Get Your Team Excited to Show Up

[Alicia_Schmidt]

Get Your Team Excited to Show Up

A policy sitting in your handbook does nothing on its own.

📍 Where you are

Your VTO policy is live. Now the real work begins — getting people to actually use it. Participation doesn’t happen automatically. It requires visible leadership, regular reminders, and a few low-effort tactics that make giving back feel like part of how your company works, not an add-on.

Participation requires active promotion, visible leadership, and regular reminders. This module covers the tactics that turn a passive policy into an active culture without adding a lot to your plate.

💡 THE STARTUP REALITY

The common mistake: Assuming employees will engage just because you launched the program. They won’t. Participation requires active promotion from day one.

Drive Participation — 7 Tactics That Work

Tactic	What to Do
Launch with a Lunch & Learn	Invite your nonprofit partner to present to the team. Schedule this within your first 30 days of launching your program.
CEO volunteers publicly	When your CEO participates and posts about it, employee participation follows. Ask your CEO to go first.
Recognize and celebrate	Share names, photos, and stories in all-hands and your internal communities. People repeat behaviors that get noticed.
Use campaign dates	Pledge 1% Engagement Blueprints cover Women’s History Month (Mar), Earth Day (Apr), GivingTuesday (Nov). Use them as a jumpstart instead of planning from scratch.
Dedicated Slack/Teams channel	#giving-back or #impact — post opportunities, photos, hours updates. Think of this as your program’s water cooler.
Build an ambassador network	Identify employees passionate about giving back. Give them a role. Distributed ownership keeps the program alive without burning you out.
Dollars for Doers	Company donates a small amount per volunteer hour. Amplifies time with money.

“We have volunteer ‘Champions’ around the globe who know their community well and who have a personal connection to our Social Impact programs. They drive local programming, assist in delivering things like our Global Impact Campaigns, serve as advocates for what’s happening locally and serve as a connection point to share updates and opportunities with employees as well as gather feedback that helps us continue to make our programming more impactful.”

— Lauren Keeler, Manager Social Impact at New Relic

🤖 AI DRAFT PROMPT

Draft our Lunch & Learn invite and ambassador outreach

Generate both the employee Lunch & Learn invitation and a personal outreach message to potential volunteer ambassadors.

Copy this prompt into your preferred AI assistant (Claude or Gemini), then fill in the [brackets]:

Please write two short messages:

MESSAGE 1 — Lunch & Learn invitation email to all staff:
We are hosting a Lunch & Learn with our nonprofit partner [nonprofit name] on [date] at [time].
Nonprofit mission: [one sentence].
What employees will learn / do: [e.g. hear about their work, ask questions, sign up for a volunteer day].
Food provided: [yes/no].
Length: [30/45/60 minutes].
Tone: friendly, low-pressure, make it sound genuinely interesting — not mandatory.

MESSAGE 2 — Personal outreach to a potential volunteer ambassador:
We are asking [employee name / a few employees] to become informal Volunteer Ambassadors.
What the role involves: surfacing volunteer opportunities, helping lead events, posting in Slack.
Time commitment: [e.g., 1–2 hours per month].
Tone: personal, appreciative — make them feel chosen, not volunteered.

Leverage Annual Days of Recognition

Days of recognition like GivingTuesday or Earth Day give your program a built-in boost — predictable points in the calendar where your audience is already paying attention, making it easier to share progress, deepen engagement, and keep your commitment visible year-round.

Month	Campaign	Volunteer Idea
March	Women’s History Month & IWD	Volunteer with organizations supporting women’s leadership
April	Earth Month, Earth Day & National Volunteer Week	Environmental volunteering, cleanups, tree planting
June	Pride Month	Volunteer with LGBTQ+ organisations
Nov / Dec	GivingTuesday	Year-end matching campaign or final volunteer push

Check out Pledge 1%’s Engagement Blueprints for more information on how to leverage these days.

Develop a Communications Cadence

Frequency	What to Share	Where
At launch	Program announcement, VTO policy, first event, how to sign up	All-hands + email + internal communities
Monthly	Upcoming opportunities, volunteer photos or stories	Internal communities + newsletter
Quarterly	Hours contributed YTD, participation rate, progress toward goals	All-hands or team meeting
Annually	Year-end total, top volunteers, impact stories, goals for next year	All-hands + LinkedIn

📣 COMMUNICATING YOUR PLEDGE

Your CEO’s voice is your most powerful engagement tool. A CEO who visibly volunteers, talks about why giving back matters to them, and shares employee stories publicly will drive more participation than any policy or email campaign. Build this into your launch plan.

3 Quick Actions

• Schedule your launch Lunch & Learn with your nonprofit partner (use the AI prompt above).
• Identify potential volunteer ambassadors and reach out (use the AI prompt above).
• Set your communications cadence and mark 2–3 campaign dates on your company calendar now. Even a monthly Slack post counts.

Your team is ready to show up. Now let’s make sure the nonprofit relationship works for both sides.

Next: How to Partner With Nonprofits to Maximize Impact →