Pro bono instead of fundraising: how to use Corporate Volunteering for your organization
Most associations and non-profit organizations rely on fundraising in the form of private donations or government funding to finance their work. In times of tight budgets and cutbacks, this can mean that certain projects can no longer be implemented. Corporate partnerships offer a valuable alternative.
We will show you how you can realise important projects with the help of pro bono days, social team events (social days) and other Corporate Volunteering activities without any funding or fundraising and how vostel.de can support you in this.
Contents:
- What is Corporate Volunteering?
- What forms of Corporate Volunteering are there?
- How to use Corporate Volunteering as an alternative to fundraising
What is Corporate Volunteering?
Corporate Volunteering refers to the voluntary involvement of companies and their employees in charitable activities in their own neighbourhood or with non-profit organizations. Companies provide both the working power of their employees as well as monetary donations or required materials. In addition to the non-profit organizations, the companies themselves also benefit, as involvement has a positive effect on the motivation and development of employees as well as the company’s image.
What forms of Corporate Volunteering are there?
For many non-profit organizations, Corporate Volunteering offers the opportunity to use additional resources to realise their own projects. There are basically three forms that offer different advantages, which we present to you below.
Depending on the agreement and activity, each of these forms of volunteering can take place on site or digitally. In addition, one-off projects can also develop into long-term and regular collaborations between companies and non-profit organizations and thus represent a valuable alternative to fundraising-financed projects.
1. Individual volunteering
Many companies provide their employees with a certain number of hours that they can use independently for volunteer work. The advantage for you as an organization is that no complex planning is required and you can make flexible arrangements with the volunteers. At the same time, the scope of what can be implemented as part of the individual commitment is of course limited.
For this form of Corporate Volunteering, you should plan targeted activities that are low-threshold and suitable for short-term and one-off commitments. These could be clean-up campaigns, craft activities or even excursions. If everything goes well, this can develop into a regular commitment.
2. Social team events (Social Days)
A social team event, also known as a Social Day, involves a group of company employees working together for a charitable organization. This has the advantage that larger projects can be realised that require more human and financial resources. Companies often support non-profits not only with the work power of their employees, but also with monetary donations and the financing of the necessary materials. This means that larger projects can be implemented efficiently in a short space of time.
In contrast to individual volunteering, this form of Corporate Volunteering requires more planning. Further below we give you valuable tips on how you can plan such a social team event yourself or have us support you.
3. Skill-based (pro bono) volunteering
In skill-based volunteering, employees make their respective expertise available as part of pro bono days. This gives non-profit organizations access to specialist knowledge that they would otherwise not be able to afford. This includes, for example, legal advice, programming or graphic design as well as coaching or the development of strategic concepts – depending on the individual needs of an organization.
Corporate cooperation in the context of skills-based pro bono commitments requires, above all, meaningful mediation between the needs of an organization and the skills of its employees, as well as thorough preparation and time planning. In the following section, we also provide you with tips on planning and implementation.
How to use Corporate Volunteering as an alternative to fundraising
Whether it’s a social day, individual volunteering or pro bono projects: Each of these Corporate Volunteering formats can offer great added value for you as an organization and be a valuable alternative to traditional fundraising. You can either organize the corporate cooperation yourself or let vostel.de support you.
Design your own corporate cooperation – with the help of our guide
If you take the organization and implementation of your Corporate Volunteering cooperation into your own hands, you have all the freedom and flexibility you need to shape your partnership individually and develop it further in the long term. Simply approach companies in your area (your neighborhood or your city) and inquire about their interest in a possible collaboration. Ideally, you should already have specific projects in mind that you can realise together.
You can download our guide to successful Corporate Volunteering (free of charge) from our website as a guideline to effective collaborations and things you should look out for. (Guide is in German language)
Get referred via vostel.de
With almost 10 years of experience in finding non-profit organizations and companies for effective Corporate Volunteering cooperations, we are happy to support you free of charge in the planning and implementation of your project ideas. We offer you two options:
1. Register on vostel.de and create a request
On our platform vostel.de, you have the opportunity to register and post projects online for which you are looking for support with just a few clicks. This allows you to reach private volunteers who can contact you for an assignment and we also place requests in our network of partner companies. This gives you twice the chance of finding volunteers for your projects.
2. Send us a request for your project requirements and let us refer you
Do you have specific ideas for projects that could be realised as part of a social team event (Social Day) or a pro bono day? Then send us a non-binding e-mail with information about your project:
- Which project are you looking for support for?
- What financial resources (and what materials) are needed for this?
- What is the time frame of the project?
- How many people do you need as support?
We will communicate your needs to our network and as soon as there is a suitable request from one of our partner companies, we will contact you and take care of the planning and implementation of the project as part of a social day or pro bono day. This is completely free of charge for you. We look forward to hearing from you!
Your vostel.de team wishes you every success with your pro bono and Corporate Volunteering projects!
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