Volunteering — a bridge to a better community, and supporting the local needy. As the old saying has it, “charity begins at home”. But how do you schedule this? And actually, it’s so much simpler to get involved when someone else has planned the event. And you’ll have more fun volunteering with your friends from work getting involved right along with you!
Companies like Adaptive Marketing LLC, a Connecticut-based firm that innovated shopping and financial benefits programs like ValueMax (MVQ*VALMAX) that bring value to customers, have stepped up as organizing points for volunteer activities and helping employees make time for reaching out.
Company-supported volunteering is more than annual charitable giving. The employees of Adaptive Marketing are frequently given opportunities to get involved in a full range of community initiatives with greater and lesser time investments. Once all the relevant information — location, time, date, specifics, etc. — had been clearly announced it is a simple matter for staff to set aside the time for volunteering and what initiative they’d join. Naturally, it’s important to let volunteers select activities according to their own interests. At Adaptive Marketing, the people who brought you ValueMax (MVQ*VALMAX), staff have the chance to choose from a diverse list of volunteer events. Previous and current projects have included work in areas as diverse as education for children and young adults, environmental programs, and events helping local performance art. Adaptive Marketing’s staff members are presented with such a choice that they’re certain to have a project they’ll enjoy getting involved in, making their time fun as well as useful. When companies encourage their staff take an active role at local schools or homeless shelters, it tends to be to help with an individual event or a regularly scheduled, perhaps weekly or monthly project. This means that if you can only find enough time to lend a hand with the public library’s used book sale, there’s still a chance to help.
Commercial history is full of examples of firms finding ways to help the citizens of their home town. Adaptive Marketing supports volunteer programs in part to spread goodwill through its home community as a result of the efforts of its employees. What volunteer work is guaranteed to do is provide your employees with a good feeling about themselves, creating a motivated firm. Promoting volunteering among your staff becomes its own reward.