Good Works!: Marketing and Corporate Initiatives that Build a Better World...and the Bottom Line

Chapter 7

Community Volunteering: Employees Donating Their Time and Talents

While cash giving declined between 2007 and 2008 for the first time in more than 20 years, the volunteer rate in the United States increased.¹ What's more, the Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey found that skilled volunteerism is increasingly being adopted by corporations.”²

—2010 Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey

A community volunteering initiative supports and encourages employees, retail partners, and/or franchise members to volunteer their time to support local community organizations and causes. Volunteer efforts may include employees volunteering their expertise, talents, ideas, and/or physical labor. Corporate support may involve providing paid time off from work, matching services to help employees find opportunities of interest, recognition for service, and organizing teams to support specific causes the corporation has targeted.

Distinguishing community volunteering from other initiatives is not difficult, as it stands alone as the initiative that involves employees of a corporation personally volunteering at community organizations (e.g., Boys & Girls Clubs) and for cause efforts (e.g., picking up litter on roadways). And volunteering in the community is not a new corporate initiative. What is new and noteworthy, however, is an apparent increase in the integration of employee volunteer efforts into existing corporate social initiatives and connecting the volunteer efforts to business goals. Once ...