One of the most effective and worthwhile activities you can engage in as a team-building activity is volunteering. In actuality, 71% of American consumers prefer "socially responsible” companies and those that have strong social consciences. Thus, finding methods to give back can improve employee morale, create a stronger and more alive corporate culture, and be beneficial to employees who are working at the ground level to engage in more purposeful and meaningful activities.
Even though volunteering is ultimately an altruistic gesture, studies have shown that both businesses and individuals can gain a lot from it. Corporate volunteering can help your organization connect with local communities and truly make a difference in the lives of people who are in real need. Volunteering is also a terrific way to engage employees, encourage teamwork, and bring everyone closer together.
If you're wanting to start a team volunteer project or are simply researching corporate volunteer options, consider going virtual with your approach. Virtual corporate volunteering can help include those employees who are working remotely or might not be able to make it to an on-site volunteering activity. Here are some virtual volunteering ideas that are perfect for corporate groups to execute to engage employees and also support nonprofits and charities.
8 Best Virtual Corporate Volunteering Ideas
With the introduction of virtual classrooms, technology now enables us to teach and mentor remotely. Several nonprofit organizations provide mentorship to the communities they serve, whether it's to help children, the elderly, or adults who have seen a shift in their circumstances. Overall, mentoring and teaching require an investment of time and effort.
Having your employees volunteer their time can be beneficial for those availing their time and expertise and will also give your employees to put their knowledge to good use.
Your organization will have employees from diverse backgrounds and interests. Your employees can help organizations by supporting and promoting local art, artisans, culture, or heritage to contribute to preserving them. Volunteers can transcribe historic documents and collection records to facilitate research and preserve these valuable assets for future generations. In case you have designers on board, you can help create catalogs with vibrant pictures to help educate children or those in need of training on their local and national heritage.
In today’s digital world, the need for content and to emphasize, quality content is the need of the hour. Blog and article writing can help the nonprofit gain SEO traction for their websites, gain credibility among the masses, and have a voice. Generally, nonprofits are held up with operational activities and do not get a chance to stray from their primary focus of catering to their beneficiaries. To involve those employees with a passion for writing and an attitude to help a nonprofit with their skills, blog writing as a part of your virtual volunteering options would be the right choice.
Volunteers can be of great help to organizations that offer people suffering from a variety of problems emotional and mental health support. They can achieve this by acting as social ambassadors, promoting stories about mental health on social media, and eradicating the stigma associated with it. Volunteers can help by offering teleconsulting to patients or by teaching yoga or meditation through online platforms. Sometimes all someone needs is someone who will listen to them with compassion and understanding. They could provide the assistance they need by offering to interact with an organization's beneficiaries.
Research shows that only 94% of nonprofits that have a website, have one that is optimized for mobile browsing. Since most of us and our target audience would visit their site via mobile devices, one of your virtual corporate volunteering projects can be to help a charity set up or optimize their websites. This can help their online presence. This will also give your employees a chance to understand the nonprofit sector and their needs for a good website.
Volunteers can provide local vendors and business-minded women with advice and assistance for their micro and small firms as the phrase "Vocal for Local" gains popularity, as it should. For these entrepreneurs, they can also produce business strategies, fundraising materials, and advertising resources that will help them gain much-needed momentum. This way employees will be able to gain knowledge and the experience of strategizing while also supporting a noble cause.
A crucial thing that nonprofits might not pay close attention to is having an HR policy and paying enough attention to HR activities. Have your HR team support these nonprofits by helping them set in place a few organizational policies. This will be useful for the organization when it comes to managing staff and retention. In this approach, the time spent by your HR team revising policy or offering guidance would be highly regarded.
There are plenty of CRM tools that can be largely beneficial when used by nonprofit organizations. But, due to a lack of awareness nonprofit organizations might still struggle with sorting out their data and keeping a track of all their activities. Whether it's to assist with setup or to enhance data quality inside an existing CRM, If your company has CRM specialists, you may offer your services to a charity to assist these nonprofits in organizing their data and better their data collection so they can send more focused messages. This will help them cut down their time with operations and give their donors and partners a clearer understanding of where their money is being spent.
These ideas for corporate volunteering virtually can be implemented to support all kinds of nonprofits and charities should you choose this route. Every nonprofit at the end of the day is an organization, just like yours with the same amount of requirements, just that they have a more philanthropic purpose.
By engaging your employees in such engaging activities, you are promoting the all-round development of your employees while also helping nonprofits that support various vulnerable groups.
With nonprofits from over 100 countries on board, Chezuba is a virtual volunteering platform that allows corporations to set up virtual volunteering programs for their employees and leverage their skills to do good. Book a free trial to learn how Chezuba can be the right fit for your organization’s virtual volunteering needs.
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