Three Questions to Ask a Company About Their Volunteer Program

Most larger corporations that take social responsibility seriously will have an employee volunteer program. As a volunteer manager, it’s important to get to know the contacts in your community to leverage all that workplace volunteering can offer. Some companies are very targeted in their outreach, and others offer more liberal volunteer time off/community service leave. Oftentimes, the volunteers themselves are unaware of or unfamiliar with their company’s policies. Including a workplace question on a volunteer application can help you identify opportunities to grow corporate partnerships.

 

If you can identify and reach out to the community relations contact, ask these three questions to maximize the potential of recruiting workplace volunteers

 

Ask: Does your organization offer a financial match for volunteer hours?

Some companies make an additional financial commitment if they have employees engaged as active volunteers in an organization. Many companies see value in group volunteer activities as team building opportunities and many value long-term volunteerism as a leadership development tool. If a match is offered, make sure you know how large of a group and how many hours are required to qualify, and the process for requesting it. Other companies focus matching money on board engagement. Board members might be eligible for additional funds by reporting hours on a company volunteer tracking platform. If you’re asking a workplace question in your volunteer signup, or scanning email addresses for a corporate handle, you can let volunteers know how they can help you by reporting their hours back to their company.

 

Ask: What’s the best way to let your employees know about our volunteer opportunities?

Some companies will post volunteer opportunities on their intranet, and others might have a separate volunteerism platform. Some might share through a newsletter, or word-of-mouth through a volunteer committee. Being able to paste the simple VolunteerLocal link to an event signup into an email can make workplace volunteer recruitment a breeze.

 

Ask: Can I present about our volunteer program at your company?

If your mission aligns well with a business goal (say, you offer STEM programming and are approaching an engineering firm) or your organization is very near to a corporate headquarters, look for opportunities to put on an in-person presentation for employees. Some invite speakers to lunch & learns, or volunteer fairs, or to provide a testimonial during their United Way campaign. If you have the opportunity, try to highlight people from that workplace who are already making an impact with your organization. Emphasize your shared values and how easy you make it to get involved. It’s always great when you have an event coming up that you can ask people to commit to as you close out your presentation, too.

 

 

Brianne Sanchez

Brianne Sanchez is a staff writer at VolunteerLocal. She loves bikes, crafts and a good book.