Clark County schools and nonprofit organizations have always been able to count on financial support from the business community.
However, their ever increasing need has stretched companies that can only donate so much of their hard-earned profits.
There is another way for your company, large or small, to support our community without putting an extra dent in your donations budget: augment your giving by creating an employee volunteer program to donate free labor to your local organizations.
Many nonprofit organizations continually face the challenge of finding more volunteers, especially those with skills that your employees might already have. These include administration, accounting, legal or writing.
Rather than simply writing another check, your company can fill that need much better by donating employee volunteers.
"By harnessing the power of employee volunteering, small-to-medium size businesses can affect a sea change in the way private enterprise contributes to public good," according to the Points of Light Foundation, which promotes community volunteerism.
The foundation recommends choosing volunteer activities that support your company's ability to reach its objectives and are visible, meaningful or helpful to your customers.
The potential benefits from encouraging your employees to volunteer are numerous. They include increasing employee morale, loyalty and retention by backing causes they support, creating networking opportunities among employees, building ties between employees and the community and providing employees new avenues to practice their professional skills.
And by the way, all of the above results could also possibly lead to an increase in customer loyalty, retention and sales.
Here are some ways to encourage your employees to volunteer:
Offer your employees paid time off for their volunteerism. If this is not practical to do on a frequent basis, limit the offer to one day a month or a few days a year.
See if one or more of your employees can create and run a volunteer program. Their role would be to identify local groups that need volunteers and then communicate that information to your other employees.
Create a tracking system so your employees can easily log the hours they volunteer each month. Celebrate their efforts by recognizing your top volunteers annually with an award or special luncheon, a story in the company newsletter, a note from you and/or a grant to their favorite nonprofit.
Provide your volunteers with company-logo shirts and/or hats. This makes your employees feel special and lets others know your company supports those hard working, community-minded volunteers.
Make it fun. Encourage your employees to bring their friends and family members. Provide snacks and refreshments at the volunteer site.
Challenge your employees to meet or exceed an annual volunteerism goal. Make it realistic, and celebrate when your team successfully reaches it. Then set a bigger goal the following year!
There's no doubt that our local business community has the talent and expertise to fill most – if not all – the essential volunteer roles at our local nonprofit organizations. And when a school or nonprofit organization teams with local companies to recruit and support volunteers, our community wins.
Regional Marketing Consultant Jason Small coordinates Wells Fargo's volunteer efforts in Clark County and Oregon. Last year Wells Fargo team members volunteered 64,779 hours for more than 480 regional nonprofit groups and schools.