The Corporate-Volunteer Collision

In 2018 or 2019, I was tapped to be my business group’s representative for the company’s annual United Way campaign. We were invited to a full-day planning and training session at the United Way of Greater Houston’s beautiful headquarters building, headlined by the executive sponsor of the campaign, one of our executive vice presidents. He was French by birth, but had spent his years in the company primarily as an expatriate, holding posts in Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

He thanked us for volunteering our time and acting as representatives for the company, and proceeded to share that, before moving to the United States, he had not fully appreciated the social safety nets he had grown up with in his native France. In taking a step back and learning about the social landscape of his new community, he realized how precious social programs were, and the extreme need that his neighbors in Houston had for organizations like United Way in the absence of government-sponsored programs that keep citizens housed, fed, educated, and employed.

We broke off into workshop groups, did our campaign planning, and returned to our offices. The company and employees raised a nice chunk of change for United Way (I assume, I can’t remember details), and we repeated everything over again the next year.

For a lifetime volunteer like me, his little speech and the campaign were not particularly motivating or inspiring. (I preferred to seek out and lend my time and talent to organizations that furthered causes I found personally meaningful.)

But for others, being involved with the campaign was transformational and bonded them deeply with the company. For them, the goal of corporate volunteerism was met: employees were engaged, felt a sense of pride for their company, and we had photos and data for next year’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) report.

The earliest instance of what we might call “corporate volunteerism” in the United States is in the late 1700s with the creation of the first Chamber of Commerce in New York (1792). Some also point to the 1952 Supreme Court of New Jersey Case, AP Smith Manufacturing Co. v. Barlow, as the origins of modern CSR in the USA. In its ruling, the Supreme Court of New Jersey confirmed corporations’ legal right to make charitable donations to institutions (in this case, Princeton University).

In the late 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson called on the business community to help alleviate the unemployment crisis, leading to the formation of the National Alliance of Businessmen. Later, in the 1990s, President George H. W. Bush inspired the “Points of Light” initiative, calling on every business to develop community service programs, consider volunteer service in hiring, compensation, and promotion, and donate the services of their staff to local volunteer organizations.

Today, the ubiquity of CSR in US corporations (80% of Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies formally report on CSR efforts) suggests that companies understand the value of these programs. In fact, even as volunteerism flatlines in the United States, corporate volunteerism is on the rise.

Though the data is not the freshest, the 2017 Deloitte Volunteerism Survey revealed that most employees in the United States have a positive outlook on volunteering and its role alongside work.

Corporate volunteer programs typically fall under two main categories: individual-led and organization-led. In the 1970s, Ben & Jerry’s led the way in providing VTO, or volunteer time-off, to its employees. Today, many organizations across industries offer VTO to their employees, a perk that has been shown to improve company loyalty and satisfaction, particularly among millennial and Gen Z employees.

But providing VTO alone doesn’t create shared experiences among employee groups. Structured, organization-led volunteering events provide employees the opportunity to come together for a common purpose in service, create shared experiences and memories alongside colleagues, and see their organization’s “give back mission” in action.

A recent survey from Benevity shows a 57% increase (year-on-year) in global employee volunteerism participation. The report goes on to note that companies that offer both individual-led and organization-led volunteer opportunities see a 12x increase in volunteerism over those that offer no opportunities.

We know employees want volunteer opportunities, and we know the data supports their ROI, but where do we start?

In her 2021 Harvard Business Review article, Volunteer Programs That Employees Can Get Excited About, Jessica Rodell outlines common pitfalls and good practices of corporate volunteerism programs. Working from her suggestions, I added some of my own thoughts, drawing from both personal experience and my organizational culture master’s program.

1. Copy/Paste from Your Peers

Don’t take the lazy way out. Just because your peer organization has a thriving volunteer program does not mean that you should ctrl+v that program for your organization. Successful volunteer programs consider company culture, mission, and values, and local community needs.

2. Prioritizing Leadership’s Favorite Causes

It’s really cool that Senior Director Jeff really cares about The Whatever Foundation, but that doesn’t mean your teams care. If you want to engage employees in your corporate volunteering program, make sure to align causes and nonprofits with their interests and preferences. This is where being aligned with local community needs and offering flexibility of options really comes into play.

3. Creating the Perception of “Mandatory Participation”

We’ll explore mandatory volunteerism in a future post, but even the perception by employees that participation in volunteering activities will create favoritism or positive career outcomes can negatively impact their motivation orientation (implicit vs. and experience. On the flipside, urging employees to attend volunteering events when they are burned out, overworked, and disconnected can even further their feeling of “blah” for their employer. Be sure to clearly and transparently communicate the objectives of the volunteer program and manage expectations through all layers of your organization.

4. Poor Data Collection

I’m adding this one myself; you need to collect good data to support your corporate volunteering program. This can not only help build the story for future corporate social responsibility reporting, but also help internal communications about the value of the program, improve program participation, and garner support from leaders at all levels. Examples of good data include:

• Collect both registration data and attendance data

  • Is attendance better on Fridays vs. Wednesdays? Why?

• Collect demographic data (seniority, gender, department, etc.)

  • Are only junior people participating? Might event times conflict with childcare pickup for working parents?

• Gather feedback

  • Send out a sentiment survey following every event.

  • Gather suggestions from participants, including organizations that they are curious about serving.

1. Balance Meaning & Impact

What will most serve a nonprofit on any given day might not leave volunteers feeling like they have meaningfully contributed. This is a challenge that nonprofit volunteer managers navigate in their roles every day: balancing meaning and impact. When working with a nonprofit to develop a day of service or longer-term corporate volunteer relationship, work carefully to balance meaning for your employee-volunteers and impact for the nonprofit you serve. Is the effort the volunteers put in tangible? Will they be able to see and feel their work at the end of the event? Likewise, is the work actually helping the organization? Are there ways to balance this and better communicate the impact to volunteers?

The best example of this I have ever personally seen was at the Houston Food Bank. At the end of every shift, they share the total number of boxes of food prepared, how many people that food feeds, and how many Houston families will benefit from the few hours you donated. A simple 90-second announcement at the end of the shift left everyone in the room feeling proud and accomplished. Quantifying in real-time is difficult, but can make a huge impact on volunteer experience.

2. Support Employees’ Individual Volunteer Pursuits & Shared Experiences

Increasingly, companies are offering volunteer time off (VTO) to employees as a standard perk. This is particularly attractive to parents, who might use these hours to spend more time in their children’s schools or activities as classroom volunteers or youth sports coaches in addition to volunteering for their favorite nonprofit.

That being said, a key benefit of corporate volunteerism is creating meaningful shared experiences for employees, with 89% of employees noting that companies that sponsor volunteer activities have better working environments than those that do not.

Offering both VTO and company-organized volunteer events provides flexibility for employees who are active community volunteers and companies that want to use volunteerism as a team-building activity.

3. Focus Locally

If your organization has a global mission for its volunteer program, work to apply that mission locally. Whatever your CSR mission, applying it locally by partnering with a community nonprofit can increase the connection employees feel to the cause.

If your company chooses to partner with an “umbrella organization,” like the United Way, for a corporate fundraising campaign, consider identifying a few partner nonprofits for volunteer events that are close to your offices or could benefit from the unique skills of your workforce.

4. Bring Along Company Alumni, Retirees, Families, Customers, and Suppliers

When planning a volunteer program or event, why not invite your company alumni, retirees, employee families, customers, and suppliers in on the experience? Reports suggest that integrating customers and suppliers in team building exercises can strengthen relationships and is an opportunity to leverage different strengths to achieve a win for the community.

5. Ensure Dedicated Support

I’m going to go ahead and say, HR is already too busy with the day-to-day to be given one more thing. Putting together an intentional and successful volunteer program for your employees requires its own care, skillset, and attention. If you are unable to dedicate full-time resources to manage your corporate volunteer program, consider outsourcing to a consultant or leveraging technology to make things a little easier on everyone.

Similarly, to get long-term benefits, you need to plan for the long term. One-off events are fine, but to get the compounding benefits of employee pride and engagement with community awareness, positive press, and customer loyalty, you need a true strategy that spans years.

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If your company doesn’t have an employee volunteer program, take this as your sign to start one. Countless studies show that integrating volunteerism into employee initiatives boosts engagement and satisfaction. Even better, a thriving corporate volunteer program strengthens your presence in the community, making your organization more appealing to both customers and future employees.

There is so much to cover on this topic, and I probably will tackle more in future posts. You might have noticed that I did not even mention “volunteering at work,” that is, volunteering your time and energy to internal programs, like employee resource groups and other community-building initiatives. That deserves its own dedicated thoughts, and I certainly have many.