Skills-based volunteerism is service by individuals or groups that capitalizes on personal talents or core business skills, experience or education. More and more, agencies are struggling to meet their bottom line. In fact, a 2006 Deloitte/Points of Light IMPACT study indicated that:
- Nine out of 10 nonprofits realize that volunteer skills are extremely valuable
- Seventy-seven percent of nonprofit organizations believe they would benefit from corporate volunteers
- Sixty-two percent work with corporate volunteers and only 12 percent of agencies align roles with skill
This gap means that many agencies are missing out on a precious resource — the talent of individual volunteer leaders and corporate teams who can use their skills and products to increase the capacity and effectiveness of nonprofits. Skill-based volunteerism or SBV comes in all shapes and sizes and can include:
- Individual volunteers, corporate paid or non-paid volunteers, groups, loaned executive, or interns
- Projects completed in one day, short, medium or long-term projects
- Activities performed during working hours or on individual time
- Planned in advance or spontaneous (such as disaster response) projects
- Application of all types of skills and talents from business professional experience to hobbies
- Content from nonprofit infrastructure efficiency effort to direct “in the field” projects
- Local impact to national and international
Points of Light believes that more agencies must seize the opportunity to leverage talent and that more businesses are eager to activate around their brand and core business. We believe SBV is meant to do more — more for volunteers, agencies and communities. We are committed to helping companies activate SBV through information, research and easy-to-implement tools. Our SBV case studies cover a range of skilled-volunteer examples and are a great starting point for business leaders looking to improve their employee volunteer offerings or for nonprofits seeking to deepen volunteer engagement.
Corporate Cases
Deloitte Center for Leadership & Community
Building Nonprofit Excellence through Skills-Based Volunteerism
MS&L – George Goodwin Community Grant Program
Building Communications Capacity through Skilled Volunteerism
Kaiser Permanente & Operation Access
Restoring Health & Dignity through Skilled Volunteerism
JPMorgan Chase Public Service Internship Program
Turning Downturn into Dramatic Results
CISCO Leadership Fellows Program (LFP)
Fighting Poverty through Skilled Volunteerism
Fannie Mae SERVE Program
Leveraging Volunteer Employees’ Skills to Prevent Foreclosures
KPMG Millennium Cities Initiative
Creating Sustainable Engines of Economic Growth
IBM On Demand Community
Sahana to the Rescue - Skills-Based Volunteers Working on China Disaster
Accenture and Corporate Citizenship: Building Skills
Nonprofit Cases
Bankers without Borders®
Connecting People, Passion, and Skills to Scale Microfinance and Technology-for-Development Solutions