Strategies for establishing and managing corporate volunteer programs

¶ … Corporate

Many companies these days have started to engaged themselves in different activities and programs that would benefit the needy and their communities. Programs such as collection of donations, either in the form of money, foods, clothing, and other useful materials such as books, from employees are the most common activities in corporate volunteer programs. Such goods that were collected are oftentimes distributed to unfortunate families. Being a volunteer program, employees are usually asked to volunteer their selves to be a part of non-profit organizations that will provide service to different communities.

With the emergence of volunteer programs in many companies, it is essential to learn and understand effective strategies when creating corporate volunteer organizations. In the following section, steps on how to develop a corporate volunteer program shall be discussed.

Developing a Corporate Volunteer Program

Pancer, Baetz, and Rog have a very good article on developing a corporate volunteer program. They used the Ford Motor Company of Canada as an example and source of information in writing the design for establishing a corporate volunteer program. There are quite a number of resources that provide useful information for this paper's topic. Following are the stages found in the research stage of this paper.

1. Decide what you want to accomplish (Pancer, et. al, 2002)

In establishing any organization, it is important for a company to know the purpose of the organization to be developed. Especially for corporate volunteer programs such as

Non-profit organizations volunteering to help poor people, being able to identify the program's objectives can help in convincing employees as to who may wish to join and provide their community service for free. According to Pancer and his colleagues, the objectives of a corporate volunteer program can affect the following factors.

The kinds of volunteer activities that employees can participate in The kinds of organizations for whom they might volunteer

The specific program requirements

2. Establish a budget and other tools for the program (UWMB.org Online)

Determining the financial needs and capabilities of the volunteer program is important in order to know whether the program is feasible or not. For instance, in a corporate volunteer program for helping the needy communities, it is vital that the program must have enough donations to be distributed to the needy people. It should be noted that financial factors do not necessarily come from the budget of the company. It can come from solicits and donations from others.

3. Obtain support from the management (UWMB.org Online)

The approval of the company management is important before a corporate volunteer program becomes legitimate for establishment. Before being able to convince the employees to volunteer in the program, it is important that the management must be the foremost supporter of the program.

5. Finalizing a list of the participants

After the publicity of the corporate volunteer program, the program's committee must determine the final list of participants and volunteers. This is important to ensure that the succeeding process in the establishment of the volunteer program and in the planning and development of activities will be in an organized manner. For instance, in a team building corporate volunteer program, being able to identify who are the volunteers for the program can allow the committee to properly distribute the tasks as to who have the talent and skills, or who are more capable of doing each of them.

6. Create a good working relationship with the volunteers and an environment that can motivate them to perform their tasks at their best.

After establishing the corporate volunteer program with the identified objectives and list of volunteers, it is important to create a good work relationship and environment for the participants of the program because the organization itself should serve as a good example to the people that the organization will provide its services. Also, having the other employees see how good the atmosphere is in the organization can serve as a motivation for them to similarly join the program.