Skilled volunteering - a double-edged sword?

According to Deloitte, only 18% of nonprofits felt that skilled volunteers significantly enhanced their capabilities.

Skilled volunteering has become a cornerstone of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Companies deploy their talented employees to nonprofits, hoping to tackle pressing social issues while fostering a sense of purpose among their workforce and elevating their employer brand. It’s a win-win-win, right? Well, not always. As with many well-intentioned initiatives, the reality of skilled volunteering can sometimes fall short of its lofty goals, leaving nonprofits in a bind.

The Allure of Skilled Volunteering

The concept is compelling: leverage the expertise of professionals to help nonprofits address complex challenges. This approach benefits the company by enhancing employee engagement and providing valuable experience, while the nonprofit gains access to skills that might otherwise be out of reach. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, about 63 million Americans volunteered in 2021, contributing approximately 8 billion hours of service. Skilled volunteering, in particular, has seen a surge as companies recognize its potential to create meaningful impact.

I saw this surge first-hand while CEO of Team Rubicon, where we had countless Fortune 500 partners eager to outline skilled-volunteering initiatives. Some of these engagements went phenomenal and were transformative, like when Palantir Technologies embedded multiple engineers with our team for months at a time to help tool their complex tech for our disaster operations. Or when military veteran pilots at American Airlines volunteered their time off to fly planeloads of Greyshirts into Hurricane Harvey (probably not the type of skilled volunteering you're used to reading about!).

Of course, in my opinion, the hallmark of excellent skilled volunteering is pro bono legal work. The best firms in the US place have an expectation that their attorneys dedicate significant time to supporting the nonprofit community, and allow them to count those hours toward their billable hours requirements, ensuring that the attorneys never have to reprioritize a nonprofit client for a paying client.

But not all of our engagements went well. Many of them required TR to invest significant time and energy up front, only to be left with deliverables that failed to add value.

The Pitfall: The 80% Syndrome

Despite its advantages, skilled volunteering often leads to what I call the "80% syndrome." Volunteers swoop in and execute a project, but the resulting deliverable is either 80% complete, 80% functional, 80% sustainable, or 80% relevant.

This issue stems from several factors:

1. Short-Term Engagements: Many corporate volunteer programs are designed as short-term engagements. Volunteers might spend a few days or weeks working on a project, which is often not enough to see it through to completion.
2. Lack of Continuity: Once volunteers return to their day jobs, nonprofits are left to maintain and complete the project. Without proper handoff or sustainment plans, these initiatives can quickly lose momentum or worse, fall apart.
3. Mismatch of Expectations: Nonprofits might expect long-term support, while volunteers are often geared towards short-term goals. This mismatch can lead to frustration and unmet objectives.
4. A Lack of Perspective: A professional that is parachuting in from a Fortune 100 marketing department has access to the best tools, data, and colleagues in their day job. They often fail to account for the limited resources available to the nonprofit marketers they're helping - leading to deliverables that are tooled like a Lamborghini when they really just need an oil change on their Ford F-150.

Real-World Consequences

The consequences of the 80% syndrome can be painful for nonprofits. Let’s consider a few scenarios:

• IT Overhauls Gone Awry: A nonprofit might receive a team of IT professionals to upgrade its outdated systems. The volunteers install new software and hardware (the fun part) but leave before training the staff or creating a maintenance plan (the not-so-fun part). As a result, the nonprofit struggles with the new technology and might even revert to its old systems, wasting the resources and efforts invested.
• Marketing Campaigns Left Hanging: A team of skilled marketers might develop a comprehensive campaign for a nonprofit. They create a flashy website, social media strategy, and content calendar but don’t stay around to implement and adjust these plans based on real-time feedback. The nonprofit is left with great assets but no know-how to utilize them effectively.
• Strategic Planning without Execution: Volunteers might assist in drafting a strategic plan to guide a nonprofit’s growth. However, without ongoing support to navigate challenges and adapt to changes, the plan can become a stale document rather than a living roadmap.

Data-Driven Insights

Studies underscore the challenges and opportunities of skilled volunteering. The 2020 Deloitte Volunteerism Survey revealed that 77% of employees believe volunteering is essential to employee well-being, but only 18% of nonprofits felt that skilled volunteers significantly enhanced their capabilities. This disparity highlights the need for better alignment and follow-through in volunteer engagements.

Mitigating the Risks

To harness the full potential of skilled volunteering, companies and nonprofits must adopt strategies that ensure projects are not just initiated but also properly scoped, successfully completed, and comprehensively sustained.

1. Long-Term Commitments: Encourage longer-term volunteer commitments. This doesn’t necessarily mean full-time engagement but regular check-ins and ongoing support to ensure project sustainability.
2. Clear Handoffs: Develop detailed handoff plans. Volunteers should document their work comprehensively and train nonprofit staff to continue the project seamlessly.
3. Sustainability Plans: Integrate sustainability into the project’s DNA. From the outset, consider how the nonprofit will maintain and build upon the work done by volunteers.
4. Realistic Scoping: Ensure projects are scoped realistically, with achievable goals within the volunteer timeframe. Set expectations clearly on both sides about what can be accomplished.
5. Realistic Scoping Part II: Ensure that deliverables are scoped to fit into the nonprofit's current resourcing capability, including the systems, tools, people, and training necessary to take ongoing advantage of the engagement.
6. Feedback Loops: Establish feedback loops where volunteers and nonprofits can evaluate progress and address challenges promptly. This ongoing communication can help adapt and improve the project over time.

Conclusion

Skilled volunteering holds immense promise for both corporations and nonprofits. However, to move beyond the 80% syndrome, it’s crucial to approach these initiatives with a mindset geared towards sustainability and long-term impact. By fostering deeper engagements, ensuring robust handoffs, and integrating sustainability into the core of volunteer projects, we can ensure that skilled volunteering adds lift, not drag, to the nonprofits we're serving.

By embracing these strategies, companies can ensure their efforts in skilled volunteering lead to lasting positive change, rather than leaving nonprofits hanging and frustrated at the 80% mark.