We advise members who would like to support the local community through employee volunteering to engage with the Fingal Volunteer Centre, an independent organisation who provide a range of services for volunteers and volunteer involving organisations.
The Fingal Volunteer Centre and Volunteer Ireland have provided helpful information on employee volunteering for companies and community organisations below.
Employee Volunteering (for Companies)
Research shows that volunteering increases an employee’s sense of belonging to their company, increases motivation at work and expands company friendships and networks.
Keep in mind, it’s easy to assume there are lots of corporate-specific volunteer opportunities already designed and waiting for your teams to rock up and get stuck in. However, this is rarely the case. Volunteer opportunities take time to organise and plan and they must meet an identified need within the organisation.
Companies generally come to these relationships with the upper hand, in terms of human and financial resources, and therefore need to be mindful of their requests and expectations so they support rather than overwhelm the non-profit.
What to consider?
Maybe your teams would like to support young people by providing reading support, mentoring, STEM activities, storytelling, careers events, coding, educational gaming, entrepreneurship, employability or financial literacy. Or they could be interested in diversity and inclusion and looking to support migrant populations by providing language cafés, cultural awareness programmes or back to work supports.
Companies can visit the Fingal Volunteer Centre to register your organisation.
Volunteer Ireland’s Corporate Programme runs a coffee and chat information session for businesses each Thursday at 11am. This session is an opportunity for companies to chat through the needs and expectations of communities, sourcing volunteer opportunities and the ins and outs of employee volunteering. If you’d like to attend one of the coffee and chat sessions contact their Corporate & Programmes Manager at terri@volunteer.ie.
Employee Volunteering (for Community Organisations)
There are many companies out there looking for ways to support their local communities through employee volunteering.
How could company volunteers support your organisation?
Community organisations can visit the Fingal Volunteer Centre to post a volunteering opportunity.
To discuss how you can develop corporate specific volunteer opportunities that meet the needs of your organisation contact the Volunteer Ireland Corporate & Programmes Manager at terri@volunteer.ie or visit I-VOL.
What are the needs of the community group or organisation? You may need to do some research to find this out.
What sort of budget do you have for supplies and materials and/or to donate to the non-profit to cover the costs of engaging your employees.
How are you looking to engage your employees? Is it via a one-off group volunteering activity or via an ongoing volunteer opportunity sponsored by the company? Or maybe you are looking to encourage employees to find their own individual volunteer opportunities on their own time?
What type of volunteering are your employees interested in? Are they interested in sharing your professional business knowledge in areas such as building and facilities maintenance, finance, quality assurance, document control, HR, fundraising, marketing and so on?
Do you have a team that wants to help with a hand-on activity whether that’s maintaining a garden, redecorating indoor facilities or supporting the local County Council or environmental group with cleans ups in your area.
- Do you need professional business advice? Could employee volunteers support your organisation by providing business advice in areas such as building and facilities maintenance, finance, quality assurance, document control, HR, fundraising or marketing?
- Do you need a garden area maintained? Do you need a garden area maintained or revamped or facilities painted or redecorated? Maybe you are a County Council, environmental or Tidy Towns group that needs ongoing help with community clean ups?
- Do you support young people? A school or non-profit supporting young people may like to engage company volunteers to provide reading support, mentoring, STEM activities, storytelling, careers events, coding, educational gaming, entrepreneurship, employability or financial literacy.
- Do you support marginalised populations? Maybe you support migrant populations and companies could assist by providing language cafés, cultural awareness or back to work supports. Or you maybe you are an organisation working with people in need providing food, toiletries, school materials and other supplies and are in need of companies to donate and assemble materials for distribution.