Why Volunteering is Good Business

According to  Statics Canada in 2010, volunteer hours across Canada was the equivalent to over 1 Million full time jobs, or approximately 2 Billion “working” hours.  With a majority of these hours being donated to charity and Not For Profit Organizations.  It is estimated that almost 70% of all Canadians will give their time to volunteer at some point or another.

All that said, the most expensive commodity a business/person has is their time, but what is the cost of  community relations, company moral, loyalty and retention.  In the end these can be priceless in the eyes of business.  Research shows that when Business and volunteerism combine, the entire community wins.  When volunteering is being put to work, in varying degrees, as a strategic asset to help achieve business goals, including managing and changing culture, strengthening the brand, building external relationships, and improving employee engagement.  Outside of these several other benefits can be attributed to the combination of business and volunteering, including

  • Skill Development
  • Leadership Training
  •  Increased Performance and Productivity
  • Community and Social Awareness
  • Outside Networking
  • Expression of Values
  • Increase Collaboration

The list potential benefits is only as big as your imagination.  People by nature tend to flock to similar values, and by linking your brand, your employees, or just your time to something local and meaningful, speaks at a greater volume then money can buy.  However, there is one important caveat to making volunteerism work for any business.  It is simple, the relationship between business and any charity or not for profit needs to be true and without falsehood.  The partnership needs to be genuine to the businesses morals, values and must truly benefit all those involved to achieve the desired outcomes.

We live in a time and age were information is at our finger tips, and finding the right organization is as easy as understanding what would be a good fit for you, your business, your employees and your community.  To return to the 2010 Statistics Canada Report on Volunteering, they found that the bulk of total volunteer hours (66%) were given to five types of non-profit and charitable organizations: those involved in sports and recreation had the largest share (19% of total hours), followed by social services (18%), religion (15%) education and research (9%) and health (5%).

Its never too early or too late to get involved in something… the only question is when?

 

Volunteers Can Change the World

What is Volunteering

Volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity and is intended to promote goodness or improve human quality of life. In return, this activity can produce a feeling of self-worth and respect. There is no financial gain involved for the individual. Volunteering is also renowned for skill development, socialization, and fun. Volunteering may have positive benefits for the volunteer as well as for the person or community served. It is also intended to make contacts for possible employment. It is helping, assisting, or serving another person or persons without pay.

Volunteers do such a wide variety of tasks and jobs in your local and global communities.  Volunteers do everything from stuffing envelopes to serving on boards of directors. They raise funds for charity, coach sports teams, run youth and children’s programs, deliver meals, shop for the elderly, help recent immigrants settle in, work to protect the environment, help feed hungry people, guide museum and art gallery visitors, and build homes for homeless people, and so on and so on.  Volunteers are the basis for many of our earliest establishments, including Hospitals, Homes for the elderly, Orphanages, and several well known and long standing health and welfare organizations including the SPCA (Established 1869), the Canadian Red Cross (1896), The Victorian Order of Nurses -VON (1897), and Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada (1913), just to name a few.  Take a few moments and think of the place that are driven by volunteers and the work that they do, the meals on wheels drivers, the parents of the PTA, the girl and boy scout leaders, the local minor sports associations, the porters at the hospital, the list can go on and on.  Chances are you and/or your family are impacted by the work of a volunteer on a regular basis.

As our lives continuously get busier and busier, it gets harder to find time to donate.  According to the National Statistics the number of those who volunteer are dropping.  In 2013 12.7 million Canadians volunteered their time, compared to 13.3 million in 2010, that’s a 5% decrease.  On the other hand, the need that volunteers service are on the rise.  And so the cycle continues.

Margaret Mead quoteImagine what the world will be like without the dedication of volunteers with a cause, what would the world be like if Rotary International did not have the mission to eradicate   Polio, as a result Rotarian’s have contributed over US$850 million and hundreds of thousands of volunteer-hours, leading to the inoculation of more than two billion of the world’s children.

Please take some time to recognize the time and hard work volunteers put into your community and abroad to ensure that great Organizations can continue their work, and continue to change the world.

National Volunteer Weeks

  • April 12-18 2015
  • April 10-17 2016
  • April 23-29 2017

 

 

New BHAG

So here it is … My BHAG…img6-full

In August 2016 (the month I turn 40), I will participate in my areas Century Ride, which is a 100 Mile (160 km) bicycle tour to 3 Ports along Lake Erie. 

First off, I’m sure if you are reading this, and unfamiliar with Verne Harnish (the Growth Guy), you have are probably wondering what BHAG means.  Well it is simply stands for a BIG HAIRY A$$ GOAL.  He states that if you are not growing you are dying, and by not setting crazy goals to stride for, their is nothing pushing you to achieve what you want. Don’t get me wrong, he is not saying go out and have BHAG be the end all and be all, but there are a series of smaller more measurable means to get there.  It is a proven fact about human nature that once you succeed at something, you are more likely to keep doing it.  The same is true in the Newton’s Laws of Motion:

  • Law #1 – an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion
  • Law#2 – the more force applied to an object the greater the acceleration 
  • Law#3 – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

Who knew goal setting could be a physics lesson??

If we tweak a few of the words in the above laws of physics, you can apply them to human nature.

  • Law #1 – a PERSON at rest tends to stay at rest, and an PERSON in motion tends to stay in motion
  • Law#2 – the more force applied to an object the greater the ACCOUNTABILITY
  • Law#3 – for every action there is an equal and opposite CONSEQUENCE

Long explanation short.  Once you start it is hard to stop, as you are being held accountable by your network, or face the consequence of not achieving the goal.  Simple right?

By reading this, I am setting the laws of Physics into motion, and you are now apart of my BHAG…What’s yours?