Volunteering and Service in America: Four National Themes

Realized Worth was unable to make it to the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco last week, and for awhile we were seriously bummed about missing out on one of the most important volunteerism conferences happening this year. But then, we realized that given the live webcasts, blogs, and twitter it turns our we just might be able to keep up with what’s going on.

And that made us feel better.

Chris Golden has given his permission to post a recent blog from myImpact.org. We feel this blog provides a concise and insightful snapshot of some of the bigger themes of the conference. If you appreciate Chris’ article, you’ll love the new site at united.myImpact.org. You can join the conversation there and connect with others who want to make an impact through service.

Originally posted on MyImpact.org, Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 3:20 pm by Chris Golden.


Big Themes Develop from 2009 NCVS

This week, myImpact.org was at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco. Throughout the next week, we’ll be blogging about what was learned during the conference about how service is a solution and how volunteering and service is helping to grow a civic energy generation. Heading into the weekend, here are some of the overarching themes that developed during the Conference:

• This is an extraordinary moment. If the ServiceNation Summit in September 2008 was the impedance of the formation of a united coalition to advance service as a national priority, then this conference was extraordinary coalescence of those who will carry out its efforts. From the new Administration to service organizations of all sizes, to volunteers and grant recipients, business and philanthropic leaders and leaders in new technology and social media, nearly everyone with a stake in this sector was represented

• United We Serve is only the beginning. On Monday, First Lady Michelle Obama officially kicked-off United We Serve, the Obama Administration’s summer service initiative. What we heard consistently from Administration officials represented at the Conference, including from the Domestic Policy Council and the new White House Offices of Public Engagement & Social Innovation, was that the efforts of promoting service, providing resources to organizations and volunteers and growing this modern movement will not end on September 11. That day, declared for the first time this year as an official National Day of Service and Remembrance, will begin an effort to build on what is learned during the 12-week United We Serve program this summer

• Service organizations are turning to new technology. Again and again small and mid-size organizations asked questions about how they could use technology to streamline their work and they wanted to know how they could do so in the most efficient way possible to enhance their current programs without adding an additional burden. This is the challenge of the sector: applying the new tools of which there is so much excitement, effectively.

• New cross-industry partnerships must be forged. In order to build the idea of a “spectrum of service” or a “service lifetime” as was discussed by CNCS Board Chairman Alan Solomont, the silos that have traditionally confined service and restricted its ultimate impact must be broken down. Already, we are seeing signs of this. The Entertainment Industry Foundation, representing the most talented and well known recording artists and actors of our time, has joined with ServiceNation to dedicate a week of television programming on Oct. 19 to promoting service. Microsoft has announced a partnership with the Corporation to build a help center to answer non-profit organization’s questions about using technology in their work. Corporations represented at a business CEO roundtable said they are aligning their annual giving with the volunteer work of their employees. Service is not just limited to the non-profit sector. It is not just a government program administered through one agency. The extent of the problems facing our country, and the tremendous potential that service presents as a solution, demands that the private sector joins with government, non-profits and philanthropic foundations in a united effort to promote service.

Service got a lot of attention this week but it is an imperative that the news and attention does not stop now. There are just over 11 weeks remaining in the United We Serve initiative. Organizations can register their projects at serve.gov. Volunteers can search for opportunities there, on a database powered by allforgood.org. And those wanting to connect with others, share stories and best practices and inspire others to become involved can create a profile at united.myImpact.org.

Chris Jarvis
Senior Consultant, Realized Worth
Email; chrisjarvis@realizedworth.com
LinkedIn Profile; http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjarviscan
Twitter; @RealizedWorth

How Do You Serve?

Shannon Schuyler, US managing director of Corporate Responsibility, for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), will be guest blogging over the next week from San Francisco at the National Conference for Service and Volunteering.

How do you serve?

Michelle Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver, Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington, and Bon Jovi all told us how they serve yesterday at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the world's largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the government, non-profits, entertainment, academia, business and the media. 


Monday’s pre-plenary session opened up with back-to-back star-studded speakers and performers. You could feel the electricity and excitement in the 5,000 people that were in the audience. I was fortunate enough to speak about how now is the time to create a new era of service in America and debut a live video from New Orleans where more than 150 PwC employees are working as part of the firm’s Summer of Community Service program on four different service projects to help rebuild the community. To watch the video, click here.

Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, announced the addition of a new ‘Living’ section on The Huffington Post, which will report on service stories from around the nation. She also underscored how “we are moving from an era of competition to collaboration—we must collaborate or die.”

Bon Jovi debuted his new song, “Work for the Working Man,” while Tim Blane and Sondre Lerche electrified the crowed with stunning performances and words of encouragement. 



Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, opened up the plenary session and reiterated that service challenges are now becoming service opportunities. In 2008, Teach for America received a record 35,000 applications for approximately 3,700 positions and applications to AmeriCorps have quadrupled. California, in particular, is helping lead the integration of service into government. It is the first state to have a cabinet level position for service and has started a massive PSA campaign to encourage Californians to make service a part of their daily lives.

First lady, Michelle Obama, underscored how “service is not separate from our national priorities; it is the key to achieving our national priorities…service can help rebuild our economy and transform the nation.” She also declared as part of the United We Serve campaign, which the White House just announced last week to promote a Summer of Service, the government is launching, serve.gov, a web portal that allows Americans to not only find ways to serve in their communities, but also create and promote their own service projects.

The A-List speakers continued with Alan Khazei, CEO of Be the Change Inc., interviewing Maria Shriver, the First Lady of California. Shriver emphasized that service doesn’t have to be hard or a huge time commitment. She noted the idea of cyber-volunteering, where volunteers help tutor students, translate documents and stories, and provide counseling and support to those in need all via the internet. 
 


The day ended with a bang when Matthew McConaughey gave a sneak peak of a campaign he is launching with the Entertainment Industry Foundation, AARP and ServiceNation in the fall around volunteering. 


As I reflected on all of the excitement and electricity from the day, the following made an impression on me:

• 

Collaboration is key. Non-profits, businesses, governments, the media and volunteers must work together to maximize their impact and create lasting results. Partnerships must allow companies and non-profits to leverage each other’s expertise, allow for a cross-fertilization of learning and best practices, and provide a bridge between the sectors for the benefit of the community. The power of “we” cannot be underestimated. Partnerships are critical to growing and sustaining this movement.
• Business has a unique role to play in creating a culture of service. Companies, with their vast resources and skill sets—from logistics, housing/construction and supply chain management to professional services, consumer goods and technology—have the ability to create valuable change within communities. As the largest professional service firm within the country—with more than 31,000 employees and 96,000 service hours donated in FY08—PwC is a perfect example of how businesses can create a culture of giving and have a valuable impact on society.
• We are one nation under service. The service movement is at a tipping point. We have the opportunity to bring volunteering to a new scale and energize people across generations, sectors, cities and states to create a new culture of service in America. History will undoubtedly document this moment in time, but we have the opportunity to shape how the story is told.

Yesterday’s events taught me that we have truly catalyzed the service movement. We are in a new era of civic engagement with millions ready and willing to serve. But this is just the start. We need to imagine an America where all mayors provide opportunities to volunteer at the local level like they do in New York City, where all states have a cabinet level position for service like they have in California, where all companies have strong volunteer programs like we have at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and, most importantly, where the most commonly asked question in America is “how do you serve?”

Six Essential Strengths Of An Employee Volunteer Program: An Interview With Shannon Schuyler of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Looking for some insight on how to create an outstanding Employee Volunteer Program? Shannon Schuyler of PricewaterhouseCoopers offers six essential strengths to ensure success.

Its the “world's largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the nonprofit, government, and corporate sectors” and it’s happening at a pivotal point in history. The 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service will take place June 22-24 in San Francisco and will no doubt capitalize on the unprecedented interest in volunteerism sweeping across the United States. While the ‘push-and-pull’ effect of the Obama era, as well as the unexpected abundance of free time due to unemployment have certainly been factors, there seems to be a genuine move toward civic engagement which promises to be a permanent societal shift rather than a passing fad.

There aren’t many places I’d rather be at the end of June than sunny San Francisco, enjoying the company of like-minded people, discussing the things I care most about. But unfortunately, my plan is to remain here in chilly Toronto. Working. Periodically gazing at the palm tree on my desktop background. Sigh....(Are you feeling sorry for me yet?) I am grateful, however, to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Shannon Schuyler, who has generously offered to bring the conference to us. During the sessions, Shannon will blog (maybe even Twitter? Shannon?) about the information presented that may interest us such as key learnings, announcements, and innovative programs. Realized Worth will post the blogs, allowing us all to participate in the learnings together.

Let me pause here to explain the distinct privilege of hearing directly from Shannon Schuyler. Shannon is the the Managing Director of Corporate Responsibility for PwC in the U.S. PwC’s employee volunteer program is overseen by Shannon and boasts unusually successful statistics for programs of it’s type. Last month, PwC teamed up with Be The Change, Inc. and their Service Nation campaign in an effort to expand the paid time-off offered to their employees for volunteering. In fact, PwC determined to expand it’s employee volunteer program to build on the momentum created by President Obama’s signing of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act on April 21.

For obvious reasons, I wanted to find out more about how this exemplary EVP and the people who run it work, and managed to secure an interview with Ms. Schuyler herself.

My questions spanned from logistics to opinions, statistics to personal feelings. Specifically, I wanted to discover PwC’s present commitment to volunteering, and Shannon’s thoughts on the growing interest in volunteerism, including how it relates to business.

Turns out, PwC’s EVP success boils down to 6 Essential Strengths. Anyone hoping to establish an equally successful program, ought to take note of the following:

1. Employee volunteering is central to a great CSR strategy.
Because Shannon and PwC decided to acknowledge that employee volunteering is a vital piece of corporate responsibility, 2008 produced over 96,000 hours of volunteer time in the community. Shannon told us that nearly 18,000 employees out a total 31,000 participated in PwC volunteer activities. That’s an unbelievable 60% participation rate. Generally, anything north of 40% is exceptional.

2. Causes that matter to the community, matter to the business.
I was increasingly intrigued as Shannon enthusiastically spoke about the program. I couldn’t help but reach for a little personal reflection, so I asked Shannon why she thought so many employees choose to be active in PwC’s programs. With a thoughtful pause, Shannon related that the intention is to approach corporate social responsibility from a holistic perspective, and allow the employee volunteer program to flow from that organically. “PwC asked, how can we start looking at causes to get behind that matter to the community? Then, we took the themes that developed, and found ways for our people to naturally engage.”

At the risk of being redundant, let me emphasis the intentionality of PwC’s approach, which is three-tiered. First, there are firm-sponsored activities. These activities account for the 96,000 hours mentioned earlier. Second, as part of the new partnership with Be The Change, Inc. and their Service Nation campaign, PwC is offering their employees an additional 10 paid hours to volunteer wherever they choose. The third tier is volunteering on personal time. While this is not a PwC initiative, it is an area that the company views as valid. Shannon confirmed that there is a goal to capture the data around personal volunteering in order to integrate it as part of the overall EVP and CSR strategies.

At this point, my curiosity was piqued. I had to ask, with such an intentional approach, and high levels of commitment, what specifically motivates PwC employees to volunteer? This brings us to our 3rd Essential Strength:

3. Volunteer activities that employees and the community enjoy, are worth it to the business.
Shannon believes (and I agree!) that we are in a new era of volunteerism. People are looking for a personal reason to give, as opposed to a financial reason. So, with this in mind, she began to ask “Is there an enjoyable way to impact and engage the community?” PwC believes in doing “what makes sense locally.” Shannon explained that, “integrity, credibility, and responsibility matter. This has been a long-time value of PWC’s, and has had an interesting way of gaining a more poignant meaning with the current economic situation.”

4. Partnerships are best.
PwC maximizes impact and creates lasting results by partnering with other companies. For example, both IBM and PwC have the mandate of education in their community-engagement work. By collaborating, the two companies have managed to leverage each other’s expertise for the benefit of the community.

Turns out this is the same reason PwC connected with Be The Change, Inc. PwC was very impressed with the Service Nation project in particular. “We wanted to connect with the many organizations they worked with. They embraced us; they were willing to help us learn. It felt like a natural partnership. They were able to meet us on a business level.” Be The Change was able to provide exposure to organizations, best practices, and in turn, provide a bridge between the business and the nonprofit sector.

5. Successful EVPs must be meaningful and sustainable.
Shannon pointed out that engaging people is generally not a problem. However, focusing people can be a real challenge. “It would be easy to make people repaint the same fence again and again. What’s more difficult is to find something genuinely meaning for people to do. Usually there are too many people and you have to break down into groups of 5 or 6 in order to find a project that feels significant.”

Shannon believes that PwC’s activities have to be sustainable. 1-day, even 1-month, projects are virtually worthless. PwC has deliberately increased to 3-month projects in order to allow for smaller, more meaningful interactions. This has, not surprisingly, led to some pretty innovative projects. For example, recently PwC began a project called, “Make Responsibility Count.” Employees were given $450 and a video camera and told “see what you can do with this.” The results were amazing! The project was meaningful because space was provided for personal creativity. Each person could own their individual ability to make a difference. (View a video of work done in New Orleans)

6. Boundaries: Create them, and keep them.
When I asked what non-profits can do better as they broker relationships with businesses, Shannon was refreshingly frank. She said, “it seems that NPOS haven’t thought through what companies can really provide for them.” There’s a point where boundaries must be drawn. When NPOs are unwilling or simply incapable (for any variety of reasons) of leveraging the talent, skills and connections that PwC can bring to the table then, Shannon says, “these are the organizations that we have to walk away from.” Non-profits ought to create programs in order to better engage specific staff. These are the ones with which companies will create long-term relationships. PwC wants to partner, not hand over a check. Realistic collaboration will always precede an accurate identification of needs.

And what would make it all better...?
ROI. It always comes down to this. I have yet to find an established EVP program that has logged hard data on the ROI of it’s programs. Shannon admitted that it is a challenge to produce the types of outcome metrics people are asking about such as: What are the satisfaction rates? How many people participated and how do we evaluate the value of that participation? What was the impact of the money we gave? How many interns came on full time because of community work? How many high performing staff became that way as a result of volunteering? So far, Shannon’s experience had led her to decide that the best way to capture metrics is via surveys, but that has only yielded measurements found in stories and anecdotal information. More effective metrics are a “next step” for PwC.

There you go. It is, in fact, Shannon Schuyler, Managing Director of Corporate Responsibility for PwC, who will help us learn from the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service this month. We are at a point in history where all eyes are on the development of global sustainability, with a noticeable spotlight on volunteering. This opportunity to be on the cutting edge of the newest and most innovative ideas is a great privilege and one that I am happy to have the opportunity to support along with the global readers of the Realized Worth Blog. Thanks, Shannon! Looking forward to hearing more in a few weeks!

Shell Admits Participation in Terrorism

I buy gas at Shell; Am I complicit in the terrorism? Probably.

I like to view myself as fairly well-informed, but today I find I have been completely ignorant. Shell fell off my ‘approved’ list quite awhile ago because of their blatant tendency toward greenwashing. In 2008, the UK Advertising Standards Authority took Shell to task when it claimed that a ten billion dollar investment to extract oil from the Canadian tar sands (oil mixed with sand) was about sustainable energy. It is not.

Recently, Royal Dutch Shell announced a complete abandonment of investment into renewable energy. Why? Well apparently, after significant investments (1.9 billion) by the company over the past five years, it was decided that renewable energy was not, and will not be, economic. Instead the company will focus on generation 4 biofuels produced from algae or bacteria. This will be a great solution if it is ever proved to work. At this point nobody has figured how to get fuel from algae or bacteria.

As if these things were not enough, today I have been freed from that last bit of benevolence I was still willing to offer Shell. Via some growing chatter on twitter, I came across a video documentary on YouTube. I am horrified. And it seems I am not alone. Between May 28th and June 1st, the has been viewed 60,000 times. Huffington Post ran the article “The Video Shell Doesn't Want You to See” by Han Shan stating the following;

"For over thirteen years, multinational oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has done everything in its power to stop a trial from taking place at which the company must answer to charges that it colluded with the Nigerian military to commit serious human rights abuses to quell peaceful resistance to its operations in the Niger Delta region called Ogoni, including conspiring to bring about the conviction and execution of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his colleagues."

Now Shell is doing everything in it’s power to suppress the video and delay the trial. Many now feel Shell will try to settle out of court and avoid further damage to it’s fractured brand. (Since writing this article today, it has come out that Shell is, in fact, avoiding court by settling to the tune of 15.5 Million!)

But if only a portion of the story told on the video is true, then Shell is guilty of crimes of murder and terrorism. And if I finance their product, then I have become complicit.

Non Profits and Business; Moving From Handouts to Partnerships

Tired of asking for handouts from businesses? You don't like it, and neither do they. Instead, enter into a partnership of equals. How? Give them what they want. Then, watch your problems with funding, networking, and creating awareness disappear.

We are presenting a workshop which will provide answers for the headaches that plague non-profit organizations. Attend and find out how easy it can be to establish strong funding partnerships, find the skilled, committed volunteers you need, and automate your programs to smoothly handle any number of volunteers. Oh, and you'll enjoy a great catered lunch as well (included in the price of course)!

Corporate Volunteering doesn't have to be about painting the same wall a new color. The New Volunteerism meets people we're they're at, resulting in effective programs and strong communities.

Create Strategic Partnerships with Business

Leading companies the world over are investing in their communities by leveraging employees, resources, and market knowledge. Companies such as Walt Disney, Proctor and Gamble, Deloitte, Bank of America, Levi Strauss, Coca Cola, and The Body Shop are moving from mere philanthropy to a more sophisticated approach known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Unlike previous philanthropic efforts, CSR is a key strategy that offers a competitive advantage to businesses. Now, instead of asking for handouts, non-profits can offer partnerships.

Your nonprofit organization can play a vital role enabling companies to achieve better visibility, team building, staff training, and employee engagement. This workshop will use case studies, group problem-solving activities, peer coaching and guest experts from the local business to develop and manage key partnerships with corporate stakeholders.

Key Takeaways:

• Discover current trends in employee volunteering that will define the future of the non-profit.
• Learn how to leverage corporate partnerships to strengthen your resources without creating more work for your staff.
• Uncover what CEOs and business owners need from your nonprofit organization.
• Receive simple steps to designing exceptional employee volunteer experiences. (Become the top choice for companies large and small!)
• Find methods for developing reciprocal relationships with businesses. (Imagine shared vision, shared expectations, and mutually agreed upon objectives!)
• Learn how to set objectives and measure success in cross-sector partnerships.

Date:	Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Time:	9:30am - 3:00pm
Location:	University of Toronto, The Multi-Faith Center
Street:	569 Spadina Avenue
City:	Toronto, ON

Contact Info:

Chris Jarvis
Senior Consultant, Realized Worth
416-567-2004
chrisjarvis@realizedworth.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjarviscan
http://twitter.com/RealizedWorth