You understand the benefits of volunteering for your company and reputation in the community, but did you know that it is also one of the most powerful team-building activities you can engage in? Here are some of the many reasons why volunteering is an awesome team-building activity for almost any team.

Bonding as a Group

Even if you work with each other every day, how many opportunities do you get to connect with your team members in a positive environment outside of the office? If the sum of your experience with your co-workers happens during meetings or brainstorming sessions, co-workers will never truly get to know each other. Volunteering changes the venue for interactions and allows people to bond and get to know each other without the pressures of an office environment.

Doing Good is Good for Stress Levels

Team-building activities that involve a ropes course or trust exercises that might make stress levels rise can backfire and leave employees feeling stressed out and embarrassed. However, coming together around a positive cause and giving back improves mood and decreases stress. One study by United Healthcare found that 78% of American adults who volunteer said that it has made them feel less stressed, which left them with lower stress levels and better mood than adults who don’t volunteer.

Helping Non-Profits Help Those in Need

Finally, volunteering as a group and team-building activity allows you to gain satisfaction from helping community organizations in need. Volunteers have a tremendous impact on the organizations that they choose to volunteer with. Whether you want to host a meal at a local soup kitchen or plant flowers outside of a local elementary school, seizing the opportunity to both cultivate a great, strong team and give back to the community is a great idea. If you aren’t sure what non-profits are best suited to your industry, mission or team members, Business Volunteers Maryland is here to help find the perfect non-profit.

Use Volunteering as a Team-Building Activity with Business Volunteers Maryland

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the community by creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We help companies like yours to establish and expand community impact efforts while achieving your business goals. To learn more about our services and learn more about volunteering as a team, contact us by calling (410) 366-6030.

Volunteering is a fantastic way to give back to the community, whether your employees are working as a group during a team volunteer project or independently off the clock. It can be a transformative experience for your employees, creating a culture that is vibrant and appealing. How can you encourage your employees to volunteer?

Offer Paid Time Off

Employees lead very busy lives and, when not on the clock, are moving between extracurricular activities, spending time with friends and family, and managing chores and activities at home, making it tough to find time to give back. By extending paid time off every year specifically for volunteering, you can increase staff participation. A 2017 employee benefits survey by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) revealed that 22 percent of U.S. companies offer VTO. Many of the companies listed on the Points of Light Civic 50 also extend paid time off for volunteers.

Publicize Volunteer Opportunities

Some employees simply don’t know where to find out information about volunteer opportunities, so they avoid starting the process. Make an effort to include volunteering events in your company-wide mailings. If you are organizing any service projects or organization-wide outings, let employees know far in advance so that they can plan accordingly. To make volunteering a part of your company culture, you can also make a point to announce new volunteer opportunities during meetings, put flyers on bulletin boards, and post information on company intranet sites.

Recognize Great Volunteers

Does your business take time to recognize great employees for their volunteer efforts in your organization? Just like taking time to recognize your employees who complete trainings or go above and beyond, highlighting and rewarding the work that your best volunteers do can help to encourage other employees to volunteer. How can you recognize your volunteer-minded workers? Take it into account when awarding raises or additional paid time off. You can also host a special event just for employees at your company who volunteered.

Contact Business Volunteers Maryland to Learn More about Team Volunteer Projects

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the community by creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We help companies like yours to establish and expand community impact efforts while achieving your business goals. To learn more about our services and learn more about volunteering as a team, contact us by calling (410) 366-6030.

Voluntourism is one of the most powerful ways to share your skills and energy with a new community as part of a business trip or vacation. This emerging trend might seem catered to individuals or community groups, but it’s perfect for businesses looking to cement doing good as part of their culture and give back while doing business. What is voluntourism, and what has been the impact of voluntourism on Baltimore?

Voluntourism 101

Volunteer tourism, or voluntourism, allows individuals, families, school groups, community organizations and businesses to give back when they take a trip. Sometimes it takes the form of a group going abroad to help underprivileged children. Other times, when attending an event or conference the Baltimore Convention Center or other location, a group will help at a local soup kitchen or planting trees at a local school.

The Benefits of Voluntourism

Just like volunteering somewhere outside of your business, voluntourism on a trip to Baltimore will benefit your employees and company through:

• Encouraging teamwork and team building;
• Positive socialization;
• Helping those in need;
• Improving employee retention and engagement;
• Learning about and participating in opportunities they could also engage in near the location of your business;
• Team building in a positive environment that is separate from traditional team building; and
• Demonstrating your company commitment to service, improving the world around you and putting your values into practice.

The Impact of Voluntourism on Baltimore

At Business Volunteers Maryland, we work with businesses visiting the Baltimore area to find ways to give back. When you visit our area for a convention or something similar, you can participate in team-building projects that make your travel experience special while helping out the community you are visiting.

Encourage Your Employees to Volunteer with Business Volunteers Maryland

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the community by creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We help companies like yours to establish and expand community impact efforts while achieving your business goals. To learn more about our services and learn more about volunteering as a team, contact us by calling (410) 366-6030.

Paid time off for vacation and personal needs is a common benefit at many companies, but have you considered offering paid time off for volunteering? While paying your employees for time out of the office volunteering might seem like a strange benefit to you, volunteer time off (VTO) policies are a great way to cement your company values and encourage employees to give back.

What Is Paid Time Off for Volunteering?

Many times, paid time off for volunteering does not need to be a large chunk of time. Most companies with VTO policies only offer 8 hours, or one day, of paid leave per employee per year. Some companies choose to create a list of valid organizations for VTO use that align with their corporate mission or community. For example, some organizations require that volunteer time off be used only for organizations that have United Way affiliation. VTO often works the same as PTO, where employees need to request the time in advance and get approval.

Should You Offer Paid Time Off for Volunteering?

Just over 10 years ago, only 15% of employers offered VTO as a benefit. However, now companies are taking social responsibility and the communities around them more seriously. Millennials are interested in businesses that want to improve the world around them, and companies who are focused on corporate social responsibility are also those who are thriving in a competitive hiring environment. One survey by Fortune also found that paid time off for volunteering improves employee retention efforts. When employees feel good about their jobs and the work that their employer is doing in and out of the office, they are much more likely to stay around.

How Can You Start a VTO Policy?

If you’re interested in learning more about paid time off for volunteering, designing a policy that works for your office or finding new opportunities to give back to your community, Business Volunteers Maryland is here to help.

Encourage Your Employees to Volunteer with Business Volunteers Maryland

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the community by creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We help companies like yours to establish and expand community impact efforts while achieving your business goals. To learn more about our services and learn more about volunteering as a team, contact us by calling (410) 366-6030.

Could you see yourself serving on a non-profit board? While many business professionals don’t necessarily see themselves as board members, board leadership has a broad range of benefits that can bolster the resume and broaden the connections of almost anyone.

Boost Your Reputation

Whether you’re a business owner or a young professional, your reputation matters. Working on a board shows that you have the ability to manage your time well and maintain multiple commitments outside of the office. Any individual who has the strength of character and organizational skills to serve in a board leadership capacity shows that they can handle increased responsibilities, a leadership role or other tasks at their job.

The reputation boost that many people experience due to board leadership doesn’t just stop once they leave the office either. When you choose to give of your time, it improves your reputation in the community. Meeting other business leaders, employees and volunteers through your board leadership will open many new doors for you.

New Skills

If you are experienced in your field of work, there’s a good chance that you aren’t necessarily learning new skills on the job. Instead, you are honing the skills that you already have. How can you get new skills to add to your resume? Other than taking classes in your spare time, one of the best ways to do so is through board leadership.

Serving on a board will introduce you to people who are outside of your field and industry, like engineers, editors, lawyers, designers and anyone else you can imagine. When you are exposed to all of those industries and have a chance to learn from other highly-skilled professionals, you will learn new skills and have new opportunities to grow. By building your skillset and learning about different trades, you will bring new knowledge back to your current workplace or business. On the flipside, board leadership also gives you the chance to share your broad knowledge base with those working in other industries.

Give Back to Your Community

Finally, one of the primary reasons why so many professionals spend time on board leadership is to give back to their communities. Being a member of a non-profit board gives you the unique opportunity to solve problems in your community and be part of the solution. Whether it’s giving books to children in need or finding funding for critical community rehabilitation projects, improving the world where you live is a powerful way to do good.

Participate in the Board Leadership Program That Is Right for You

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit that works with more than 400 nonprofits, creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We provide each candidate with a broad and diverse array of organizations to consider supporting and help them connect with the most appropriate and meaningful opportunity, while achieving their business goals. Email boardleadership@businessvolunteersmd.org to learn more about our board matching services.

As the Baltimore Points of Light affiliate, we were honored to have Jenny Lawson of Points of Light speak at our Business Impact Summit in October. At the Summit, she shared newly released information on the impact volunteering has on employee engagement and retention. The release of their Civic 50 report is always exciting, as it profiles companies with exceptional community engagement throughout the United States.

The Points of Light Civic 50 Report

The Civic 50, an initiative of Points of Light, recognizes the 50 most community-minded companies in the nation each year. It provides a framework for good corporate citizenship and showcases how companies can use their time, skills and other resources to improve the quality of life in their communities

The Civic 50

Each year, the group of honorees are recognized at the annual Points of Light Conference. The 2019 event was held in St. Paul, Minnesota in June. At the event, the president and CEO of Points of Light, Natalye Paquin, shared inspiring words about the recipients of the honor:

“This year’s honorees of The Civic 50 collectively have $2.3 billion to their communities, often giving 50% more than other companies, and volunteered for more than 10.5 million hours in 2019.”

Those statistics shed light on how prestigious this award is, and how important it is for companies to get and stay involved in their communities. Some of the recipients of the award included Aflac, AT&T, Barclays, Capital One, Citigroup, Comcast NBCUniversal, CVS Health, FedEx, General Mills, Inc., KeyBank, Marriott International Inc., MGM Resorts International, The Hershey Company and more.

What Sets the Civic 50 Honorees Apart?

• The Civic 50 companies donated more than twice as much as United States companies on average ($283,000 for every $10 million earned).
• Almost half of the recipients made gifts where grants are supplemented with in-kind goods, multi-year pledges or volunteerism.
• 86% of The Civic 50 companies integrate community involvement into the agenda of one or more board meetings annually.
• 68% of The Civic 50 businesses measure the social impact and outcomes of their grants as part of a standardized data collection process.

 Learn About The Inspiring Businesses In Person

The 2020 Points of Light Conference is in Washington DC in 2020! Mark your calendars for an informative and inspiring event June 10-12, 2020!  Click here for more information Points of Light 2020 Conference.

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the community by creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We help companies like yours to establish and expand community impact efforts while achieving your business goals. To learn more about our services and learn more about volunteering as a team, contact us by calling (410) 366-6030.

We held our second annual Business Impact Summit last month, and we are proud to share that it was a tremendous success thanks to your support. At our Business Impact Summit, over 225 regional business leaders gathered to learn more about giving back and the importance of community engagement for business.

The 2019 Business Impact Summit

On October 3, Business Volunteers Maryland hosted the Business Impact Summit, where Seth Goldman was the keynote speaker. Mr. Goldman is the co-founder and TeaEO Emeritus of Honest Tea and the Executive Chair of Beyond Meat. Both companies prioritize social initiatives and community impact.

During his keynote, Seth Goldman emphasized the importance of reframing how businesses interact with their communities. “In addition to doing a job, working for a company should represent a chance for an employee to serve people and stakeholders.”

Engaging Workshops

Attendees also had the opportunity to attend tailored workshops centered around strategies and tactics that businesses can use to get more engaged and find the right opportunities for their employees. The day wrapped up with an address from Jenny Lawson, the chief civic innovation officer with Points of Light. Mrs. Lawson shared vital data, including that employees who volunteer are 20% more engaged in the workplace. Company support is essential to encourage employees and boost retention.

Thank You to Our Partners and Our Sponsors

We look forward to welcoming even more business leaders to our next Business Impact Summit in 2021. Thank you for your support.

Business Volunteers Maryland is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the community by creating strategic connections between businesses, nonprofits and individuals. We help companies like yours to establish and expand community impact efforts while achieving your business goals. To learn more about our programs and services, contact us by calling (410) 366-6030.