Today, skilled volunteering is an ever-increasing ingredient to companies’ approach to charity partnerships, and often blurs the lines between CSR and HR/Talent/Leadership development departments. Ensuring a genuine win-win for both business and charity isn’t easy but the rewards can be high for those who succeed.
For a long time charities have looked at corporates as a potential source of income and companies have looked at charities as a way of raising their public profile and goodwill. However, now both charities and businesses are starting to think more creatively about how to engage with each other to form meaningful partnerships which transcend cash donations.
More often than not, partnerships these days offer charities an increased profile, gifts in kind, access to staff expertise and a stronger network. You might think this list is weighted in the charity partners’ favour, as well it should. But other than the positive association to a good cause, where is the win-win, or should there even be one? If we’re talking about sustainable partnerships, then I think that ‘win-win’ is becoming more important.
Skilled volunteering offers senior executives the opportunity to get out of their comfort zone. It enables them to work in a different team –with people from different backgrounds and organisational cultures– and look at familiar problems from a completely new perspective, whilst having a significant impact on the charities they work with.
How can you make this happen and know it’s going to be effective?
At Pilotlight we believe the key is not only finding the right charity and the right people to work with it, but managing the skills sharing process to guarantee everyone reaps the benefits. For over ten years we’ve been bringing the charity and business worlds together and we know how to make it work. Aside from the outstanding impact we have on the charities we support, 85% of our skilled volunteers improve their coaching skills and 87% increase their awareness of other leadership styles – abilities they bring back to the work place allowing them to be better leaders.
There are plenty of opportunities out there for introducing skills volunteering into your L&D portfolio, you just need to find the one that works for you and your team.
By Bruce McCombie, Senior Project Manager, Pilotlight.
If you’re interested in our skilled volunteering programmes, register your interest here.