Change Notes: American Express Engages Volunteers to Help Preserve New York City

Friends,

American Express, a Points of Light Leadership Partner, is engaging volunteers in a whole new way this summer – to help preserve New York City’s historic landmarks.

The company and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have chosen New York City as the 2012 location for Partners in Preservation, their community-based initiative to raise awareness of the importance of historic places. The program will infuse $3 million in grants to preserve the city’s historic buildings, icons and landmarks. As New York City’s first-ever, citywide grassroots preservation effort, the call-to-action program will enlist the aid of all New Yorkers, and anyone who loves New York, to vote online for the preservation project most important to them.

The participation of volunteers is critical to the program’s success. American Express is partnering with New York Cares, a HandsOn Network Action Center of Points of Light, to engage volunteers. Most recently, New York Cares volunteers prepared for and hosted an Open House Weekend, which brought thousands of people to the sites to learn more about their place in New York City history.

“New York City’s historic places across all five boroughs – both the familiar and the lesser-known – are part of the city’s fabric and make it one of the most exciting places in the world,” said Timothy J. McClimon, president of the American Express Foundation. “Partners in Preservation aims to raise awareness about historic places in New York and mobilize support for their preservation, a linchpin in neighborhood development and a key to expanding economic vitality and growth.”

 American Express has also provided a grant to Reel Works, a school-based program that uses the art of filmmaking as a means to self-empowerment and skills development for at-risk youth. With the guidance of volunteer filmmaker mentors the students in the program created films showcasing 17 of the 40 historic places participating in Partners in Preservation. The films are viewable on YouTube.

Join American Express in supporting New York City’s treasures. From April 26 to May 21, anyone 13 years of age or older, can vote from anywhere in the world – either from their web-enabled mobile device, online or on Facebook – for one of the 40 historic New York City places. Click here for voting terms.

American Express is a Points of Light Leadership Partner, recognized for its commitments to developing next generation leaders, preserving and sustaining historic places and encouraging service in communities where its employees and customers live and work. In 2011, American Express was the lead national contributor to the I WILL campaign, promoting volunteerism as part of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance. The company engaged more than 1,000 employees in volunteer service as part of its 9/11 commitment, and launched the first-of-its-kind Facebook I WILL Volunteer app to make it easy for people to search, register and share volunteer opportunities. Over the past three years, Points of Light and American Express have engaged thousands of students, employees, teachers and community members through Travel with Your Mind, a HandsOn Schools program designed to help revitalize deserving schools through a series of travel-themed, transformational projects and multicultural initiatives across several U.S. cities. American Express also brings its acclaimed American Express Leadership Academy to the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, providing in-depth leadership development opportunities to 24 emerging leaders each year.

Points of Light’s Leadership Partner Program recognizes and engages companies and business leaders whose social responsibility investments have resulted in significant advancement of its mission to inspire, equip and mobilize people to take action that changes the world. One partner organization will be highlighted each month.

 In service,

Michelle Nunn CEO. Points of Light

Corporate Volunteering Across Borders

Today’s guest post is written by Cristina Andoni, ATLAS Corps Fellow from Republic of Moldova, serving at Points of Light as Corporate Institute Coordinator. If you are interested in contacting her for more information, you can reach her at: [email protected]

Volunteering is on the rise. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, volunteerism is at a 30-year high. Corporations continue to increase their giving and further diversify and develop their employee volunteer programs (source). National campaigns such as A Billion + Change create business value through strategic alignment of philanthropy and business goals by mobilizing billions of dollars of skills-based volunteer services to build the capacity of nonprofits to meet community needs.

Volunteering and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are on the European agenda as well. With the announcement of 2011 as The European Year of Volunteering, developing the ISO 26000:2010 Standard on Guidance on Social Responsibility and the publishing of a renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility, among many other initiatives, the European Union took a leap in supporting volunteering at the highest level.

Although trends vary from country to country, corporate civic engagement is growing everywhere. Corporate engagement continues to boom in countries with strong traditions of civic innovation, such as United Kingdom, and even in countries such as Poland, where only 2 percent of companies ran an employee volunteering program in 2008.

Additionally, companies from emerging European markets, where civic consciousness is only awakening, are beginning to realize that corporate civic engagement and corporate social responsibility go beyond being expensive, sporadic PR campaigns and philanthropy. Companies incorporate responsible business principles into core business activities. Corporate volunteering, for example, is becoming an integral part of companies’ strategy and culture and has proved to tackle important organizational and community-related issues.

Kyivstar, a Ukranian telecommunications company and the winner of the National Corporate Volunteering Contest in the Innovation category, is a great example. It is one of the first companies in the country to integrate corporate social responsibility into its business strategy and implement innovative practices and approaches in employee motivation, such as paid release time, impact communication, employee recognition or scalable employee volunteer projects.

Why is this happening? I would speculate that it is globalization that is pushing a new normal in corporate citizenship, as well as empirical evidence of the benefits it generates for the company, its employees and communities.

Companies in America hold a great opportunity in their hands, the power to be leaders in corporate volunteerism for the world around us. In the years ahead, it’s not just the nice thing to do, but the necessary thing to do for businesses to stay relevant and competitive.

To learn more about excellent Employee Volunteer Programs, download our latest Trends of Excellence report for more information about excellence in employee volunteering.

Employee Volunteer Programs: On The Corporate Radar As Never Before

Today’s guest post is written by Jennifer M. Highsmith, Director, Business Training & Consulting  for The Points of Light Corporate Institute.  If you are interested in contacting her for more information you can reach her at: 404-979-2929

As reported in the 2011 Trends of Excellence Series, there’s a direct relationship between the size of the investment in a company’s employee volunteer program (EVP) and its level of performance. With today’s EVPs engaging 43 percent of employees annually, more and more companies are making the investment and putting their dollars behind their employees’ passion, interests and skills.

Consider this…  In 2006, Points of Light found that EVPs invested on average $30 per employee, excluding salaries and grants. Today, EVPs are investing at least $104 per employee, excluding salaries and grants, whether they volunteer or not. That’s more than a 200 percent increase!

It appears that even while the economy and company profits may have declined, companies have invested increasingly more resources and money into employee volunteering. Now more than ever before, employee volunteering is positioned at the core of many corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

Why? The answer is clear. EVPs are one of the most compelling, cost efficient and can be one of the most visible ways of demonstrating a CSR program. EVPs also offer a huge return on investment for the company, employees and the community or agency it supports.

In addition to supporting CSR initiatives, EVPs help improve the corporate image and relations with key stakeholders; increases employee skills and productivity; improves employee morale, recruitment, and retention; and can help increase sales, clients and consumers.

Want to learn more about EVPs and how companies of all sizes and industries are getting involved?

Volumes 1-4 of the Trends of Excellence, is a series of reports analyzing excellent EVPs to identify best practices including company support, strategies, policies, activities and outcomes. The research findings indicate a number of key practices and trends companies should consider when developing or enhancing an EVP. Findings include:

• Companies should consider investing at least $104 per employee, excluding salaries and grants, whether they volunteer or not; the figure jumps to $179 when including salaries, travel and other items.

• In order to best manage limited resources to produce greater impact, companies should align their EVP to support specific business functions.

• EVPs should draw on company assets, such as employee skills, marketing channels and commercial products, to strengthen the contributions the EVP makes to society.

• Reward the efforts and accomplishments of employee volunteers to better support the EVP’s concrete goals.

The report is based on information from the 2010 Points of Light Corporate Engagement Awards of Excellence finalist companies. Download the series today and learn more about excellence in employee volunteering.

The Points of Light’s Business Member Program is an initiative of the Points of Light Corporate Institute.  For more information on employee volunteering or this publication contact Jennifer Highsmith.