Today’s post is written by Vincent Clarke, an outreach specialist for USB Memory Direct, a socially conscious business in South Florida. In his free time, Vincent loves to travel, watch far too many movies, and spend time with his family.

Volunteering has the ability to create substantial value for your business and community. Below I will briefly discuss the process of choosing volunteer opportunities that fit within your core business values. In addition you’ll discover how to encourage employees to donate or volunteer within the same organization and find tips on creating good publicity for your company activism.

What are the benefits?

Company volunteerism encourages teamwork among coworkers which can strengthen job productivity. Most people who volunteer enjoy doing it because helping others gives them personal satisfaction. As a result, employees who volunteer regularly with a company are more likely to feel a sense of purpose within an organization and to develop a sense of loyalty to their company.

Volunteering can also have a positive effect on company image. Working with popular nonprofit organizations gives you better visibility and promotes a positive image, which could supplement your future marketing campaigns.

At the heart of it all, you’re also really helping out the community. When large organizations of people come together to work on one goal, they really can make a difference.

Evaluating the right volunteer program for your company

Before anything else, you’ll need to research what opportunities are available in your community. Look through city databases and online volunteering directories to create a list of all the volunteering programs near you. It’s also a great idea to ask your employees where they like to volunteer.

After you’ve compiled a list of all the possible outreach opportunities in your area, you’ll want to filter out any programs that might conflict with your company values. Do basic background checks on these organizations to avoid affiliating yourself with controversial missions or ideas.

If possible, choose a volunteer program that would allow your company to highlight its products or services. Finally, partner with only one or two volunteering organizations. It’s best to develop great relationships with just a few organizations to start, to ensure that your business is able to handle the commitments it makes to volunteering.

Assessing your efforts

In order to justify volunteering either to yourself or your superiors, you’ll need to be able to accurately quantify your efforts. Keep a record of the employees who volunteer and how much time they spend with the program. Put a dollar value on it if you can. If you’re serving causes like relief efforts or disease research, keep track of how much money you’ve raised as a business. If the organization is more action-oriented, then tally how many individuals or structures you’ve helped or renovated.

Gathering feedback from your employees is also a vital component for your volunteer assessment. Write up and distribute detailed surveys for your employees to discover how much they enjoyed their experience and if they felt they’ve made a contribution. In the long run, try to assess any generated leads or business revenue you receive for your efforts as well.

Creating good publicity for your company activism

Use all of your usual inbound marketing strategies to showcase what you’re working on and who you are collaborating with. That means blog articles, email newsletters, videos, social media posts, infographics, and site announcements. Get a discussion going and create buzz around the topic. This is all great publicity and a great way to gain new business while gaining visibility for the cause you support.

Find out great resources to get your company involved in volunteering at our HandsOn Network Center for Employee Volunteerism.