Skills-Based Volunteering/Pro bono
Matching the right person with the right skills and knowledge, at the right time,
to the right project to achieve greater impact
Skills-based volunteering (SBV) is an innovative approach that is rapidly gaining recognition as a powerful
driver of both social impact and business value. SBV utilizes the skills, experience, talents and education of
volunteers and matches them with the needs of nonprofits.
SBV is a strategic type of volunteerism that exponentially expands the impact of nonprofits by incorporating a
whole range of skills that strengthen the operations and services of nonprofit organizations. Pro bono, which
originated in the legal sector and involves providing consulting services at no cost is a subset of SBV, and
provides a nonprofit with the kind of professional expertise critical to maintaining a productive organization.
Advantages
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Targeted recruitment of skilled volunteers can help nonprofits do more with less by focusing volunteer
work on a wide variety of projects at no cost.
SBV serves as a point of entry into the local business community, offering nonprofits the opportunity to
make connections with companies and expand their sources of support.
Companies can strategically focus their social investment by making their most competitive assets –
their taken – available to nonprofits.
SBV programs help companies recruit and retain talent.
SBV is a leadership development, engagement and training tool, used to expand employees’ variety of
tasks and challenges, and increase skills-sets.
Volunteers can build relationships with others and learn to work in teams across specialties.
Skills-based volunteers help nonprofits expand and improve their services, making it possible for them to
scale-up and do more.
Builds reputation and increases corporate visibility.
Challenges
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Lack of readiness and willingness from nonprofits to engage volunteers.
Too much time and energy required to create projects and manage volunteers.
Lack of support and commitment from management and executives from nonprofit and corporate
sectors.
Differing expectations of volunteers, nonprofits, and businesses.
Lack of knowledge on how to set up and run SBV service projects.
A Few Sample Programs:
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In support of SBV, Cisco Systems implemented the Leadership Fellows Program. A Fellow is sponsored
by a senior level executive and is assigned for a six to 12-month period to a nonprofit organization that
impacts the areas of healthcare, basic human needs or education. The Fellow is committed to working
on a strategic, pre-defined project with clear deliverables and serves as the leader of the project.
Outcomes for such projects are repeatable, sustainable and scalable and an initiative is taken into
consideration only if clear metrics for success are defined, as well as a realistic timeline for execution.
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UPS’s 40-year-old Community Internship Program (CIP) immerses senior level executives in a variety of
social and economic challenges facing today’s workforce. Managers leave their jobs and families to
spend a month living and working in one of four CIP sites run by local nonprofit agencies. This intense
training program exposes managers to situations they would rarely encounter in corporate America,
such as poverty, drug dependency and alcoholism. The goal is to make better, more empathetic
managers. (Source: UPS)
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Deloitte implements an innovative SBV comprised of the following initiatives: year-round
volunteerism/IMPACT Day, pro bono, board leadership, thought leadership, Problem Solvers Fund. For
example, the community hub model, Hosting a Hub event is one way Deloitte volunteers maximize the
results of their SBV efforts. Hub events, which are held at local Deloitte offices, bring community leaders
and nonprofit representatives under one roof to participate in trainings, seminars and/or workshops
focused on business issues of interest to them. The events are designed to enable nonprofits to
network, get quick on-the-spot advice and/or engage employee volunteers who have the skills they need
for more involved projects. (Source: Deloitte)
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SBV is not a new idea at Intel Corporation. Intel’s legal team has successfully supported nonprofit
organizations for years through their award winning pro bono program. Intel’s legal employees provide
free legal consultation and services to local nonprofit organizations such as women’s shelters and
children’s advocacy programs. Around the world, Intel employee volunteers also offer free assistance
and technical expertise. They assist in matters regarding legal, HR, marketing, finance, or IT for schools,
nonprofits, and non-governmental organizations.
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Through the community Impact Six Sigma program, Cummins Inc. partners with agencies around the
globe to share its Six Sigma skills and training with various community partners. In 2010 alone,
Cummins completed 27 Community Impact Six Sigma projects around the world.
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At Campbell Soup Co., executives who are part of Women of Finance, a sub group of the Women of
Campbell, a diversity group dedicated to furthering the success of women, partner with the Delaware
Credit Counseling Service through a Campbell volunteer who serves on the board. They created a sixweek program in Camden, N.J., that teaches women at the Garrett House, a women's domestic violence
shelter, basic financial skills including how to balance a checkbook, read a paycheck, budget, pay bills,
etc.
Campbell's engineering department assisted the local food bank with drawing up its plans for its new
warehouse. This saved the food bank time and money and helped make them more efficient in food
distribution.
Request for data about SBV/pro-bono:
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As an emerging concept, SBV/pro-bono lacks a universal definition. Indeed, the term itself is not
standard. Some use terms like pro bono, skilled and skill-building interchangeably with skill-based. As a
first step in measuring progress toward the “A Billion+Change” goal to raise one billion in pro-bono
services by 2015, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy collaborated with the Taproot
Foundation to define pro bono service formally.
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Also CECP and the Taproot Foundation’s Pro Bono Action Tank recently introduced the first-ever
standard for assigning a monetary value to pro bono services, beyond the legal profession, provided by
corporations to nonprofits. These standards allow companies to more accurately track and report the
value of pro bono services as a cash equivalent. Please consult the Valuation Guide here for
instructions.
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More than 83 percent of 2010 and 2011 Points of Light Corporate Engagement Awards finalists
integrate SBV into their EVPs.
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According to the CECP Giving in Numbers 2011 Edition, more than half of companies offering a probono service program activate in the IT industry.
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The benefits of SBV are yet to be fully leveraged by companies. According to Skills-based volunteerism
at Deloitte-2009 Report, 91 percent of Fortune 500 human resources managers agree that volunteering
knowledge and expertise offered to a nonprofit can be an effective way to cultivate critical business and
leadership skills. Yet, only 16 percent use SBV for talent development on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, the overall trend in SBV development is –obvious – more and more companies are increasing
their pro-bono and other SBV offerings.
To respond to the growing need in skills-based and pro-bono volunteering, in 2009 HandsOn Network and
Points of Light launched the Skills-based Volunteering Program. Through this program, more than 19,000
skills-based volunteers were placed on pro bono and HandsOn Network service projects, delivering a value
of nearly $12 million.
Unique features of HandsOn Network’s SBV program include the ability to build the capacity of volunteer
leaders to facilitate nonprofit readiness, skill assessments, and project implementation. The model provides
the efficiency and efficacy of a model built upon existing local infrastructure and skilled volunteer leaders.
More than a half of HandsOn Network affiliates are doing skills-based and pro-bono programming, matching
individuals, professional groups, businesses or corporations with appropriate opportunities.
Here is an example to illustrate how successful the HandsOn Network model is:
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On July 28, HandsOn Suburban Chicago (HOSC) joined ZurichNA staffers from the corporate law team
at their headquarters in Schaumburg, Ill. via Skype to connect their other offices around the country and
formerly launch their pro bono volunteer program. Since then, Zurich employees have partnered with
HOSC in the Chicago area to provide volunteer management "expert panel" support for HR and risk
management issues, help a new veteran services organization get their 501(c)(3) status, provide
licensing and contract review support and many other services to HOSC community partners at no cost.
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In the past three months HOSC have supported 16 nonprofits, engaged 14 members of the corporate
law team and facilitated 10 different projects, some still in progress, providing thousands of dollars of
free legal support to local nonprofits. It also served as a referral source and connector organization for
other HandsOn Network affiliates in Kansas and Maryland to work with their local ZurichNA offices.
Globally, more and more companies strategically integrate SBV and pro-bono into their operation. The
increasing interest in the Billion+Change Campaign proves that more corporations view SBV as an
innovative and efficient tool in transforming the way businesses leverage their employees. SBV makes a
lasting impact on society by engaging, inspiring and mobilizing professional talent to build the capacity of
nonprofit organizations to better meet community needs.
The Billion+Change Campaign is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service. It is
housed and managed by Points of Light and powered by the support of Deloitte, HP, the Case Foundation,
IBM and State Farm.
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The Points of Light Corporate Institute enables companies to engage their employees and customers in
service to the communities in which they do business. It provides resources, consulting services and on-theground activation to companies around the world seeking innovative, multi-channel engagement in Employee
Volunteer Programs, Skills-Based Volunteering and hands-on service.
For additional information on Skills-based Volunteering and Pro-bono, please visit www.pointsoflight.org or
contact Jennifer Highsmith, Senior Director, Business Training & Consulting, at [email protected]
or 404-979-2929.
Note: This information is provided by the Points of Light and is for knowledge-sharing purposes only. This is
not a comprehensive list of all companies with employee volunteer programs. We encourage due diligence
and proper attribution by those using this resource.