Capacity
FOR-PROFIT & NONPROFIT GROWTH
Skills-based Volunteering: The Business Case Benefits span corporate community engagement and nonprofit capacity building by Danielle Holly
Danielle Holly is CEO of Common Impact, an organization which designs programs that direct companies’ most strategic philanthropic asset — their people — to the seemingly intractable societal challenges they’re best positioned to address. commonimpact.org
JAN. 2021
32
INBUSINESSPHX.COM
The last year has been marked by an unprecedented combination of challenges: a pandemic, economic downturn and devastating racial injustice, all of which have affected individuals as well as public and private-sector organizations. At the same time, pervasive social issues such as unequal access to healthcare, housing, food, education and workforce development remain. Making progress in these areas while navigating the unique context of 2020 is difficult, but there is a strategic way for the sectors to collaborate and truly make a difference: skills-based volunteering. Skills-based volunteering (SBV) taps the experience and professional talents of individuals — often corporate professionals — to build and sustain nonprofit operations and services, which are needed now more than ever. Skilled volunteer programs can address nonprofit needs across chronically under-funded infrastructure areas like marketing, finance, technology, HR, project management, strategy planning and operations realignment. They can be as brief as a day of service or as in-depth as a multi-week or multi-month consulting project. It’s also something companies can do right now to directly engage in positive community change. In fact, during the pandemic, SBV has easily adapted to a virtual environment, making it accessible even for remote or distributed teams. SBV is not a new concept, but it is a growing one: More than 60% of companies have a formal pro bono program. It is one of the most tangible, measurable connection points between employee engagement, values and corporate community goals. It makes the most of a company’s strongest asset — its employees — to have lasting effects on the community-based organizations’ capacity to deliver real change. The organization I lead, Common Impact, connects talented business professionals with nonprofit organizations to build capacity for the social sector. Our experience tells us that when done right, skills-based programs hold tremendous potential for corporate volunteers and the nonprofits they support. A vast majority of volunteers who participate in our programs indicate they are more likely to recommend their company as a great place to work, leading to stronger recruitment and retention for their employers and, ultimately, reinforcing
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s thesis that long-term sustainability and profitability requires increased corporate activism. There is a wide range of SBV models that can be customized to nonprofit needs and corporate talents, and even timely needs like disaster resiliency or support for racial justice organizations. Here are some of the models we’ve seen produce impact for nonprofit partners and skilled volunteers alike, even when delivered in a virtual format. Hotline (1 hour): When time is at a premium for both volunteers and nonprofits, the pro bono hotline offers rapid response support in urgent situations or a quick injection of advice for capacity-strapped organizations via a one-hour consultation. Day of Service (4-8 hours): This model consists of teambased consulting executed over the course of a single day, either as “flash consulting” (where corporate teams are matched to nonprofit challenges that align to the volunteers’ collective skill set) or a “pitch competition” (where multiple volunteer teams compete to create the best solution to a nonprofit challenge). Team Consulting (6 weeks – 6 months): Ranging from weeks to months in duration, team consulting involves a functional or cross-functional group of corporate volunteers focused on a defined nonprofit challenge. Coaching (2 hours per month): A mid- or senior-level corporate employee provides guidance on a strategic or early-stage challenge via direct one-on-one coaching with a nonprofit executive or coaching a junior team of corporate skills-based volunteers. Virtual Education: Through a single or series of virtual convenings, skilled volunteers with specific expertise can support a timely, sector-wide need, such as financial scenario planning or crisis communication. Nonprofit leaders gain fresh information and insight to further their missions. Sabbatical (immersion): A corporate employee provides a nonprofit with full-time support for a period of six weeks to one year. With a deep investment in an issue area or organization, sabbaticals are a powerful CSR differentiator for a company, as well as a valuable talent and leadership development opportunity for the employee.
Skills-based volunteerism aligns individuals’ service activities with the tasks or issues they are most qualified to address, thereby exponentially increasing the value of volunteers’ time and potential impact. Value of average volunteer hour: $27.20; value of average skilled volunteer hour: $195.
