Companies are from Mars, Non Profits are from Venus

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By David Warshaw

Workplace volunteering is a growth industry.

More and more, companies – from the Fortune 500 to small local firms – are investing in programs that support their employees’ community activities, greatly increasing the pool of talented volunteers ready to serve community needs.

This should be terrific news for agency directors and managers of volunteers. Yet many nonprofits find it very difficult to tap into this expanding resource. Could it be a communication and expectation gap? Are “companies from Mars and nonprofits from Venus” when it comes to figuring out how to best use employee volunteers?


The Root of the Issue
Imagine you come into your agency’s office on a Monday morning, get a knock on the door, and find there are 30 employees from XYZ Widget Corporation outside ready to “volunteer for the day.” Never happens? Right! And kittens don’t purr.

While this may be an extreme example, most nonprofits are challenged to integrate groups of employee volunteers into their programs.

One reason for this is that workplace volunteer managers – like the person at XYZ Widget who called you to set up the project – have their own organizational imperatives. Their bosses are looking for outcomes – a return on investment (ROI) for the resources (time, people, dollars, “stuff”) put into their workplace volunteer program. And those outcomes may not match up with yours.

After all, your ROI measure is pretty straightforward: How well you deliver on your agency’s mission. To be honest, while business volunteer managers certainly want to help you succeed with your mission, their ROI for workplace volunteering is not solely about that.


The Business Case for Workplace Volunteering
What are companies after? Research from, for example, the Points of Light Foundation points to the following as key reasons why companies invest in workplace volunteerism:
They want to “do good” for their community.
It fits the company’s traditions and values.
It improves reputation and image.
It is important to customers that the company demonstrates “good citizenship.”
It helps recruit / retain employees.
It helps build employee morale and job satisfaction.
It helps build teams among diverse employees.
It allows employees to develop new skills that are useful in their “real job.”
Note that none of these are mission specific. In any community there are probably dozens (hundreds?) of nonprofit agencies where a company’s workplace volunteer manager can direct their employees to gain these outcomes.

How, then, can you get your piece of the workplace volunteering pie?


Meeting Expectations – From Both Sides
The first thing to decide is whether dealing with organized workplace volunteer programs is worth the effort. All nonprofits have staff and budget constraints, and dealing with company volunteers can be more time intensive than your regular volunteer management. With a small staff and/or limits on the kinds of casual volunteers you can use (for example, most of your volunteers need training to deal with a special population or must be available during the work day), perhaps direct connects with corporate programs are not an efficient way to get additional volunteer resources.

So, step one: Take an honest look at the plusses and minuses.
Can you get some things done that will advance your mission that otherwise wouldn’t happen or would be delayed?
Does your staff buy into the need and the solution?
Is there someone on your side to manage and direct the effort? (This is a very vital element!)
Are you positive it won’t divert your team from other mission-critical activities?
There’s no harm if this review comes out negative. In fact, you now have good rationale for a polite “thanks, but no thanks” if that XYZ Widget volunteer manager calls, rather than giving what may sound like a knee-jerk “no,” or worse, getting into a project that fails.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore the corporate volunteer resource totally, however. Many companies post volunteer opportunities on their bulletin boards or in employee newsletters. They may link their internal employee website to community resources, such as the local volunteer center’s volunteer matching pages. These and other avenues can be very helpful to advertise your mission and volunteer opportunities, and to add to your cadre of individual volunteers.

Another opportunity comes from knowing for whom your current volunteers work. Many companies have “dollars-for-doers” or other programs that provide monetary grants based on an individual employee’s volunteer activity – $100 for 20 hours of volunteering at a single agency, for example – or they match employee donations. If you know which of your volunteers are employed in what companies, you can ask them if they have such programs. (Employees often don’t know if their company does or doesn’t. Just by asking them to find out, they – and you – may get a positive surprise.) You may even discover that Peter, Latisha and Jose, three of your stalwart volunteers, work for the same company in different locations – but they don’t know each other. Make that connection and they may work together to get others from their company involved.


Getting to Success
Let’s suppose, however, that your review gets to “yes,” and it does look worthwhile to formally engage with workplace volunteer programs. How do you go about it?

A good place to begin is to evaluate your capabilities and requirements against the potential ROI needs of the company program.
What tasks/jobs do you have that are good for done-in-a-day team-building? (e.g., facilities work, painting, garden planting). A great time to do this is when planning your annual facility maintenance program. One executive director told me she keeps “a number of projects in a draw,” all planned and ready to go should she get a call from a group looking for “something to do.”
Can you provide a company’s IT department “training opportunities” for a group of new hires by having them help you with your Website or volunteer data base? Or find other tasks that will use the professional skills of employee volunteers?
Do your client services offer opportunity for casual (rather than ongoing) volunteerism by groups of employees? (For example, helping host or chaperone a holiday party or taking over an entire shift serving meals at a community center.)
Consider schedule. Do you have opportunities in the evening or on weekends? Or can you “bring the volunteering to the workplace?” (Such as, a project that a group of employees can do during lunch in the company cafeteria. This eliminates the need for travel and time away from the job during the week.)
Can you create “family oriented” volunteer projects so that employees who work long hours can bring spouses and children to volunteer with them?
Targeting potential companies whose business interests align with your mission is another good step. Many companies concentrate their efforts, and it won’t make sense for your agency to bang on a door that is not likely to open for you. For example:
Pharmaceutical companies are often most interested in health-related projects for their employees.
When Tyco Corporation moved into its new headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, they identified “housing” as a key community need that fits nicely with the company’s product scope. The result is that much of Tyco’s employee volunteers (and company grants) are directed to housing-related nonprofits.
GE (where I directed the global employee volunteer program) emphasizes education, the environment and children’s services. It is neutral to negative on support for the arts.
Company websites are a great source to learn about a company's volunteer program and grant criteria so you can tailor your pitch to their interests.

But what if you don’t have time to research area companies and still want to get involved with workplace volunteers? List projects with your local volunteer center and use their contacts and knowledge of area companies. Many companies look for projects to get employees involved as part of their United Way solicitation campaign, so timing may be key. Link also to the “seasons of service” calendar of sponsored events strung out through the year that seek to engage volunteers, such as Martin Luther King Day (January), National Volunteer Week (April), Join Hands Day (May) and Make a Difference Day (October). These have built in publicity and organization behind them that often attract corporate participation and make it easier to find a match.

My Opinion:

Worker Volunteers is a great tactic that can be used to bridge the gap of volunteering and working. It will benefit local communities greatly by having extra hands to do hard and time consuming jobs like building houses or highway cleanups. Most people in todays society do not volunteer. From what I have seen, the only people who volunteer are people who have to, in order to accomplish some sort of school or work requirement. The other people I have seen volunteer, do not have a full time work or school obligation. Everyone in the world needs and wants more money so it is difficult to convince people to work for free. Perhaps if people really understood the value of volunteering they would be more inclined. I think the act of volunteering helps to bring a community together, but also helps to define it. Companies of all types and sizes run their businesses in our communities which is why it seems fair and fitting that they have worker volunteers to reach out.