Turning Insights Into Action: What the Past Tells Us About What’s Next

To lead with clarity and confidence in a time of rapid change, we must first understand where we’ve been. The evolution of employee volunteering is filled with insights not just about how far we’ve come, but about the assumptions and strategies we’ve inherited.

This first installment in our three-part series looks back at the history of employee engagement and corporate volunteerism. By unpacking the milestones, motivations and missteps of past eras, we can better understand what shaped our current practices and more importantly, how to shape what comes next.

The Origins: Values Before Vocabulary

Before “CSR” and “ESG” were business buzzwords, social responsibility showed up in the choices of individuals and mission-driven institutions. Think Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, Rockefeller’s philanthropic legacy, or early faith-based organizations’ refusals to support unethical industries. As businesses began to adopt more formal responsibility for social impact, employees were slowly brought into the fold.

By the early 20th century, as the Progressive Era took root in the U.S., companies began to recognize the importance of employee well-being and community infrastructure to long-term business success. Founded in 1907, Johnson & Johnson’s the Laurel Club is thought to be the first documented examples of a structured employee organization with a charter focused on public service and volunteering to improve maternal and child public health, which directly tied to some of the company’s products. Payroll deductions for “community chests” in the 1920s served as precursors to United Way campaigns and offered early systems for employee involvement in giving.

These weren’t side projects. They were initial proofs of concept that employee and community engagement could be aligned with business value.

Expanding Responsibility: From Individual Goodwill to Collective Impact

The 1970s ushered in a broader acknowledgment of a “social contract” between companies and their stakeholders. Employee volunteering emerged alongside philanthropic giving, shaped by shifting public expectations and emerging CSR theory.

Some credit Ben & Jerry’s with pioneering volunteer time off in the late 1970s, linking employee empowerment with social values. By the 1980s and ’90s, the idea of employees serving as ambassadors of company values through volunteering gained momentum, bolstered by national calls to action like President George H.W. Bush’s vision for a “thousand points of light.”

When Participation Overshadowed Purpose

In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, employee volunteering became more formalized, especially in large corporations. Programs were top-down and aligned more with good PR and market expansion goals than with employee passions or community needs. Volunteering was seen as a novel way to enhance reputation and differentiate in a booming economy fueled by rapid technological advancement. The optimism of the “New Economy” created space for businesses to experiment with CSR, though the dot-com crash in 2000 soon tempered this momentum.

The Businesses Strengthening America coalition, formed in response to President George W. Bush’s 2002 call to service in the wake of the devastating attacks on 9/11, helped drive initiatives like the first-ever corporate Month of Service spearheaded by The Home Depot in 2005. But the emphasis often leaned toward participation over purpose such as hours logged, photos taken and boxes checked.

Signature days of service, seasonal giving campaigns and check presentations created visibility and increased morale but often fell short of lasting impact. Too often, the spotlight was on what companies gave, not what communities needed. Nonprofit partners found themselves hosting corporate groups with little context or long-term support. Employees wanted deeper meaning and better alignment with their values.

Cracks in the Model and a Shift Toward Meaning

Even so, those early efforts built important muscle: introducing employees to volunteering and their agency to create positive change, signaling a social license to operate and embedding the idea that business can be a force for good. During the 2008 recession, we saw CSR leaders advocating for the power of volunteering to build culture, boost morale and demonstrate values during difficult times. But over time, communities asked for more collaboration and less charity.

Initiatives like A Billion + Change attempted to respond, shifting the focus to pro bono and skills-based volunteering. This was a pivotal insight: the most meaningful impact often came not from volume, but from value—when companies offered what they do best in service of community needs. This approach aligned with a broader evolution in corporate purpose. In 2019, the Business Roundtable redefined its principles, moving away from shareholder primacy and affirming a commitment to all stakeholders, signaling a new era of corporate responsibility.

What the Past Tells Us About What’s Next

Today, employee volunteering is no longer a side benefit, it’s a strategic imperative. Employees are stepping into leadership roles to address urgent issues like social justice, climate change and mental health. What started as top-down philanthropy has evolved into employee-powered, community-centered impact.

But we don’t get to this next chapter without understanding the last.

Turning Insights into Action

Before building what’s next, it’s worth unpacking what brought us here. These steps can help CSR leaders translate historical insight into forward-looking action:

• Audit your past impact. How did your company measure success before 2020? Hours logged? Dollars donated? Were those metrics telling the full story?
• Map legacy mindsets. Identify assumptions like “volunteering = one-off events” or “impact = participation.” Are those beliefs still influencing decisions today?
• Acknowledge what didn’t work. Ask your nonprofit partners and volunteer champions where past efforts fell short. Use that insight to clarify what you want to leave behind.
• Protect what built trust. Identify the practices that created belonging, connection and authenticity. Celebrate and build on them.

When we honor our history with honesty and humility, we create space for something stronger to take root. The future of employee volunteering won’t erase the past; it will build on its lessons, informed by deeper purpose and true partnership.