In today's segment of VolunteerSpot's Summer of Service, we have Michael Nealis joining us to discuss his take-aways from the National Conference on Service and Volunteering. Thanks Michael!
The Importance of Employee Volunteering
By Michael Nealis
This year’s National Conference on Service and Volunteering brought more than 4,500 Champions of Service to New Orleans for three days of service projects, knowledge sharing, and celebrating the power of people that are taking action and changing the world.
There was no way to get to all of the sessions that I wanted to go to – hundreds of sessions across three days meant that I would simply have to miss some of the sessions that I was most interested in. I got to do the next best thing and talk to a lot of different people about what their best takeaways were.
Two themes kept coming up in those conversations – the increased focus on corporate social responsibility and employee volunteer programs, and the importance of volunteers in disaster response.
Employee Volunteer Programs are becoming more than just a part of employee benefit programs. They’re becoming important parts of corporations’ corporate social responsibility plans, and great ways for employees to be more involved in their communities. According to a study released earlier this month by Deloitte, employee volunteer programs are a deciding factor for millennials looking for a job.
The focus of corporate social responsibility programs is moving towards a purposeful volunteer effort that is aligned with the company’s strategic goals and away from the idea that the best way to fix a problem is to throw money at it. Companies that have successful employee volunteer programs seriously invest in designing volunteer opportunities that have high relevance to employees' work life and culture, helping to make volunteering a “natural fit” for the company.
When you apply the same business process used for core business choices to the creation of an employee volunteer program it takes you out of the “generic bubble” so many companies think corporate social responsibility is. Utilizing skills already applied to core business will design a program that, in most ways, will be appropriate to the firm’s strategy.
The role of volunteers in disaster response was highlighted in two ways – preparedness efforts before a disaster strikes and volunteer response after a disaster. Conference attendees were able to see how easy it is to help prepare families for disasters at the Get HandsOn mobile projects booth. I lost track of the number of times people told me that they loved the activity because it was easy and they could do it while they were talking to people. Volunteering doesn’t have to be hard, and the project booth did a great job of showing it!
Admiral Thad Allen spoke in a session about the role of volunteers in disaster response. The major call to action was the development of a universal credentialing system so that volunteers who have been trained to aid response to disasters can more easily be assigned to the tasks they’ve been trained for.
The most refreshing thing Admiral Allen said was that it’s okay to admit that a certain type of response is not being effective, and that it’s okay to change your approach in the midst of responding to a disaster. This can’t be done without a plan, though, and it’s extremely important to be able to communicate the change in response to everyone who is responding so there is as little confusion as possible when plans do get changed.
I’m excited for next year’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service in Chicago and hearing how the lessons learned this year were put into practice across the country!
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Michael Nealis is Interactive Strategy Coordinator for Points of Light Institute. Before coming to Points of Light Institute, he served for two years with Volunteer Maryland, an AmeriCorp*State program in Maryland. Most weekends, he can be found on a roof somewhere in Atlanta volunteering with Atlanta Habitat for Humanity and on Twitter as @MikeNealis
Keep Up With the Summer of Service Series!
- Small Actions, Big Impact by Nate St. Pierre
- Supporting Military Families by Christina Jumper
- Volunteering for Kids by Marilyn Price-Mitchell
