Bedrijven proberen steeds vaker positieve veranderingen in lokale communities teweeg te brengen door middel van maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen en 'purpose-gedreven' business modellen. Deze initiatieven zijn vaak moeilijk om duurzaam en schaalbaar te maken. Dat is precies waar vrijwilligerscentrales en welzijnsorganisaties een rol van onschatbare waarde spelen, als partners, adviseurs, facilitators en matchmakers. Maar wat is de beste manier om samen met bedrijven sociale impact te creëren?
Op 15 december, 10:00 uur, organiseerde Deedmob de nieuwe online kennissessie ‘Vergroot de impact van vrijwillige inzet met corporate partnerships’ om deze vraag te beantwoorden en kennis met elkaar uit te wisselen.
We hebben de inzichten en de slides toegevoegd onderaan de pagina!
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Levi Witbaard
Head of Growth bij Deedmob
De combinatie van een diploma communicatie, uitgebreide ervaring in een software startup en een achtergrond in onderwijs en gezondheidszorg leidde Levi naar Deedmob, waar hij de Head of Growth is. Volgens het principe "alleen ga je sneller, samen ga je verder", combineert hij het beste van Marketing, Sales, Product en Customer Success om de impact voor en met onze partners te laten groeien. Als hij niet bezig is met het oplossen van de vraag hoe we wereldwijd schaalbare impact kunnen creëren, geniet hij van het leven in de vorm van zijn gezin, zakelijke boeken, het helpen van de voedselbank, 10k+ stappen per dag, het ontdekken van lokaal voedsel, anime en investeringen in een groenere toekomst.·
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Gastspreker: verrassing!
In this knowledge session, we discussed different ingredients of corporate volunteering, with different roles for companies, employees, social organisations, and infrastructure organisations.
Although corporate volunteering is a potential win-win situation, it is often challenging to get off the ground. We discussed several benefits and challenges for all parties, and shared best practices to overcome these challenges.
One of the challenges is that companies often look for one-off activities for teambuilding purposes. What companies don’t realise is that there are often costs involved for the social organisation to guide these purposes and that ongoing projects (often) provide more value for both social organisations as companies. This indicates a mismatch in expectations for both parties involved.
Infrastructure organisations can play a big role in educating and influencing both non-profits and companies to convince both parties of the benefits and managing expectations to create long lasting relationships. So, share best practices, expand your network, and get to know both companies and organisations!
We also discussed some best practices with real impact. One of the best examples is Business Involved, a dedicated corporate volunteering platform supported by the municipality, the infrastructure organisation and Deedmob. Offering a distinct selection of corporate volunteering activities can prevent a mismatch while making corporate volunteering visible for all parties involved.
However, corporate volunteering remains often hard to set up. Therefore, we shared a practical guide to meaningful partnerships with several tips and tricks. These included, amongst others…
• Involve the right partners and the role of each partner (government, volunteer centre, corporates, platform supplier)
• Pool of ready to go volunteering opportunities and nonprofit partners, providing a basis for meaningful, sustainable partnerships
• Provide opportunities that are suitable for corporate volunteers: groups and inclusive
• Take care of necessary health- and safety checks
• Plan the activity, create a guide for fostering long term commitment
• Provide necessary tools and documents which are taillored to the requirement
• Evaluate, measure, document, share and diversify!
• Using the SDGs as a shared framework for the business communities and the social sector, as they work towards common goals
• Expand your network and investigate the different departments within your region: eg. Involve Economic Affairs, or Social Return on Investments desks
• Start small and scale up. Good examples are informal drinks in which social organisations and (local) businesses can meet each other