beginning, HR and CSR should work on that together
2. Tie the engagement to the mission and vision of the company
3. Let the employees do what they are good at, let them choose – be creative and explore different partnerships
4. Make sure the engagement is high – get the buy-in from the top and promote, promote, promote internally
5. Measure the impact (internally and externally) – well reported programs can be tied to the business outcomes of the company – it will make it easier to invest in social engagement in the future

If you are interested in initiating a corporate volunteering program at your company, reach out to hello@socialheld.at and we will help you get it started!