Token volunteers
I was talking to a friend recently who coordinates her company’s staff volunteering days.
She was trying to find a more valuable experience for their team. After having a candid conversation with the charity organisation they had worked with previously, she discovered that the charity didn’t really have anything meaningful for them to do in a one-off volunteering day. In fact, the charity had been getting teams of people from other companies to repaint the same room, every year, for the past six years. It was all they could do to accommodate the company’s insistence on turning up once a year for the volunteer day.
This is what happens when a CSR program is more interested in ticking boxes than in building real, meaningful relationships with charity or non-profit partners. A program that connects the values of both corporate and non-profit takes time to develop, takes real conversations, and a commitment from both sides to be honest about what they want out of the relationship.
If the company is only interested in making their staff feel good about themselves because they spent a day working in a charity, then anything will do. They can tick the volunteering box, have someone write a glowing report about it, and take photos of their staff and brand alongside the charity of their choice. In truth, this is little more than tokenism, and may in fact be wasting everyone’s time (except the local paint supplier, who will be looking forward to the annual volunteering day more than anyone).
To truly make a difference, talk to the non-profit—not about what your company wants to do, but about what they need, what their goals are, and about what their challenges are for the year ahead. Then sit down and come up with a strategy that engages the skills and talents of your staff to meet the needs of the charity. Find a fit for both your company and the organisation you're supposed to be helping.
Even if it is just stuffing envelopes or answering phone calls, if that’s what they need, and you are providing real value or savings, then that can be the start of a great relationship. Building trust over time and looking for ways that you can be more involved can start small.
Every good relationship takes time to grow, but the key is honesty.
