5 Key Qualities of Outstanding Corporate Volunteering Events
We highly recommend the creation and support of employee led engagement teams as a best practice in corporate volunteering and giving programs. If you have these teams in place, or you lead a team, you may want to consider the following five elements when planning your next employee volunteering or giving event.
1. Be Specific
When you’re choosing a volunteer project for you and your fellow employees, make sure you have a specific goal in mind. The more specific the goal of the event, the more likely it will motivate others to want to achieve it.
Actually, you may want to consider 3 types of specific goals:
- Outputs – This is all about the numbers: how many hours, how many people, how many meals (for example). For example: “We served 1000 meals in a day to homeless men.”- Outcomes – this is about immediate value created for the beneficiaries: the company, the employees, and the community. For example: “We ensured that 1000 men did not go hungry for one more day in our community.”
- Impacts – this is about immediate and long-term change: what may change in the community, the company or even among employees as a result of the volunteering event?For example: “employee perspectives towards issues of homelessness in our community are more informed and they have clear opportunities to take action and are working to address the issue.” Remember: be bold!
2. Make it Meaningful
The team of employee volunteers must believe that the project or event will have significant impact for the community and the business. This is particularly important when inviting colleagues who have little experience with volunteering (which is most people, statistically speaking). Everyone wants to know they ‘made a difference’ when they gave their time or money. Taking some time to understand what this difference will be and how their contribution achieves it is incredibly important. Gathering everyone together for a “brief” prior to the volunteer activity is a best practice for clearly communicating meaning.
3. Measure & Share
The objectives of the event must be clear enough to determine how well they are achieved. Your fellow employees will want to know what kind of progress was made through their volunteering. If you didn’t solve hunger by passing out 1000 meals, what did you achieve? Underscore what was achieved during a ‘de-brief‘ following the event. But to do this well; it’s very important to know what you’re measuring. Taking the time to be specific with your goals will make measurement much easier.
There's more! Read the entire post over on RealizedWorth.com
