Want ideas on how to gauge how your company volunteer program is doing?   Yesterday I ran across an article summarizing a great study Bea Boccalandro did which was funded by Bank of America on benchmarks for employee volunteering and giving programs for Fortune 500 companies published by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship: Mapping Success in Employee Volunteering: The Drivers of Effectiveness for Employee Volunteering and Giving Programs and Fortune 500 Performance.  Years ago I frequently worked with Bea on evaluating social program impact for national service programs.   We also did a presentation at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service on evaluating employee volunteer programs.  Bea has continued to do research on volunteering among the Fortune 500 and this study offers much great food for thought.

The study found the 6 drivers of effectiveness for employee volunteering and giving programs:

1. Cause-effective Configuration – program structured to productively support social causes and nonprofit partners;
2. Strategic Business Positioning – program positioned to contribute toward business success;
3. Sufficient Investment – program receives company resources commensurate with other company efforts similar scope;
4. Culture of Engagement – Company encourages and facilitates employee involvement in the community;
5. Strong Participation – program has involvement from a majority of employees; and
6. Actionable Evaluation – programs tracks its efforts, holds itself accountable to outcome goals, and engages in continuous improvement based on findings.

There is a lot of great additional information on indicators and targets in this study that I will do more work with and pull together a Tip Sheet which I will share shortly.

Some time back, a new women’s fitness clothing store, Lucy, opened in Cherry Creek here in Denver.  I have enjoyed shopping there as I like their often unusual yet functional sporty apparel designs.  As part of their commitment to being green, they switched in the past year from sending mailers to sending emails.  A recent email newsletter caught my eye as I had not been aware previously of their commitment to community involvement.  So after some research on their website and re-reading past newsletters, I now like Portland, OR-based Lucy even better!

At Lucy, “our passion is to inspire women to achieve their personal athletic goals, despite obstacles both large and small. We support charitable organizations that advocate these same values. With every lucy store grand opening, we donate 10% of the event’s sales to a designated non-profit organization from that store’s community. We also donate clothing to organizations in need and participate in charity race events throughout the year.”

In early September, the emailer about Hatha Yoga pants had the following:

Lucy is clearly dedicated to partnering with their employees and customers to take action in their communities – through donating a percentage of purchases and other activities and events in which they participate.

How can you let your customers see what you stand for?  How can you invite them to join forces with you for positive change and to show caring in the community? Doing something to give back and be supportive, no matter how small it may seem, is great — AND so much more can be accomplished by connecting with people inside and outside your company walls to work together in pursuit of a common goal.  What can you do? How can your company be an agent of change?

I just got an email from T-Mobile with the December 2008 T-Mobile Scoop newsletter.  In it, they gave  information about happenings for each month from January to November 2008.  The email said, “check out this year’s Top 10 highlights below. Then vote for your favorite. Or just take a fresh look at why they made the Top 10 list.” I was pleased to see that at least two of the Top 10 were about T-Mobile’s community involvement activites.

March: “T-Mobile helped plant over 500,000 trees.
Starting in March, T-Mobile and the Arbor Day Foundation offered to plant a tree
for every customer who signed up for Paperless Billing. To date, over 500,000 trees
are slated to be planted in storm-damaged regions like New Orleans. Go green.”

July:T-Mobile helped kids across the U.S. through Huddle Up(SM).
Over 2,700 T-Mobile employees rolled up their sleeves to improve community centers and schools in 18 cities. And T-Mobile’s Handset Recycling Program also donated $10,000 to each center and school. Way to go!”

On the T-Mobile Top 10 Poll Page, they showed a timeline with their 10 selections.  The graphic and text for March is to the left.  They included links so you can vote and get more information about that item.  Great idea! It is a fun way to remind customers about new products and services offered by T-Mobile AND let them know about their giving actions, as well.

So I voted for the tree planting project.  When I was done I was taken to a results page which gives a up to the moment graph showing how each of the Top 10 were doing in votes cast as a percentage.  That is a great idea!!