Start Your Employee Volunteer Program to Support Sustainable Development Goals

1/12/2017

Push your business goals further, inspire the people at your organization, and contribute to positive change in your local community and around the world - all with one, easy-to-implement program.

The UN initiative Impact2030 is hoping to inspire companies across the globe to do just that, by empowering businesses and equipping leaders with the tools necessary to create structured, impactful volunteer programs at their organizations.

The human capital that exists within companies has massive potential to create positive change. Identifying this untapped opportunity, Impact2030 has set out on a mission to activate employees, inspire diverse populations, and create opportunities for tangible contributions around the world.

The business-led initiative is rooted in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and seeks to drive strong collaboration and relationships between private companies and social and public sectors.

3 Steps to Launch Your Employee Volunteer Program

If you want to get involved and give back, here are three simple steps you can follow to get informed and take action with an engaging and effective employee volunteer program:

Learn. The first step to creating a meaningful and tailored program within your team is to learn. Learn about the SDGs. Think about how you, your team, your organization, and your local community fit into the goals. Learn which ones you and your people are passionate about. Find out how your employees are already giving back and how they can teach others to do the same. Discover local initiatives and draw inspiration from what other teams nearby are doing to make a difference.
Activate. Once you have identified the goals that connect with your organization and your team, you can devise a plan that enables everyone to give back in the most effective way possible. Consider skills-based giving to leverage and develop existing employee talents. Let your team take the lead to find out what strategies they find the most fulfilling when giving back. Most importantly, make it a collaborative and community-centred experience. Create partnerships outside of your organization and determine gaps, project stages, and immediate needs to create the most beneficial program possible.
Measure. Set ambitious but achievable goals in collaboration with your partner organizations and internal teams. A helpful universal framework has been developed to measure volunteer impact, allowing you to point to real change driven by your employees. The framework is helpful for elevating the profile of your company’s social efforts, connecting teams through a sense of accomplishment, and finding new ways to improve, iterate, and contribute with even greater results.

Businesses are among the most powerful, tight-knit, and pervasive social structures across the world. Regardless of the size, industry, or goals of your organization, you can leverage the power of your people to make a positive difference.

Imperative Impact is proud to support Impact2030 as Regional Voice Lead. To find out more about our contributions and access resources to drive social change, sign up for our newsletter.

Lauren Rabindranath

Lauren Rabindranath is a community builder and digital communications professional based in Toronto, Ontario. She is an expert at creating tailored digital content for diverse clients and developing human-centred engagement strategies for communities in-person and online.

With Imperative Impact, she develops strategy and executes on communications that align with brand voice and client goals while integrating with the broader ecosystem.