How To Start a Local Business Volunteer Council

Here in the SF area, across the bay, lies a group of communities called the East Bay where businesses care about by giving back through volunteering and donations. As an example, last year we referred to an article, that emerged from the East Bay, Why Giving is Good for Business.  Now we get to see a role model of a group of businesses that have joined forces in the mission of volunteering for local charities in their community.


East Bay Business Volunteer Council (BVC) was founded by individuals from companies such as AAA, Charles Schwab, Safeway and others, as a coalition of businesses with the common purpose of community engagement and business volunteering. At their regularly scheduled meetings,  they provide the opportunity for members to exchange information and recognize best practices as well as identify and learn about the volunteering needs in the community. With membership there is free consulting provided by the staff to members on how to develop a volunteer program. Their programs include listings of volunteer needs, student volunteering, volunteer opportunity calender, holiday volunteering events, and organized disaster response. They are affiliated with HandsonNetwork. This organization is a terrific model for any community of businesses to follow.

How to start a similar business Volunteer Council in your community or area.

• Brainstorm together with a few like minded business leaders on how to start such a group.
• Tie in with a local community foundation, or Chamber of Commerce to set up an organization. This helps offset any start up costs of creating a non-profit on your own.
• Develop a mission  and vision statement that reflects the needs of your community and of what your organization wants to accomplish.
• Create an affiliation with a volunteer opportunities provider such as Hands On Network, or with a local organization such as a community foundation. 
• Develop a database of all the non-profits in the area and their volunteer needs
• Develop relationships with local non-profits, with links to their websites.
• Structure monthly meeting times at opportune, breakfast, lunch, or after hours, that is convenient for most and serve food!
• Publicize your organization in local media or through direct marketing though the business community, to encourage more businesses to join.
• Invite local non-profits to come to the meetings or better yet, create a membership category just for them.
• Let businesses know what the benefits are to their business for joining the organization.
• Offer members free consultation to help with developing an employee volunteer program.

What are the benefit's?  BVC describes this well on their website. But the benefits are much the same as described in the article cited above. Basically, giving back whether in time, money, services is good for your business because it helps build your community and in the end the community helps your business grow.

Giving More of Your Time

Next week, April 19-25 is National Volunteer Week 2009.
"Celebrating People in Action." is the theme that honors the individuals who take action and solve problems in their communities. Whether you participate in the specific events during that week or not, it is a great time to think about how volunteer efforts can become an important part of your business philanthropy. Your business and it’s employees can volunteer in a variety of ways for a cause, an event, or a specific organization.

Here are some ideas for ways your business can volunteer that will be of benefit to you and the organization or cause that you are supporting.

Engage your customers and clients -People love to be part of something meaningful and to make connections with others.

• Invite your customers to join your efforts.
• Put up a big sign about what you are planning to do and welcome them to join you. Ask them to sponsor your business in your effort.
• Offer them a discount or freebies on your services or products give them freebies if they participate or support you.
• Have t-shirts, mugs, buttons printed up with your business name and the cause as handouts for customers, or for your employees to wear.
  

Engage your employees- Involve everyone in deciding where and how the business would like to volunteer and the planning of the activities or event.

• Create a “team” effort, with designated leaders and responsibilities and timetables.
• Have everyone be part of the vision of what they would like to accomplish.
• Give employees time off participate in the project, or better yet, allow them to spend a certain amount of their paid time working for the event.
• If your business is experiencing a slow time and your employees are not working at full capacity, give them the opportunity to volunteer that time towards a cause. Offer their time as pro-bono service to an organization.
• Have employees bring their families to volunteer with them. This is especially great for things like “beach cleanups’ or doing walks or runs for charities.
• Make it fun-it builds morale.

Engage other businesses -Your business may not have enough employees to make a significant contribution, but if you send an invitation your local business community to join your efforts you will be able to have a greater impact.

• Invite your vendors, suppliers, business relationships like your bank, insurance agents, or accountants to join or contribute to your efforts.
• Build awareness of the cause with shared advertising shared with the other businesses supporting the cause.
• Have t-shirts, button, mugs, banners printed with the names of each of the businesses that are supporting the cause.
• Partner with local business in supporting local causes. Turn “Shop Local” efforts into: “Shop Local/Give Local”.
  

Volunteering is a great way to grow your business by gaining more visibility, building customer loyalty and employee morale, and investing in the very community that supports your business.