You can never go wrong choosing to give your time or money toward worthy causes in your community - and there are so many opportunities to give back, especially during the holiday season. While donating toys or adopting a family certainly make for great causes during this time of year, employers should look to make continual positive impacts to the world, where they live and work. If your company is looking for new, ongoing opportunities to give back to the community in meaningful ways, here are some non-traditional options to implement this holiday season and beyond.
Participate in job shadowing & mentoring for high schoolers
Ongoing research continues to affirm the benefits of mentoring programs for students, that are offered the opportunity to participate - often being attributed to closing the achievement gap for at-risk youth. If you are not already offering job shadowing or mentorship, this is a great time of the year for employers to begin community outreach to our future. Often our high school students are being bombarded with all sorts of questions, as they plan for their future and real world application, for who they want to be, can start with mentorship. This is certainly the case for high school seniors who will, in a few months, be deciding if traditional college, a trade or an entrepreneurial path, is best for them.
An organization doing amazing work in this space is DECA Inc. DECA is a non-profit organization that provides members with educational and leadership development activities, alongside the the education that students receive in the classroom. With more than 3200 participating high schools, DECA prepares students for their futures, not only academically but also professionally, through hands on application programs and events - this is where your company comes in. Head over to the DECA site to learn more about how your organization can get involved this holiday season and in the future.
Employer sponsored volunteer day
This holiday season offers countless opportunities for employers to put their corporate social responsibility programs to action by advocating for employees to ’spread the cheer’, outside the office.
Employers have a responsibility to give back to the communities, in which they impact, through targeted programs made available to employees. A great way to increase employee morale, while doing so, would be for employers to offer a paid volunteer day for all employees to give back to the community. This would allow employees the opportunity to step away from work in incremental hours or a full work day, to participate in events important to them.
Provide free consultancy for non-profits
Non-profits organizations are can be financially limited, giving most if not all of their donations back to the communities they serve. Being so limited on funds doesn’t allow these organizations to hire for the required professional services they need, to keep their doors open. Employers could select one or more non-profits, in their community, to offer free consultancy and resources, to aid those organizations in their missions. Using your companies expertise, employers can provide advice or counsel in payroll, tax filing, compliance and budgeting, just to name a few, for these non-profits.
Let this season reignite your organization’s corporate social responsibility and employee volunteerism programs. These options and others, can return dividends for employee satisfaction and strengthen the ties within the communities, in which your company exists.
Citations
About DECA. DECA Inc. (2022). Retrieved November 18, 2022, from https://www.deca.org/about/
Lee, J., & Cramond, B. (1999). The positive effects of mentoring economically disadvantaged students. Professional School Counseling, 2(3), 172–178.
Note: This author does not receive a commission through recommended links in this article.
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