What is Global Volunteer Month? How to Prepare to Engage Your Teams

National holidays and significant dates, such as Giving Tuesday and the MLK, Jr. Day of Service, provide great opportunities for companies and organizations to flex their altruistic muscles. 

Your coworkers, however, don’t need to go along with the crowd. There’s nothing preventing companies from forging their own traditions in charity and volunteerism. Global Volunteer Month, for instance, is a malleable occasion that companies can tailor to their own schedules and volunteering strengths. 

Below, we’ll go over some ideas for making Global Volunteer Month your own and helping your employees get started with corporate social responsibility (CSR) endeavors.

Table of Contents:

• The History of Global Volunteer Month
• Financial Benefits of Corporate Volunteerism
• 5 Ideas for Corporate Volunteering Initiatives
• Groundswell Eliminates Common Barriers to Successful Corporate Volunteering Programs
• Forge a New Tradition with Global Volunteer Month at Your Company

The History of Global Volunteer Month

Global Volunteer Month in the U.S. appears to be closely tied to National Volunteer Month, established by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. 

The first official National Volunteer Month occurred in April 1991 as part of Bush’s Thousand Points of Light volunteering initiative. It’s since grown to encompass a large umbrella of charitable activities and causes.

So, when is Global Volunteer Month?

It depends on who you ask. Many people consider April to be Global Volunteer Month, merely because it coincides with America’s National Volunteer Month. The truth? No officially sanctioned Global Volunteer Month exists, so your company may hold it whenever you and your employees prefer.

In 2006, Morgan Stanley, for instance, designated June as its internal Global Volunteer Month. Many organizations avoid scheduling volunteer months in February or March to avoid conflicts with Black History Month and Women’s History Month. 

Financial Benefits of Corporate Volunteerism

CSR programs aren’t just something companies can put on their mantle so they can pat themselves on the back. We now have overwhelming evidence that corporate charitable endeavors are essential for profitability and competitive advantages. In other words, it just makes financial sense to embrace CSR programs. 

Here are some compelling statistics on the advantages of corporate benevolence:

• Nearly half of executives in a recent survey reported that they plan to increase CSR spending in the near future, citing positive ROI. 
• CSR programs have been shown to improve companies’ financial performances.
• Employees are less likely to leave workplaces that have robust CSR initiatives.
• Forty-six percent (46%) of consumers say they consider a company’s social and environmental impacts before making a purchase.

5 Ideas for Corporate Volunteering Initiatives

Your company doesn’t necessarily need to proclaim an entire month as Global Volunteer Month to hit the ground running with CSR volunteerism. There’s no shame in or disadvantage to starting small; before long, you’ll develop a cache of successful volunteering events to space out over an entire month. 

Below are several examples of corporate volunteering actions your company can take up for Global Volunteer Month.

1. Beautification and Cleanup Days.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but few people consider a littered highway, riverbank, or natural area to be easy on the eyes. Trash pick-ups in or near well-traveled areas are great opportunities for aesthetically pleasing volunteerism initiatives. Your company might even “adopt” portions of state highways—the public attention organizations get from the program’s road signs is hard to beat.

2. Organizing and Serving at a Local Food Bank.

Food insecurity is a persistent issue worldwide—even in high-income countries like the U.S. An accessible and impactful volunteering initiative can take place right in your community with a food pantry or soup kitchen. This volunteerism opportunity can produce some impressive content you can share on your company’s social media accounts.

3. Engaging in After-School Programs

Children are undoubtedly our future. Hundreds of thousands of them—if not millions—leave school and must be entertained or otherwise occupied before parents pick them up. A great way to make good use of this time is to engage students through educational programs that prime them to become good citizens. And, who knows? Maybe you can identify some future interns or employees during these sessions.

4. Skills-Based Volunteering

If you’d like your company to get on board with volunteerism while positioning itself as an expert and authority in its industry, consider skills-based volunteering. Your coworkers can serve nonprofits or directly help consumers. An example of the latter would be volunteering tax preparation expertise to low-income individuals who may not have the funds to hire an agent or even WiFi to research tax returns. A marketing company, on the other hand, can help local nonprofits by creating content on a pro bono or reduced-fee basis.

5. Partnering with Nonprofits

Looking for more of a plug-and-play volunteerism opportunity? Call around to local charities to see if they organize volunteer outings. You’ll have the benefit of an already-curated experience for your coworkers—all they need to do is show up. 

If the nonprofit is wonderful to work with, well, in the words of Rick Casablanca (from 1942’s Casablanca): “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

Groundswell Eliminates Common Barriers to Successful Corporate Volunteering Programs

So, we’ve hopefully convinced you of the merits of CSR volunteerism and the advantages your company can realize from such programs. Perhaps you’re already planning a full slate of outings for Global Volunteer Month. 

But how can you make that a reality at your company? 

Enter Groundswell. Our founding team created Groundswell with the idea that every company, no matter its size, can change the world through CSR initiatives. During our quest to bring an easy-to-use CSR software to market, we noticed the pain points our clients might have:

• Administrative workers and executives who are already stretched too thin to complete paperwork
• Challenges paying ad hoc fees for seemingly routine activities
• Little to no time to master the software before instructing employees on its use
• Frustrations with the long distribution timelines and high fees for charitable donations

We’re sure you have some pain points or objections to add, but we’ll stop there. With Groundswell, you’ll get:

• Reduced admin burden, with zero monthly reports or reconciliations
• The lowest distribution fees in the industry
• A personalized onboarding and training for your staff
• Instantly matched donations and funds sent to nonprofits in less than 24 hours

Forge a New Tradition with Global Volunteer Month at Your Company

There’s never a bad time to start making a positive difference in your community. While you’re doing so, though, it doesn’t hurt to connect your CSR programs to a larger effort—to, say, Global Volunteer Month.

Groundswell is here to help you every step of the way. From volunteering to donations, grants, donor-advised funds, employee assistance funds, and much more, our intuitive software can do it all. Request your free demo today.