Welcome to your Business Volunteers and Baker Donelson skillCONNECT Volunteer Registration Portal. Interested volunteers should find everything they need to know in the guide below.
Event Date/Time: Thursday, July 18, 2pm-6pm (reception included)
What is skillCONNECT?
skillCONNECT is a three-hour event led by Business Volunteers Maryland (BVM) that connects community-based organizations to a team of skilled volunteers for discussion, consulting, ideation and development of solutions to a business challenge faced by the nonprofit. Volunteers come with a wide range of professional skills in marketing, operations, finance, IT, HR, sales, legal, real estate and more.
This event is held in partnership with BakerCares. BakerCares is Baker Donelson’s internal community service initiative that supports employees and various offices in their volunteer and fundraising efforts. It adopts one cause or organization as a BakerCares focus for a three-year term. BakerCares is currently partnering with local organizations that address homelessness and poverty.
What can I expect?
As a volunteer consultant, you can expect skillCONNECT to be an engaging, structured, team pro bono session managed by Business Volunteers Maryland. Nonprofits will bring a business challenge they are facing to their team. Teams will be guided through a design thinking style process in order to provide a structured, efficient, experience that lends its self to tangible takeaways for the nonprofit.
How will I be placed on a team?
Business Volunteers will ask you more about your background and skills below. We will then place you on a team we feel you are best suited for. We appreciate you being open to working with any of the amazing nonprofits for this event!
What benefits are there to volunteering?
- Leverage your professional skills and expertise while giving back. Remember, the professional skills you have and use every day are invaluable for a nonprofit.
- Learn about incredible community-based organizations, their work, and a behind-the-scenes understanding of the challenges they face.
- Build and practice leadership skills and professional skills.
- Feel good while giving back—it’s a different, really rewarding way to volunteer!
What have others said about skillCONNECT?
See below for some testimonials from past skillCONNECT participants:
Nonprofit Participants and Their Event Challenges
We are currently hard at work sourcing the nonprofit organizations who will participate in this event. All participating nonprofits serve homeless populations in Baltimore City.
After the nonprofits and their business challenges are sourced, Business Volunteers will create consulting teams. Our main goal is to ensure nonprofits have access to a team with skillsets and backgrounds that are best suited to support them. By completing this registration, you agree to work with whichever team you are ultimately assigned to. If you have a concern about team placement once teams are made, you are welcome reach out. Thank you for understanding!
Here are some examples of the types of skillCONNECT challenges you may see:
- A nonprofit receives a large amount of donations for its clients and has no way to manage, process, and track the inventory coming in.
- A nonprofit is seeking to move from a temporary location and is looking for a new permanent home, but is struggling to understand how to determine a location that best meets the needs of the organization.
- A nonprofit is a “hidden secret” in the neighborhood it serves and wants to increase its presence and serve more clients.
- A nonprofit is about to launch a new program and needs help determining short and long term costs, revenue, and other financial modeling.
- A nonprofit has historically relied on one funding stream and needs to diversify.
- A nonprofit needs to create structured Human Resource processes as it plans to leap in size and staffing in the next year.
Volunteer Registration - REQUIRED
The following registration allows us to capture your contact information, your skills and background.
Please note that completion of this registration form confirms your participation. Please make sure of the event date and time are held on your calendar.
- Event Date and Time: July 18, 2pm-6pm (reception included)
MAKE SURE YOU SCROLL TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS AND PRESS SUBMIT ON THE EMBEDDED FORM BELOW!
DID YOU CLICK ON SUBMIT?
We will circle back with more information, the nonprofit participants, proposed business challenges, and consulting team assignments.
For skillCONNECT related questions, contact Mira Huang at [email protected]. Thank you!
