Historically, companies have engaged their employees through volunteering - often considered the cornerstone of corporate giving strategies. Mostly done as part of CSR initiatives, these volunteering events used to be mostly physical and structured around defined VTO policies.
With the pandemic, employees found themselves confined to their homes - but their desire to give back to their communities only grew. This desire was soon supplemented by virtual volunteering - which enabled corporates to engage their employees in remote volunteering opportunities that complemented the new model of working.
Spurred on by the social justice issues in recent years, people around the world are more open than ever to doing good. This trend is supplemented by the growing workforce proportion of millennials and Gen Zs - who are evidently very passionate about giving back. Corporate volunteering leaders such as CSR and HR managers are now looking for ways to engage this workforce.
Goodera x Pledge 1% - A collaboration for good:
Within Goodera too, we’ve worked on multiple volunteering events featuring our own employees (Gooders as we like to call ourselves):
As a part of our promise with Pledge 1% to donate time, Goodera employees volunteered virtually for a group Mapathon to map the most vulnerable places in the developing world so that local and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) can use these maps and data to better respond to the crisis affecting these areas.
The Pledge initiative helped us do our own part for the cause, with multiple other events organized, supporting organizations like Save the Children.
A few snaps of our Gooders taking part in various virtual volunteering activities across the country. Gooders devote ~500 hours to volunteer, contributing to at least 4 key social events a month in their own capacity.
For the last two months of 2021, our focus is on events surrounding Thanksgiving, Christmas, as well as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Throughout the year, Gooders devote ~500 hours to volunteer, contributing to at least 4 key social events a month in their own capacity.
Planning ahead for 2022, our primary focus area for January and February would be Martin Luther King (MLK) day and Black History Month.
Goodera’s role in giving back:
We curate opportunities specific to each campaign, each month, so that our corporate clients have plenty of volunteering opportunities to choose from. Our most notable campaigns in 2021 included our campaigns on racial equality, Women’s History Month, LGBTQ+ History Month, and Literacy month.
We are currently running campaigns around GivingTuesday, by offering a suite of 30 diverse, globally-distributed volunteering opportunities. Assembling cookie kits for children in crisis, creating educational flashcards, attending a dance workshop run by persons with (dis)abilities, and audio recording books for children under medical care are some of them.
About Goodera:
At Goodera, we’ve been working for the past 7 years to ensure that we connect this generation of purpose-driven employees with global nonprofits in need of their skills.
Today, the total number of eligible users (employee volunteers) of our virtual volunteering platform stands at a little over 5M. Team-based volunteering events that build cross-team collaboration have emerged in popularity (96% of total events) over individual employee volunteering.
We will continue to curate and execute powerful volunteering experiences as a proud Pledge 1% member.
We are now hosting free, exclusive GivingTuesday-themed volunteering activities for corporations.
You can register here with 5-20 members of your team. Happy volunteering from Goodera!
