20th July 2010
Finding the Time to Volunteer
A volunteers’ camaraderie can strengthen the local community spirit, and naturally it will aid their local needy. It’s a lot less hassle to get involved when a volunteer event is pre-planned. Let’s not forget that volunteering is more fun with your friends from work pitching in by your side. The obvious step, then, is for companies to follow the lead of firms like Adaptive Marketing LLC. As well as shopping programs such as Todays Escapes intended to benefit consumers, Adaptive Marketing organizes local volunteer activity to give its employees the time to reach out to the local community.
If you think of company-supported charitable effort, you probably think of blood drives, maybe a Christmas donation drive, but that’s simply no longer true. For example, Adaptive Marketing has offered staff members opportunities to get involved in everything from running shoe recycling campaigns to tree replanting events. In cases like these, the times, locations and dates that had been arranged were made clear well in advance, ensuring that staff knew what to expect, and how much time a given event might actually require from them.
It’s hardly volunteering if there’s no opportunity to select activities, naturally. At Adaptive Marketing, the company behind Todays Escapes, staff can pick and choose from a diverse list of projects in their local area. Staff members may find themselves promoting environmental initiatives et cetera. Adaptive Marketing’s staff are presented with such a choice that they’re certain to have a project they’ll enjoy participating in, making their time enjoyable as well as fulfilling.
When companies encourage their staffers to get involved at a nearby homeless shelter, it tends to be to help with a single event or a regularly scheduled, ongoing job. Even staff who claim they don’t have the time can squeeze in the public library’s sale of used books. Applying their expertise to the benefit of the community around them is a practice with a storied history at many firms. The activities of the employees at Adaptive Marketing and firms like it create valuable goodwill in their home community. Something that volunteer activities are guaranteed to do is provide your staff with a healthy appreciation for what they can do, generating a motivated corporate culture.
