CSR Volunteering: Doing Good or Just Looking Good?
Paula Cormack, The Archie Foundation
So we all know that we should be doing corporate social responsibility. It’s all about doing good. Young employees in particular are especially focused on this. We’re told that 44% of millennials will actually make their career choices based on their ethical principles, but actually when push comes to shove, they make those choices for the same reasons the rest of us. It’s about career, it’s about stability, it’s about salary. However, once they’re in employment, they will start pushing the envelope to get the change that they want to see. So you’re going to have to get with the program one way or another.
Getting the basics right is really important. Why are you doing this? If you answer any of the top three reasons, I suggest you rethink. You really need to be getting involved in CSR because your staff are passionate about it, and if they’re not, you need to get them passionate.
So who is going to be best placed to do that? A lot of companies will pass this to HR or to comms and marketing, and yes, there’s a lot of team building comes out of it, and yes, there can be great PR, but I would argue that it’s better to give it to your most passionate team member. They will do the best job for you on this.
And if you answer when you’re questioning what are we going to do? If any of it is a whatever, then I think you need to rethink again. You need to partner with your charity of choice, and don’t try and kill two birds with one stone. The holy grail is to get the team builder with the PR and a happy charity, but the chances of actually getting that are quite slim. The best way to achieve it is to start early talking with your charity partner and please use your skills.
All too often we get really skilled groups coming to us and for some reason they want to throw their skills to the side and pick up a paintbrush, and they’re not always that good at painting things and we don’t always need things painted, and we certainly don’t have a job for 20 people with a breakout room for lunch and a nice catering facility to come in and support. So please think about what you can bring to the party and how we might then be able to work together to use those skills.
Gave you some examples on the previous slide. They’re absolutely wonderful and we have a host of supporters who get involved year in year out. One example here, Adesso, they decorate Christmas trees and other things throughout the year and they come and volunteer that support on an annual basis. It’s something that we couldn’t afford to, it wouldn’t be good justification on the limited funds that we have to buy in that kind of service, but it makes a real difference in the Children’s Hospital, as does work like this, supported by patrons, Joanna Basford, who gives her time freely. And every year we get the HMT Panto Cast who actually they drive this. It’s great CSR for Aberdeen Performing Arts, but it’s the Panto Cast who really want to come into the children’s hospital and it makes a huge difference for the kids and for the staff.
Same goes for Aberdeen Football Club. Again, it’s great CSR for AFC and for Aberdeen Football Community Trust. Everyone loves it, but again, it’s the footballers who are getting the most out of this and really, really enjoying it.
Don’t worry if you’re not actors or professional footballers. There’s scope for other people to get involved too. We have, for example, Archie’s Battle of the Badges. I would love to see this extended out to include corporate supporters and corporate teams, and it would be even better if we could get some of you involved in running that event to make it possible.
If you really want to roll your sleeves up and get stuck into something different from the day job, we could have you helping wrap Christmas presents. We could even have you helping write one of the 2000 Christmas cards that we send to all of our supporters every year. And if you like to do things a little bit different, then there are opportunities when bringing those toys to the hospital to get in character dress up, make something a little bit fun out of it.
But one of the things I find hardest to encourage corporates to do is actually what charities need most, and it’s fundraising. And I think it is possible to marry CSR with fundraising if we just work together on that. There are lots of events that you can get involved in, not just ours, but third-party events or you can volunteer at them or design your own. This one was a great example by Robertson’s, where their CSR initiative, they organized an event that raised a lot of money and it was a great family fund day for the organization as well.
When it comes to third-party events, they’re rarely Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00, so you need to think outside the box a little bit with these. And I would strongly encourage HR to have a think about how they could maybe release volunteers to do weekend events. For example, some of you in the room I know attended Archie’s variety show at the weekend. That was actually entirely delivered this year by voluntary support. There could be scope for corporates to get involved hands-on, and if you absolutely must pick up a paintbrush, please, please make sure that your chosen charity has something that genuinely needs painted. And please plan and bring everything that you need. Thank you very much.
Watch Paula delivering her session over on Vimeo >>>> DisruptHR Aberdeen 2.0 – April 24 2025 on Vimeo
