Corporate Volunteer Programs

Transcription

1 Corporate Volunteer Programs

2 Hundreds of corporate partners throughout the greater Chicago area and beyond trust Chicago Cares to lead high-quality, high-impact service events for thousands of their employees. Chicago Cares recognizes that you are looking for a best-in-class service experience that meets multiple goals: Employee engagement, motivation, and morale Capacity and team building initiatives Adherence to Corporate Social Responsibility objectives Targeted Community Outreach efforts Alleviation of numerous planning and logistical staff hours Chicago Cares Overview Partnership with Chicago Cares provides a solid foundation for success. Chicago Cares builds volunteer experiences that mobilize and inspire people to make Chicago a stronger community. A 501c3 nonprofit, Chicago Cares leads over 200 volunteer projects each month, serving children, adults, seniors, homeless Chicagoans, the environment, and more. Through an innovative, flexible format, Chicago Cares provides people the opportunity to volunteer at projects when their schedule allows. Since 1991, Chicago Cares has mobilized more than 362,000 volunteers who have given more than 1.4 million hours of service. We believe that people are the answer to the challenges faced by our community. For 20 years, Chicago Cares has distinguished itself as the premier volunteer service organization in the Midwest, with the largest portfolio of service events between corporations and community partners. Chicago Cares welcomes the opportunity to find the right volunteer experience for you to help meet the most pressing challenges our city faces. Chicago Cares Corporate Volunteer Program Chicago Cares offers community service expertise to groups by creating customized, hands-on volunteer projects that complement team-building, leadership development and philanthropy initiatives. Through the Corporate Volunteer Program, Chicago Cares fully develops and coordinates all aspects of your team s volunteer project, from the logistics of getting you to and from a project site, to making sure your volunteers are fed, trained and supplied with everything needed to complete a successful project. What will be expected of my company? Undertaking a new partnership can be daunting you already have a full inbox of unread s, blinking voice mails on your phone, and a meeting that started five minutes ago. Chicago Cares understands the pressures and concerns that both you and your company have on a daily, if not hourly, basis and we re here to help. Through a mutually beneficial partnership, Chicago Cares will provide you with experienced, professional staff who are able to assist you throughout the entire process, from planning to implementation. Our process is simple. You tell us the following: In 2011, Chicago Cares engaged: 34,000 total volunteers 13,678 corporate volunteers Of the corporate volunteers, 9,251 were volunteers through 66 custom Corporate Volunteer Programs. How many volunteers do you want to attend your service event? Ideally, when would you like your service event to take place? Is there an issue area, community, or population you want to serve? Do you have any special considerations or concerns that Chicago Cares should be aware of? We take it from there. Simple. Meaningful. Proven impact. This is what Chicago Cares can offer to you and your company.

3 What does the service event process entail? Identify an Issue Area: Is there an issue area or population you and your company are interested in serving? Is there a specific goal or objective of your Corporate Social Responsibility that Chicago Cares can help address? We offer projects that respond (but are not limited) to the following critical service issues: Hunger & Homelessness Adult Education & Development Children s Education Children s Recreation The Environment People with Disabilities Renovation & Beautification Literacy Teen Challenges Health and Wellness HIV & AIDS support Senior Services Veterans Services Skill Development Philanthropic Investment: By partnering with Chicago Cares on a Corporate Volunteer Program, your company is not only providing your employees with a high-quality volunteer experience, but you are also investing in Chicago Cares and the more than 200 ongoing volunteer programs we operate every month. Your donation includes full underwriting of your service event planning and provides us with the support necessary to design, facilitate and lead the projects your employees will complete. Your service project is provided at no cost to the community partners you will impact. Contributions for a Corporate Volunteer project vary depending on the size of group and logistical details, plus the cost of non-reusable supplies, food and transportation. Please note that Chicago Cares experiences significant high demand for projects in the months of June, August, and September. Planning Time: Chicago Cares requests 60 days from receiving a signed proposal to plan a custom project. This time frame allows us to select the best community partner for your goals, and to have enough time to craft personally satisfying and high-impact projects. Please note that Chicago Cares does not plan projects for Sundays. Volunteer Time: Most interactive projects require only 2-3 hours of time onsite, while facilities improvement requires a minimum of 4 hours on-site. Additional time will be allocated to travel, volunteer registration, orientation, meals and breaks, clean-up, and closing. Orientation or closing may include issue area education and reflection if requested. Volunteer Leaders: For groups of more than 150 volunteers, we ask that you identify individuals to be trained to lead a task on the day of your service event. These leaders will not only be provided with a quality leadership educational experience, but this may offer your emerging leaders an opportunity to shine. The additional time commitment for a leader is approximately 2 hours of training and discussion with our service events team, plus day of event arrival up to 90 minutes prior to the service event for set up and 1 hour after the service event for clean up. Teaming with Chicago Cares and the Avondale School for our holiday school supply drive initiative was a wonderful experience for the Crown Imports organization. There is nothing more fulfilling, especially at the holidays, than to be in a position to help others. THANK YOU Chicago Cares for providing the Crown team with the best holiday gift of all service to our community! Jim Ryan, Executive Vice President of Communication & Corporate Affairs Crown Imports LLC. What will Chicago Cares provide for me? Moving your Passion into Action: The goals and objectives that you share with Chicago Cares as we plan your service event will be at the forefront of our process. Whether your goals are team-building, leadership training, furthering your positive corporate image, addressing corporate social responsibility objectives, demonstrating your commitment to diverse communities, or meeting the demands of an increasingly service-minded employee or customer base, Chicago Cares will create a service event to satisfy your needs.

4 Professional Account Management: Chicago Cares will provide you with a primary account manager who will maintain multiple touch points with you or your main contact at your company. After Chicago Cares receives a signed proposal, we schedule a planning call or meeting between Chicago Cares service events staff and those on your team who want input on the specific details of the event. This provides the framework for our staff to begin site visits to agencies or schools among our hundreds of community partners to find a suitable location for your service day. Once we find the very best site to accomplish your goals, we work with their staff to marry their needs to your goals. The result is a formal project description that not only gives a timeline and task descriptions for your day of service, but also provides information about the neighborhood in which you will serve and the challenges confronted by the agency or school receiving the generous gift of your time. A week prior to your service day, we send a day of event confirmation containing all of the facts you may need for your day of impact, including Chicago Cares contact information, parking and transportation detail, what to wear during your service event, and other event details. Easy Volunteer Registration: Chicago Cares is happy to provide an online registration website to make recruiting volunteers easy. We can tailor the registration website to include additional questions that you want to pose to your volunteer corps, and Chicago Cares will periodically send you a realtime registration update. We request that volunteer registration officially close one full week before your service event. Volunteer Leader Training: For projects of 150 volunteers or more, Chicago Cares provides training for your leader volunteers through our Chicago Cares leadership training program. This is an opportunity to give your corporate rising stars additional instruction on people and project management, which allows your executives in attendance to see their strengths put into action on your day of service. Event Oversight: Other than sharing information with your co-workers about your day of service and encouraging them to register as volunteers or leaders, Chicago Cares handles all other aspects of your day of service. We identify your project site, complete all necessary work assessment, acquire and deliver supplies and tools needed, coordinate any buses or other group transportation, and order food and beverages to keep your volunteers energized. On the day of your event, Chicago Cares will lead your volunteers throughout the project, give a brief orientation, instruct your volunteers on the tasks they will perform and provide guidance from start to finish. The project ends with a closing and, if desired, an opportunity for group reflection. Chicago Cares has received Charity Navigator s highest four-star rating five years in a row, a distinction earned by only four percent of nonprofits. This rating demonstrates exceptional financial health and our commitment to manage and grow finances according to the best fiscal practices and procedures. Media Promotion: Please let us know if you would like to include marketing benefits in the scope of our project management. We offer Facebook, Twitter and other social media outreach, and would be happy to publish a blog post submitted by one of your company s volunteers about their day of service to our community. Post Event Reporting: Chicago Cares conducts comprehensive post-event evaluation reporting to reflect impact data and collect feedback from community partners, volunteers and leaders. This includes a photo CD for your usage.

5 Additional Engagement Opportunities Corporate Volunteer Programs will offer you a valuable volunteer experience that can easily be incorporated into a yearlong relationship with Chicago Cares! A company that participates in Celebration of Service in January, Serve-a-thon in June, and a customized day of service at a convenient time will effortlessly impact the community through multiple touch points each year. Please let us know if you would like more information about Celebration of Service, Serve-a-thon or annual partnerships. Contact us! Most nonprofit agencies and schools do not have the staff capacity to coordinate a customized volunteer project, and lack the experience to identify appropriate tasks and determine the number of volunteers and supplies needed to complete the project. Since 1991, creating volunteer projects has been Chicago Cares core business. Our ongoing presence in the community means we are sensitive to pressing and emerging community needs and allows us to create projects that deliver a sustainable impact. We are volunteer activation experts, mobilizing more than 34,000 volunteers each year. Chicago Cares alone has the expertise, community connections, logistical prowess and peer network to generate optimal results. No other organization is better suited to successfully plan and execute your service event. Please join us in service to make Chicago a stronger community. Contact us at development@chicagocares.org or at and a member of our Development team would be happy to discuss the multitude of opportunities that Chicago Cares can present for you and your company.