Benefits
Freedom of Expression: IB Be a
volunteer So what can you do to help people (or animals) who need it? The answer is — volunteer! Volunteering means spending some of your free time helping others. You may volunteer to help other people, such as the families who lost their homes after a natural disaster. But you can also volunteer to protect animals, the environment, or any other cause that you care about. Help Yourself by Helping Others Volunteering helps others, but it can also help you, too. If you're upset about something that's happened — like a hurricane or other disaster — doing something about it can be a great way to cope with your feelings. Volunteering also lets you see your own life in new ways. Sometimes it's easy to worry about stuff like grades or get annoyed because you don't have the most expensive sneakers or the newest computer game. Volunteering lets you spend some time focusing on others for a while. Lots of people — and kids — find that they really enjoy volunteering. Volunteer experiences often put you in a different environment and expose you to people and situations that you wouldn't have come across in your regular life. For instance, you might learn that just on the edge of your town are some kids who really need winter clothes. It feels good to be able to meet a need like that. You'll know that, thanks to you, some kids have warm coats, hats, mittens, and boots. So whether it's winter clothes, food for the hungry, or homes for unwanted pets, doing volunteer work means one very important thing: You make a difference in the world. So where do you start? Getting Started Some of you may already know about volunteering and service through 4H, Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts. Religious organizations, like churches, synagogues, and mosques, also organize volunteer and charity work. School is another good place to start if you're looking for volunteer ideas. Ask a teacher, school counselor, or librarian for ideas. Your local parks department also might have some suggestions for how kids can volunteer. Some places want volunteers who are 12 or even older, depending on the job. Often kids start volunteering by working alongside their parents. For instance, you might be too young to prepare food at a soup kitchen, but if your parents volunteer there you might be able to go along and pitch in. One girl who sent us an email said she helps out at a soup kitchen by playing cards with the homeless people who eat there. "It's nice to see them smile," said Sammy, 13. Things to Do With Parents or Family Members Volunteering is a great way to have fun with your family. Talk to your parents, brothers, or sisters and see what they might be interested in doing. Find something you all agree on. Here are some ideas for things you can do as a family — or with a group that has adult supervision:
Invent Your Own Opportunity Kids also can come up with their own ways to raise money or provide needed services. Here are some ideas:
Some schools now require kids to spend some time in service to others. Why? Because grown-ups hope kids will become caring people who see the value in giving of their time, talents, and resources (like money, toys, or clothes they might donate). Volunteering gives kids a taste of responsibility because people are depending on them for something important. Volunteering also can help kids learn
important stuff about themselves — like what kinds of
things they're best at and enjoy the most. A volunteer job
can even help some kids decide what they want to do when
they grow up. So what are you waiting for? Make a plan to
start volunteering today! The Healh
Benefits of Volunteering How volunteering improves health The Health Benefits of Volunteering report showed just how important donating your time to help others can be: 1. Volunteers have higher rates of personal satisfaction and lower rates of depression. 2. Giving back to the community increases self-esteem which in turn helps to improve self-worth and happiness. 3. Volunteers live longer. That includes volunteers who live with a chronic or serious illness. These volunteers say they receive as great or greater benefit from their volunteer work than they do from medical interventions. 4. States with the highest rates of volunteerism also have the lowest mortality rates and fewest incidents of heart disease. 5. Volunteering as little as four hours a month can have a positive impact on your health. Finding volunteer work if you have a disability There are lots of volunteer opportunities to help those living with a disability or older adults who need some extra support. But how can you find meaningful opportunities if you have a disability or you are an older adult? Here are a few resources that can help: 1. VolunteerMatch.org.
2. Create the Good. This AARP initiative matches volunteers with local community based organizations. They also have Volunteer from Home opportunities that make it easier for those living with a disability or an older adult who may not have transportation to help out. 3. United Way. Each local United Way agency maintains a list of area non-profits that need help with special projects or support on a long-term basis. You can visit their main site to find your local United Way affiliate’s volunteer opportunities list. If you would like to learn more about
the benefits of volunteering, visit the Corporation for
National and Community Service. Benefits
of Volunteering
Benefits of Volunteering If you're one of the 13.3 million Canadians who volunteer, you may already know that volunteering is as beneficial to you as it is to the causes you care the most about. If not, here are ten reasons to volunteer: 1. Volunteering is good for your mental health. According to Doing Good is Good for You, 2013 Health and Volunteering Study, volunteering helps people manage and lower their stress levels. 94 per cent of those surveyed reported that volunteering also improves their mood. Volunteers also scored higher than non-volunteers on emotional well-being measures including overall satisfaction with life. 2. Volunteering is good for your physical health. This same study showed that 80 per cent of volunteers feel that they have greater control over their health. Volunteers tend to be more engaged health care consumers who make better informed decisions about their health. Volunteering also keeps you active and has been shown to reduce chronic pain and heart disease symptoms. 3. Volunteering is good for your self-confidence. Want to feel better about yourself and what you can do? Want to feel more satisfied with your life? Volunteering can boost all of the above and instill a greater sense of pride and identity. 4. Volunteering can fight depression. Social isolation is a risk factor for depression. Volunteering helps you to develop relationships and a support system, both of which can help you overcome obstacles and fight depression. 5. Volunteering expands your social network. Volunteering can help you make new friends and expand your social network. One of the best ways to make new friends and strengthen existing relationships is to commit to a shared activity together. Volunteering also strengthens your ties to the community and gives you the opportunity to practice and develop your social skills, since you are meeting regularly with a group of people with common interests. 6. Volunteering can help you develop new skills. From interpersonal skills to teamwork, time management, organizational and other professional skills, volunteers must often acquire new skill sets as part of their volunteer work. These are also valuable to employers. 7. Volunteering can help you put existing skills to work. Many volunteers appreciate being able to contribute their talents in a meaningful manner. Whether you have business skills the organization needs or have a unique talent that needs an outlet, volunteering is a great way to put your existing skills to work. 8. Volunteering can advance your career. 71 per cent of the Doing Good is Good for You respondents felt that volunteering provided them with networking opportunities and job-related contacts and 49 per cent of new volunteers said that volunteering had helped them in the paid job market. 9. Volunteering can expose you to new career options. Volunteering is a great way to try out different job roles and industries. Many people have found their true calling after volunteering. 10. Volunteering can make a difference in causes that are important to you. In addition, volunteering can help you to contribute to causes that are close to your heart. Whether you've lost a loved one to a devastating disease or have been moved to do something to ease the pain and suffering of others, your volunteer work can improve the lives of others while simultaneously delivering all of the above benefits. Who needs volunteers?
What are some of the things a volunteer can do?
Where can you find volunteer opportunities?
Links, Articles and Videos
How to pick an organization to volunteer for Volunteering has been shown to be as beneficial to volunteers as it is to the beneficiaries of all that hard work, but where do you start? In order to reap the most benefits and feel truly satisfied, you need to find a good fit. Use the tips below to find a meaningful volunteer opportunity. Where to begin
Source: www.volunteerairdrie.ca/volunteering_benefits.htm
4 Personal Benefits
of Volunteering in Your Community 1. Growth By volunteering with an ongoing program, volunteers see growth and change. Whether working with children who are learning to read or adults who are developing trust with their peers, volunteers can actually watch growth among their clients over time. This reinforces the volunteer's own sense of worthiness and vitality in the program. 2. Enrichment There's nothing more fulfilling than realizing how much of an impact a volunteer can make. Volunteers working together to build a children's playground or low-cost housing for needy families can later visit these sites and see how the project has enriched the neighborhood. Just a few hours of helping can turn into a lifetime of opportunity, which is one of the greatest benefits of volunteering. 3. Learning Volunteer opportunities often allow people to try new activities or learn new skills. For example, when an accountant volunteers to help cook a holiday dinner at a homeless shelter, he walks away with not only a few cooking tips, but also knowledge of how to keep food at a safe temperature and how to serve large groups. 4. Friendships When like-minded people get together, friendships are formed. After working on a volunteer project for a few weeks, it's not uncommon for volunteers to exchange phone numbers or social media information. By giving just a few hours a week, lifetime friendships may be established. Ready to get involved? Check out
United Way's call to action for one million volunteer
readers, tutors and mentors. It's a great way to get started
locally and help a student succeed. Take the pledge
today! 5
Surprising Benefits Of
Volunteering “One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.” – Gordon Hinckle Here are five surprising benefits of volunteering: 1. Volunteering time makes you feel like you have more time. Wharton professor Cassie Mogilner wrote in the Harvard Business Review that her research found those who volunteer their time feel like they have more of it. This is similar to other research showing that people who donate to charity feel wealthier. Said Mogliner: “The results show that giving your time to others can make you feel more ‘time affluent’ and less time-constrained than wasting your time, spending it on yourself, or even getting a windfall of free time.” 2. Volunteering your skills helps you develop new skills. In my experience, skills-based volunteering is an excellent opportunity to develop talents to help you get ahead in your career. In fact, an article in Stanford Social Innovation Review called skills-based volunteering overseas “the next executive training ground.” At MovingWorlds, we’ve found that skills development in technical and leadership-related areas is the primary reason corporations invest in international skills-based volunteering programs. 3. Volunteering your body helps you have a healthier body. A Corporation for National & Community Service report noted: “Research demonstrates that volunteering leads to better health… those who volunteer have lower mortality rates, greater functional ability, and lower rates of depression later in life than those who do not volunteer.” The fact that volunteering has been proven to make you healthier is reason enough to engage in pro bono activities. For more information on this, read “Can Volunteering Lower Your Risk of Heart Disease?” 4. Volunteering your experience helps build your experience. We consistently see this with highly skilled professionals like investment bankers and business consultants. Also, volunteering in a new industry will give you knowledge to help you switch fields. And if you want to move from the corporate world to the nonprofit sector, volunteering first can help prove your commitment. Beyond our own research, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Next Avenue have published articles about how volunteering can help you earn your next job. As the Journal wrote: “According to the survey of 202 human-resource executives, skilled volunteer work — such as helping a nonprofit with its finances — makes job applicants look more appealing to hiring manager.” Here are some tips to add your volunteering experience to your resumé and LinkedIn profile. 5. Volunteering your love makes you feel more love. Admittedly, love is a hard thing to measure. But when researchers at the London School of Economics examined the relationship between volunteering and measures of happiness, they found the more people volunteered, the happier they were. Volunteering builds empathy, strengthens social bonds and makes you smile — all factors that increase the feeling of love. How to Find Volunteering Opportunities So how can you get started volunteering? It’s remarkably easy. Post your intentions on Facebook and/or LinkedIn to get connected to an organization in your network. You can also use LinkedIn’s For Good program, Catchafire or VolunteerMatch to find local opportunities and MovingWorlds.org to find international skills-based volunteer projects. “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” - Muhammad Ali Mark Horoszowski is a Next Avenue
contributor and the co-founder and CEO of MovingWorlds.org,
a global platform helping people volunteer their skills
around the world whose mission is to support social impact
organizations that are solving last-mile challenges and have
great potential to create jobs. The Business
Case for Employee Volunteer & Skills Giving
Programs The average employee turnover rate of all U.S. industries is 15.1%. In some cases, this turnover is healthy for your organization because you’re losing low performers (i.e. problem staff or those not willing to improve) and this can positively impact everything from employee engagement to productivity and profits. But what if the employees leaving your organization are top performers? Replacing top performers can cause service disruptions for your customers and requires a substantial amount of financing, extensive training, employee workload balancing, and handling cultural shifts. None of that sounds good, but how exactly does it impact your company’s bottom line? Well, for jobs paying $75,000 a year or less (which is about 9 in 10 U.S. workers), the typical cost of turnover is 20% of the employees’ salary. For top-level employees it can cost closer to 150% of the employees’ salary. But let’s focus on employees that make $75,000 or less. For each of those employees leaving your organization, it’s costing you about $15,000. Increased Employee Engagement Helps Reduce Turnover A PwC study revealed, “Employees most committed to their organizations put in 57 percent more effort on the job—and are 87 percent less likely to resign—than employees who consider themselves disengaged.” According to Gallup’s research, companies with engaged workforces have higher earnings per share (EPS):
So where do employee volunteer and skills giving programs factor in? It’s an excellent, relatively low-cost way to engage and retain employees. Keep Employees By Engaging Them Through Volunteerism Employees quit their jobs for many reasons (salary and benefits topping the list), but the majority of reasons are actually something employers can control. HumanResources.about.com sites the following as 10 critical reasons why employees quit their job (in no special order):
Camaraderie (addressing #1 and 3 from list above) Organizing group days of service provide co-workers (and their bosses) an opportunity to work together and get to know each other outside the walls of the workplace. There is no corporate hierarchy when it comes to hands-on volunteer activities like filling afterschool snack bags for low-income children or building a house with Habitat for Humanity. Such activities permit employees from different departments and different levels of seniority the chance to share experiences together and interact on a deeper level, resulting in stronger relationships when they return to the office. In UnitedHealth Group’s 2013 Health and Volunteering Study, “64 percent of employees who currently volunteer said that volunteering with work colleagues strengthened their relationships.” Corporate Culture & Meaningful Work (addressing #2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 from list above) It’s well known that employees want to work for companies that care. In fact, Cone Research found that 79% of people prefer to work for a socially responsible company. When strategically integrated with your company’s business goals and values, involving employees in a mix of volunteer work, skills giving, workplace giving programs, and matching gift opportunities gives employees a sense of purpose, and makes them feel more connected to the community and your company-wide social responsibility efforts. Additionally, volunteer programs – particularly those with pro bono and skills giving opportunities - provide a meaningful way for employees to put their abilities to use, and give them a chance to grow and develop professional skills. Online giving and volunteer management tools like America's Charities powered by Causecast, make it easy for companies and their employees to connect their skills with nonprofit needs and volunteer opportunities. According to a Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey, “91 percent of surveyed corporate human resources executives believe that pro bono service would add value to training and development programs, and 90 percent agree that contributing business skills and expertise to a nonprofit can be an effective way to develop leadership skills.” All of this effectively reinforces beliefs and behaviors most valued by your company, empowers employees to grow and do things for which they are most passionate, infuses pride and loyalty in employees, and contributes to a stronger, more skilled workforce. Employee Recognition & Financial Stability (addressing #8 and 10 from list above) Based on results from the
State
of the American Workplace report, Engaged employees are happier,
healthier, and perform at a higher level. UnitedHealth
Group’s 2013 Health
and Volunteering Study
When employees perform well and contribute to business goals, this gives management more reason to recognize those employees’ efforts. In the Millennial Impact Report, “More than half (53%) of respondents said having their passions and talents recognized and addressed is their top reason for remaining at their current company.” When companies recognize employees for good work, it reinforces that behavior and sets the foundation for a pattern of positive performance in the future. A case study of an employee recognition program established by The Walt Disney World Resort showed “a 15% increase in staff satisfaction with their day-to-day recognition by their immediate supervisors. These results correlated highly with high guest-satisfaction scores, which showed a strong intent to return, and therefore directly flowed to increased profitability.” Monetizing Volunteerism There are a variety of ways to
structure an employee volunteer program and a wide range of
volunteer activities to offer, including day of service
events, ongoing volunteer opportunities throughout the year,
skills giving and pro bono services. Choosing the right mix
ultimately depends on what your employee interests and
company goals are, as well as what type of support
nonprofits need. I won’t delve into that right now, but
some good resources to look at are HandsOn Network’s
guide, “Developing
Excellence in Workplace Volunteer
Programs”
When it comes to measuring employee volunteer and skills giving programs, companies typically track things like the number of hours volunteered, employee participation rates, types of services delivered and to whom, and employee values such as satisfaction and skill development. But did you know volunteer time can be monetized? Volunteerism is a difficult concept to monetize because the myriad ways volunteers contribute are not always measurable. But in looking at what is quantifiable, Independent Sector estimates, an hour of volunteer time in 2013 was worth $22.55 per hour. Derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ database of job functions and mean wages, this calculation is a way to assign a monetary value to the time your employees donate. So if 50 of your employees each volunteer 8 hours to a nonprofit throughout the course of a year, instead of reporting that your company volunteered 400 hours, you can share that your company’s volunteerism provided approximately $8,856 worth of volunteer time to that nonprofit. That’s a significant business contribution to the community, and a value your Board and other important stakeholders are more likely to comprehend and appreciate. Investing in Employee Volunteer & Skills Giving Programs is Good Business Sense Let’s go back to our example of the company with 50 employees and an average of 5 employees leaving each year (a 10% turnover rate). According to VolunteerMatch, “The most successful Employee Volunteer Programs (EVP’s) invest an average of $179 per employee per year in employee engagement.” VolunteerMatch notes, “That data includes some of the biggest companies in the world. The range for investment by excellent EVPs is actually $18 to $800 per employee per year. Eighteen dollars per year could be doable, even for a small mom-and-pop outfit. Another thing to remember: most companies spend far more than $179 per employee on training costs – this type of engagement both reinforces and supplements employee development.” This means, for the company with 50 employees, it would cost a total of $900 to $8,950 a year to implement an employee volunteer program for all employees combined. That’s a pretty low cost to absorb when you consider that it would cost the company roughly $15,000 to replace just one of those employees ($75,000 to replace five). Employee volunteer and skills giving
programs have steadily been moving towards the center of
many corporations' social responsibility initiatives over
the last decade. This surge in interest in volunteerism
coincides with the dire need many nonprofits have for
support. However, only 59% of companies surveyed in
CECP’s 2014
Giving in Numbers report,
More than ever, charities are better
positioned and interested in partnering with companies and
engaging with corporate employees. However, as a survey
respondent stated in America’s Charities
2014
Snapshot Report: Rising Tide of
Expectations,
“ Sarah Ford is Associate Marketing Manager at America’s Charities, a mission-driven organization that connects public and private sector employers with charities to engage employees in greater giving. Since 1980, America's Charities has been at the forefront of workplace giving's transformation – from paper pledges to digital platforms, from giving to engagement, from traditional fall campaigns to year-round opportunities inside and outside the walls of the workplace.
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