Corporate Volunteering: Making it work for you

Corporate volunteering is when businesses support their employees to volunteer their time or skills with voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations. This can include team volunteering days, specific support (such as IT, marketing or finance), mentoring, or longer-term partnerships.

For VCSEs, corporate volunteering can offer extra capacity, practical help, and access to professional skills that may otherwise be difficult to resource. It can also help build relationships with local employers and raise the organisation’s profile.

However, corporate volunteering takes time and coordination. One-off volunteering days or poorly matched offers can create additional work if they don’t align with organisational needs. 

Clear communication, realistic expectations and well-planned opportunities are key to ensuring volunteering delivers genuine benefit rather than added pressure.

When done well, corporate volunteering can be a positive and mutually beneficial partnership that supports organisational goals and community impact.

Is This Corporate Volunteering Opportunity Right for Us?

Before saying yes, consider:

Organisational Fit

• ☐ Does this activity meet a real organisational need or priority?
• ☐ Does it align with our mission, values and current capacity?
• ☐ Is this the right time for us to host volunteers?
• ☐ Would we need to create specific roles? 

Capacity and Resources

• ☐ Do we have time to plan, supervise and support the volunteers?
• ☐ Can we provide a meaningful activity within the time offered?
• ☐ Are staff or volunteers available on the proposed date?

Practicalities and Risk

• ☐ Have we considered health and safety, safeguarding and insurance?
• ☐ Is the activity accessible and appropriate for the group size?
• ☐ Are tools, materials and space available?
• ☐ Do all your roles involve checks? Maybe look at creating something new like help with marketing, flyers or fundraising. 

Managing Expectations

• ☐ Are roles and outcomes clearly defined and agreed in advance?
• ☐ Have we been clear about boundaries and what we cannot offer?
• ☐ Is there an opportunity to build a longer-term relationship?

If you decide that offering corporate opportunities is a good fit for your organisation, getting it seen is where we can help. 

Get InVOLved Norfolk has specific tags to ensure your roles get in front of the corporates that are looking for them.

Add opportunities that are tagged as suitable for corporate volunteers, these can be shared to their accounts as well as sent to them directly in targeting mailings. 

If you need any extra support engaging with corporate volunteers or with using the Get InVOLved Norfolk platform, do reach out to us via the button below.