1. Introductions to panelists:
2. Some trends in Corporate Volunteering - see links Click here: Volunteer Trends ; Click here: Resource Centre for Managers of Volunteers - Trends/Sector Issues: Volunteer Calgary
3. What's Working: Success Stories and Resources
4. Challenges and Solutions: Audience members identified challenges/obstacles and creative solutions to realizing the potential of corporate volunteers. Here is a summary of their contributions
Barriers/Challenges/Obstacles: Corporate volunteers have very limited and inflexible time to volunteer; interest in one-time group projects, rather than long-term individual commitments; interest in having a good experience or gain valuable skills outweighs interest in making a difference for the non-profit; time demands of preparing for volunteers are significant and sometimes not justified by the value of the work done by the volunteers. Some projects that need to be done just aren't "sexy" - example from Eno River Association - folks want to build trails, not databases.
Solutions/Successes: Get help from local volunteer center to prepare for volunteers, ask volunteers to bring their own supplies, count volunteer hours towards qualification for cash grant, think marketing in describing your volunteer opportunity; make use of electronic portals for seeking volunteers and communicating expectations/assignments; repeat activities so that the return on planning investments grows over time - example of family literacy night repeated annually with IBM and United Way. Remember that one good volunteer is worth many half-hearted ones - so expect attrition and value those that stay to make long-term commitment
After the panelists presented, a study evaluating corporate volunteer programs was shared see link below.;
Click here: http://www.csrwire.com/pdf/Measuring-Corporate-Volunteerism-Overview.pdf