For-Profit Volunteerism

When we think volunteerism, we think about charities, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations, but the for-profit world has caught on to this great resource. Many corporations have employee volunteer programs and send staff (paid and unpaid) into the community for service projects at local nonprofit and public organizations.

For Hewlett-Packard (HP) that also means making use of retirees for part-time volunteer work promoting HP. "Going to the Company Elders for Help" (New York Times, March 10, 2008) profiles John Toppel, who recently served as a volunteer salesperson for HP products at his local Circuit City. Mr. Toppel, who had a three decade tenure at HP, feels a sense of loyalty and pride in the company and doesn't expect payment, though outsiders bristle a the lack of compensation.

While HP has tapped retirees as volunteers (in the traditional sense of the word), other corporations are soliciting the volunteers (in the broadest sense of the word) from a much larger audience. If you think of all the ways you already contribute your time to for-profit corporations, by writing a restaurant review for Zagat, reviewing your doctor's skills on Yelp, or providing inventory for Ebay, you won't be surprised that corporations are looking for additional ways to capitalize on your "volunteer" contributions. Usually these opportunities are web-based.

The challenges to these "user contribution systems," according to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, are to "learn how to spot opportunities for creating value from user contributions...[and] overcome natural organizational resistance to the idea of relinquishing significant control to people outside the company.

To read more about how for-profit corporations are capitalizing on volunteers, read below:

Click here to read the New York Times article about HP retirees serving as volunteers.
Click here to read the full article, "The Contribution Revolution: Letting Volunteers Build Your Business" from the Harvard Business Review