Episode #066: Partnering with Corporate Employee Volunteer Programs with Lynn Margherio
Hey, welcome to the Volunteer Nation Podcast, bringing you practical tips and big ideas on how to build, grow, and scale volunteer talent. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and if you rely on volunteers to fuel your charity cause, membership, or movement, I made this podcast just for you.
Tobi: Welcome, everybody, to the volunteer nation podcast. I’m your host Tobi Johnson, and today I am very excited because we’re going to talk about partnering with corporate employee volunteer programs. I know a lot of you are working with corporate groups that are coming in. Some of you haven’t yet explored that or maybe you feel a little intimidated by it. But today’s guest is going to help us really get down to Brass Tax and make this happen.
On the Pod, we’ve talked about ways to go beyond traditional volunteer roles and engage the community in new ways. In episode 29, The Evolutions in Corporate Social Responsibility with Chris Jarvis, we talked about how CSR, or corporate social responsibility is changing. In episode 60, I spoke with Sarah Lomelin about giving circles and collective philanthropy. So there are still so many different ways our nonprofits can connect with people who care. And these types of relationships and partnerships have so much promise. And that’s why I’m so excited to bring on today’s guest, Lynn Margherio. Skilled volunteers can bring a wealth of talent and expertise that you don’t need to hire out for. They can get you the traction to more quickly get to the finish line rather than trying to figure it out all yourself. Plus, they often become some of your biggest financial supporters and community champions. So it is a win win, win win.
But many nonprofits are really hesitant to connect with employee volunteer programs. Sometimes I think it’s because they believe they’re not worth the effort. Sometimes I believe that maybe they’re intimidated. Other times I think they simply don’t know where to start. So today’s guest is going to help change that by pulling back the curtain on how she has partnered with corporate employee volunteer programs through the years. And she’ll offer her best advice on how to do it in a way that benefits both sides and results in real community impact. So let us get started.
My guest today is Lynn Margherio. She’s founder and CEO of Cradles to Crayons. Lynn leads this national clothing and security nonprofit with operations in Boston, Chicago, Philly, New York and San Francisco, all the places I love. On the forefront of advocating and providing solutions for social justice and children’s issues, Margherio’s organization provides children living in poverty with everyday essentials, including new or gently used clothing, shoes, winter coats, diapers, backpacks, and school supplies, you name it. To date, the organization has served over 3 million children.
But that is not all. Lynn is a leader in the fields of women’s leadership, social justice, corporate and volunteer social impact, and children’s causes. She was primed for this role after serving in government and the private sector, so she knows both sides. Gang. She was the executive vice president of the Clinton Foundation, where she led international health care and policy teams and served in the US. Department of Commerce. So she’s actually worked in private sector, public sector, and the social sector, which is fantastic. I love that. So I think we’re going to have a fantastic conversation. Lyn is also graduate of Georgetown University and completed the Strategic Perspectives and Nonprofit Management Program at Harvard. So there you go. Lynn’s got bona fide. But, Lynn, I’m really excited to get into this because you’ve been on all sides of the coin. I want to welcome you to the Volunteer Nation podcast.
Lynn: Thank you so much, Tobi. I’m really excited to be here and to talk with you today.
Tobi: So let’s just kick it off. I’ve shared a little bit about your bio, but I thought it might be interesting to hear a little bit about your work in nonprofits. How did you end up getting into nonprofit work?
Lynn: Yeah, Tobi, it’s a great question. When I was working as a business consultant, one of the favorite things that I got to do was to do pro bono engagements with nonprofits and with government agencies. And so I got to see all sides of what the issues were, and I got to see what the unique skills and points of view could be leveraged to solve a big problem or a small problem. And so that was in my early part of my career. And then as I moved into government again, I got to work with nonprofits who would come and advocate on behalf of their organizations. And at the time when I was in the Clinton White House, I was working on health reform. So I got to speak with a lot of healthcare institutions and organizations providing health services to clients. And then it’s been 21 years now that I have been running cradles to crayons. So I would say my experience now is really from the perspective of founding and leading a nonprofit organization.
Tobi: Fantastic. And you have a sister in arms around healthcare advocacy. I took a pit stop when the Affordable Care Act was passed, and I worked organizing. I was the state director for Enroll America in Tennessee, and I organized across the state to get folks enrolled in the exchanges. So got to take what the Clinton found or the Clinton administration did, and then the Obama administration did. And we got to a place where we could get people access to health care that was affordable. And I’m very proud of that work and such a fan of getting people connected with care. It’s just great work, and it’s nice to see people are there now. It was a long journey.
Lynn: It was a long, long journey. We still have a ways to go, but we’ve made such progress.
Tobi: So, Lynn, you started as a pro bono volunteer. Tell me a little bit about what volunteerism and corporate social responsibility means to you and why it’s vital for today’s nonprofits.
Lynn: Tobi I can speak for the issue that we are trying to address, which is to end clothing insecurity, which affects, we estimate, about 20 million children across the United States. And so while we like to think we’re small but mighty, we also know that we cannot solve clothing insecurity by ourselves. And when I think about, really, any other large issue, whether it’s health care or housing or food insecurity or mentoring the gamut of issues that nonprofits are working towards, it’s about how to leverage the expertise, the passion, the connections, the funding, the relationships and the skills that others have that you don’t or that you need more of. And so when I think about corporate engagement, I think about the people who are working in a company. I think they can provide labor as volunteers for projects that I might need to have done. I think about some of the maybe higher skills projects that we have had over time strategic planning, marketing, social media, digital and governance. And I think about or legal. And as a nonprofit, in many instances, we don’t need to have ongoing staff in some of these roles, nor quite often can we afford to bring those resources in house. So I think about it as how do I leverage all the talent and the passion and the desire to do good?
Tobi: So, Lynn, with Cradles to Crayons, you have partnered with so many national organizations bank of America, Discover, NBC Universal, Blue Cross, Blue Shoes. I mean, these are big corporations. And some of our listeners might be thinking, why would those corporations want to have anything to do with my small but mighty cause? And they might wonder, how would I get started? Even so, maybe take us through a practical discussion of how did you approach them, what made your appeal or offer for employee volunteer program support, resonate, and then maybe a little bit about what impacts you were able to achieve. Maybe just give people kind of a primer on how do you get started, how do you approach people, what makes them perk up and lean into your cause and that kind of thing?
Lynn: Yeah, well, I can give you an example from way back in the early days when nobody had ever heard of Cradles to Crayons, and I really needed a lot of help on all fronts. And so in the early days, I was really starting with my own network, my family, my friends, the friends of their friends. And I navigated my way to the woman who headed up the CSR practice at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and got on the phone with her and shared my idea of starting Cradles to Crayons and how we were really in the pilot phase and how I needed some help in our first warehouse building. Shelving now, you don’t necessarily think about Blue Cross blue Shield and building warehouse Shelving.
But I had great reception for that because in those days we were just across a parking lot from Blue Cross Blue Shield and so they sent me a group of 20 women on a 90 deg July day and we were up on a second floor warehouse. And wouldn’t you know it, we had a prototype of the shelf we wanted to build from all of these parts and pieces and with just a bunch of bottled water willpower and this desire to make it happen in the space of 3 hours, we had our shelving built in that warehouse. And so thinking back on that, it was really saying, who do I know? And who can open doors in a company that is excited about volunteering, committed to it, and interested to bring people out into the community to give back.
We have now partnered with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts for over 20 years and we are part of they do a statewide service day and we host a few hundred volunteers each year as part of that service day and then as part of many engagements that we have throughout the year. And it started with someone being willing to make a phone call on my behalf, my swallowing, my fear to call this person I didn’t know, and showing my enthusiasm and excitement for what we were doing. That was that first spark, that first opportunity which has since grown. And as I think about the other corporate relationships, it’s either people opening doors now through our board of directors, we’ve got leadership councils, we’ve got other volunteers, and you just have to ask. And good things happen when you ask.
Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. It reminds me of this book I just read this book by Dan Sullivan called Who Not How. And it’s a great book. It’s not made for volunteer driven organizations, but it has such a great lesson for them. And it’s anytime you have a challenge, you just ask who, not how. And you think about who can help. And you did that. You said who. And I also think there’s a lesson there in your local community, like, look around your area. Your folks were right next door. They don’t necessarily have to be right next door, but in your own community, there are businesses, whether they’re large corporations or medium to small size businesses, they can help. And they’re interested in helping if they’re interested in being part of their community.
And so you have to find those folks who have that interest. And I think you’re right. I remember way back when, when I first started working in nonprofits, my first job was a regional outreach coordinator and I had to cold call people I didn’t know. And I remember how nervous it made me. And you have to remember that especially with corporate social responsibility programs, that’s their job. They’re looking for nonprofits to support and causes that their employees can care about and want to care about. So I think we just have to start doing the outreach. So I’m so glad you did. And over 20 years of partnership, that’s amazing. And the leverage of that is value. There’s no way to put a price on that.
Lynn: You’re absolutely right, Tobi. And it’s really a lot easier now with so much available online because you can go on the web and find out what is it that a company is interested in, what are their priorities and more often than not, you will see employee engagement as a priority. And so they’re looking for great opportunities to have either individual volunteers go out or groups of volunteers going out. I’m finding now today as companies are seeking to have people come back into the office, that if you have engagement activities that can be done for groups of people and you can take it into an office building, then that’s a really wonderful way for you as a nonprofit to get some work done. And for that employer who’s looking for what is the hook to get people to come back in, being able to say this is something that is going to help out in the community, they can combine it with a social event and like you started our conversation, it’s a win win all the way around.
Tobi: I hadn’t even thought of that. That is a challenge for employers right now after their employees have been working remotely due to COVID and some folks are still hybrid and they want to encourage folks to come back in because there is a lot of social capital that’s built in the workplace. And there are things we can do more efficiently when we’re working in the same building that maybe this is a perk for employees to come back. A team building activity, a way to feel like they’re part of the community, it’s a way of community building amongst employees.
So I had not thought of that as and the fact is we have a very competitive job market right now and it costs a lot to replace an employee if they leave. So folks are really working hard to keep their best talent at their organization. I’m hearing from nonprofits, a lot of the nonprofits I work with that they are interested in working with employee volunteer programs. But they really need volunteers for ongoing roles and they’re sort of having a hard time balancing between days of service and small service events and more longer term needs. How do you at Cradles to Crayons navigate this tension? Or do you or do you only engage groups for short term assignments?
Lynn: That is a good question. Just to give you a sense of it, we have ten volunteer shifts a week in each of our giving factory locations and we engage about in each site. It can be as several hundred volunteers a week. And so we thrive on having groups of volunteers come in for a couple of hours at a time. But behind those groups of volunteers are what I would call the people who are champions for us inside their workplace. And so these are the people who are promoting the organization, who are in our case, we need to get the garner clothing, coats or backpacks. And so these folks are rallying their teammates to do product collection drives for us. And so I would call them the people who make the engagement, those more volume engagements possible because they are the ones who are talking about us and getting their coworkers, maybe their managers excited about coming in to volunteer or making a financial contribution.
I would say that it’s that champion perhaps who’s more analogous to the ongoing volunteer that other organizations may want to benefit from. And a way you can find a fit for you if you need that ongoing volunteer support is to find out what kind of time off the work. And so companies like bank of America or Blue Cross, Blue Shield or Comcast, some of these larger companies have really baked in a certain number of hours. They allow employees to volunteer off site with the approval of their supervisor. And so it’s asking questions when you’re having those discussions with the corporate social responsibility contact to find out what are their, what, what are the benefits they are offering to their employees around volunteerism to figure out what is the best fit. Is it going to be a one time event or an Episodic event? Or can you have a mentor or build a tutoring program or an ongoing volunteer cadre because of how they structure their volunteerism?
Tobi: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting to think about delegating leadership with an organization so they know the inside what’s going on inside their organization. And those champions can bring together teams. And I think we also need to, on the nonprofit side, really think about how creative we can get about these ongoing roles. Do they absolutely have to be something where people dedicate and gear to or is there a way to chunk it out into shorter term engagements or to convert it to a team based type of engagement? Where you have a leader where you can have shifting people come in and going but maybe you have a leader who’s leading that charge.
I’m just thinking we have to get more creative about how we’re resourcing human talent in our organizations because nowadays it’s hard to get. I ask people how long and I talk to volunteers and I say, why don’t you volunteer? Well, because I don’t want to sign my life away. That’s what they say. So I’m like, you know what, I get it. We’re all busy. And so there’s a way to maybe have levels of engagement and offer that flexibility to employee volunteer program and figure out what might work. And I absolutely agree. Asking questions, also asking if they have dollars for Doers programs. Some organizations will not only contribute time, but they’ll also match that time with dollars. And so maybe some of those dollars are used to hire some staff to fill in those gaps where volunteers can’t be there all the time.
Lynn: Yeah, no, that’s a great point, Tobi. And now that we are doing so much virtually, it gives added flexibility where volunteer can volunteer for part of the day without having to necessarily get into a car or get on the subway to go to the site. Now I understand that not all nonprofits can accommodate that, but perhaps thinking about what are those needs that you have that can be done virtually and what are those that must be done on site?
Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. So you’ve talked about when I was doing a little research before this interview, I did a little bit of just reading about Cradles for Crayons and about how you track your success for collaborations with employee volunteer programs and you talk about your Net Promoter Score and your satisfaction with the volunteer experience. And I can imagine that having that information when you’re doing initial outreach and partnership development is probably really helpful to making it a little bit of a more substantial ask. Let me ask you, how do you go about tracking these success and these metrics with your employee volunteers?
Lynn: So we track everything via our salesforce customer Relationship Management database. Now, I didn’t always have a database. I had volunteers in the early days coming in and I had no idea who they were, how they got to us, nor any way to thank them. So one of the things was actually having a system for capturing the name and email address and corporate the company they’re associated with. And then if you can find out what the title is as well, you need those basics to be able to communicate with them. And we start out by thanking them and then asking for their feedback. And so after every volunteer shift, we will send an email out with that. Thank you. And then a link to a volunteer survey. How was your experience? What did you think? Would you recommend this experience to someone else? And then we have that both qualitative and quantitative information that we can learn from to improve the volunteer experience because frankly, our most valuable asset is our time.
And so we want to use our volunteers time well. And then we can turn the quantitative portion of that survey into things like Net Promoter Score of 94%. Because again, that is something we can share in the materials that we provide to companies when they’re brand new and they’re trying to learn about us. We also will capture quotes from our volunteers. I like to think of them as the validators of our service. We do that both from the volunteer side and then from the nonprofit agencies that we partner with. Again, just to say how can we demonstrate that we are a credible organization that’s impactful and that is going to use our volunteers time well. And as we create the materials that we use to we go in to pitch a company, we will have those questions in mind as we’re putting those materials together and then the tools in the background to be capturing the data, capturing the stories and the quotes that we can sprinkle in.
Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Giving the voice of the volunteer, giving things life. I think time has been it’s just become so valuable to folks that they’re even more picky nowadays about how they spend it. I don’t know if it was like the existential crisis of a pandemic or just that people are a little bit tireder or people are realizing how much they’re juggling and time just seems more and more and more valuable. And people are being very discerning and need to know that the charity that they choose and I think many people want to support charities, but they’re only going to do so if they think it’s going to be meaningful. And it’s great that you’re tracking on this to make sure that it feels meaningful to the folks that are supporting you. Let’s take a quick break, and after the break, we’re going to talk more on how nonprofits can make the most of collaborations with employee volunteer programs with Lynn Margherio. So don’t go anywhere, my friends.
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Tobi: Okay, we’re back with our discussion with Lynn Margherio on the topic of partnering effectively with corporate employee volunteer programs. Gang, if you are not doing this very often or it’s not part of your annual strategy when it comes to engaging your community, you are missing opportunities. So let’s talk more specifically about what Lynn does. We’re going to get a little bit deeper into how to make the most of these partnerships. So Lynn, break it down for me. How do folks really involve employee volunteer programs to the best effect? What technology, staffing, resources are required? What mindset is required? What are your best tips for doing this?
Lynn: Well, yeah, I think it’s to start if you haven’t done it at all, it’s to start small and celebrate those small wins. What does that look like? It’s doing some research, finding alignment between companies corporate social responsibility pillars and priorities and then doing some cold calling and seeing who can you get on the phone or who can you get a meeting with and then congratulating yourself for getting your foot in the door. And then it is from there structuring a volunteer experience that is really meeting your organizational needs and reflects what you might have heard in that discussion with the company about what they are seeking to do. And I would say don’t try to go and do backflips to try to meet what the company is seeking. You really have to stick to what is it that we as an organization need to get out of this.
But if you’re hearing things like we’re looking for this to be a good team building experience, incorporate some icebreakers into that volunteer shift, get the team back together. Even if you have to separate out the team into different aspects of your organization, find a way to bring the group back together to discuss what it is you’ve accomplished together as a group. So if you can come up with some metrics, how was my time beneficial to the organization, to your mission, is something that in our experience, we find that people really like to hear and then find out how it went and then learn from that and try to get the next volunteer group in the door.
And I would say once you’ve got a number of those under your belt, it’s then going back to the corporations who have had a good experience in saying, okay, what is next? Can we do that with another group? Is there an opportunity for funding from your corporate foundation? What is the next time that the company is looking to get groups together and would they consider having a charitable component in that celebration? And so it’s trying to establish a dialogue with your contact in the employee engagement area to continue to learn more about what the possibilities are for deeper volunteer engagement, for financial support, perhaps for skills based volunteer support or being a reference for the next volunteer group.
Tobi: So good. It really is about leveraging. I mean, I love your advice about starting small. If you haven’t done this before, it is a good idea to start small. Pilot test, learn what you can. I love the idea of helping volunteers make meaning of their experience by having some self reflection time, some debrief time, and also kickoff time where you’re sharing with them. So for volunteers that are putting up shelves, sometimes they have a hard time connecting that to the mission. Well, you know what, we actually need these shelves because these shelves are going to be where we’re going to store or we’re going to display items that our community needs. The people we’re serving need and need desperately. And so your work is important.
So if you can make that connection but I also love that you talked about corporations have charitable arms, they have foundations. And we don’t always think a lot of people are thinking one and done with these corporations. Folks come, they want to do a day of service, they come, they’re gone. That’s it. And you’re talking about maintaining that dialogue and figuring out I love the idea of whenever they’re having a group activity, can there be a charitable side of that which is going to enhance the activity? Whether it’s a conference or a meeting or whatever reason employees are getting together, if it has a charitable side to it, it just enhances that for the employee as well.
I never thought about how you could leverage this even further. So I love those ideas. Lynn, when it comes to skills based volunteering, you mentioned that skills based is really I mean, corporate folk have so many skills, as you mentioned at the top of the hour. When we first started talking, you talked about marketing and data and all the different ways that our employees, corporate employees, can help our nonprofits in short and longer term ways. How do you identify or need assess what kind of skills based roles you need for your organization?
Lynn: That’s a good question, and I would say it sometimes depends on I break it into the buckets of ongoing skills based volunteer support. And then when we are at an inflection point as an organization and we are looking to try something new or we’re looking to grow, that we have more episodic skills based needs. So for the ongoing needs, some things that come to mind immediately for me are legal. And we’ve had the same pro bono law firm that helped me with my initial filings back 21 years ago, that Foley Hoag, that’s been our pro bono legal counsel ever since. And so they help us review contracts. They help us with human resources. They help us with our board and governance documents, trademarks, a whole host of things.
We’ve got other law firms Kirkland and Ellis has been really helpful. Mince Levin on the legal side, and all law firms are doing pro bono work. And so they may have a full plate if you approach them, but they all do it. And so if you have legal needs, absolutely try to get a regular law firm to partner with you. Marketing needs are ones too. That finding agencies that might have some capacity to help on that front or some freelance folks to engage. I think that can tend to be a little more challenging just because if there is a paid client that has a deadline, and oftentimes they do, it can be hard to get timely support. But if you can figure out how to maybe do a project that is marketing related, you might have more success than if you need that ongoing support. And it needs to be timely. If you can put a little bit of money towards it, I find that we have more leverage.
And so there’s always a nonprofit rate. So if you can get. Some combination of volunteer support, a discounted nonprofit rate, then you can really get some deep and terrific and ongoing marketing support. And that’s how we have structured some of our external marketing relationships. And on the Episodic side, we have done several strategic plans for our organization over the 20 years. There are a number of organizations who do this and they do it at no charge. You just have to do the research to find out who is available in your community that offers this kind of support. And that can be priceless because again, it may be the type of skill that you don’t need year round or that you don’t have the funding to bring in house.
Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. And I also think about things like I love when you mentioned inflection points. There’s a time where you understand that your nonprofit needs to make a pivot and you know it, you feel it, you kind of have a vague idea about what it needs to be, but you don’t know how to pull it off. And there are experts out there and corporations are doing this all the time because they need to, to stay relevant in today’s marketplace. And you think about the areas of Episodic, I think about our technology, just figuring out what kind of databases do we need, what kind of tech, what kind of client facing tech do we need, just whatever it is. How do you build the tech capacity for your organization? And there’s people there’s, It departments, entire departments that are focused on tech and they can give you a rundown pretty quickly and diagnose where your challenges are. The other area I think about is training and development.
There’s entire departments that are doing instructional design and delivery. They’re figuring out online training. So even if you needed to and human resources if you’re needing to build a volunteer handbook if you’re needing to build training for your team whether it’s your paid or unpaid team there’s just so much expertise and folks who’ve gone to college and been trained and gotten the benefit of all of their corporate training and support as well, that you can just get up to speed so much more quickly than trying to poke around in the internet and try to figure out how to do it yourself. Absolutely. And I think we as nonprofit sometimes, I worked in the nonprofit sector for about 30 years before I started my consulting and training and coaching that we really have this sort of gene.
I don’t know if it’s a gene or an inclination or personality trait where we really just want tough it out and try to figure it out ourselves. And you’ve done a great job with your organization 20 years now and growing and multiple cities, an organization that has truly scaled and you have scaled through the support of a variety of people and you figured out how to leverage and plug people in all across your operations and I think that’s fantastic.
Lynn: Well, it’s also just, I think recognizing that there’s a whole lot of stuff I don’t know how to do and a desire to move quickly and with urgency. And so I think my default is to try to see where else can we pull in people and organizations to partner with us to get this work done?
Tobi: Where do you recommend if people were to get started, where would you recommend they go to find potential employee volunteer programs that would be willing and capable partners rather than just sort of opening up? Well, you go on the Internet, you wouldn’t open up the phone book, you wouldn’t open up the Yellow Pages in this day and age. But are there ways people can do this more quickly or in a focused way so that they get there faster? And also if people are reluctant to do this, what would you say to them?
Lynn: Well, let me start with the first one. I think you have to get over that reluctance because you’re missing out and there’s nothing to lose, but there’s a lot to gain. And so getting outside of your comfort zone and just trying to put your toe in the water, dip it in there, you’ll find that the water is fine. And then just thinking about where to start, think about your own mission. What is it that you do and are there for profit analogs to your work? For instance, if you are working to lower barriers to accessing health care? Well, I would immediately go to health insurers and other companies in the healthcare space to see what their employee engagement opportunities might be, because chances are really good that increasing access and improving healthcare outcomes is going to be part of their corporate social responsibility measures and objectives.
And so it’s again thinking about where are their natural alignments and then creating a list of companies or asking people that’s. Another great way of doing it is talking to other nonprofits, picking up the phone. I think we have been so fortunate in our experience to have amazing nonprofit partners, but then even a broader nonprofit community in each of the cities where we have a presence, where people are just happy to help and share their experiences. So I always like to find out where have they been successful and would they help with an introduction?
Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I think it is all about relationship capital, just building. Even if you reach out and the organization ends up not being a good match, they still now know about you and the next time an appeal goes out, you never know. You just never know what that little drop of water, how far it’s going to spread.
Lynn: And Tobi, I like to say it’s no for now, but not good for.
Tobi: Absolutely spoken by a true community engagement professional, a true executive director that is on a mission. Absolutely. It might be no. I always feel like no is an opportunity to educate more.
Lynn: Yes. And that’s the way you build up that thicker skin, too, Tobi, to be able to say, okay, that and I’m not taking that personally, this is what I heard. There is a door that’s a smidge more open now than it was before.
Tobi: Well, and I think those of us who’ve worked in nonprofits our entire careers, we think that somehow we’re second than or we’re less than sometimes. I think there’s this sort of inferiority complex with the corporate world, and there’s problems in the nonprofit sector, but there’s problems in the corporate world, too, and we have something to offer that the corporate environment cannot, and that is purpose. I mean, yes, there’s purpose around products and services and innovations and that kind of thing that the business side can offer the world. But there is an emotional charge around nonprofit work. And when people resonate when that type of cause and as you said, you need to be strategic about this and choose organizations that are low hanging fruit, that already have an inclination and an understanding of your cause as well as individuals, that’s how you’re working. Building relationships with individual donors as well is they have some type of interest.
So corporations are made up of people, and people have emotions, and those emotions drive behavior. And so as we think about reaching out into the corporate world for these corporate employee volunteer programs, we got to remember that they’re made up of people who care about stuff. Right. And it gives more meaning to their work to get involved with us. So we have value to offer. We’re not just asking for a handout, we’re offering value at the same time. And I think that’s something that our sector sometimes forgets.
Lynn: I couldn’t agree more, Tobi. I think there’s no more powerful feeling than the feeling that you get from giving or from helping someone else. And I hear all the time from different companies that particularly coming out of the pandemic, but well before, it is about building team. It is about people connecting with one another in a setting that is not work, so you can have different kind of dialogue. It’s about having that reputation that you care about the community and you want to be part of, and you are part of making it better. I see that as such a strong trend, and it’s something that we can all capitalize on and benefit from.
Tobi: Absolutely. It is about we’re offering the opportunity through volunteerism and giving the opportunity for human beings to reach their true potential as part of a community. I think people we don’t realize the power of that is so powerful. Lynn, this has been such a fabulous conversation. I really appreciate you joining me today. Let me ask you one more question before we wrap up. There’s been so many tidbits. I hope, gang, you were taking notes. If not, listen again. But one last question as we wrap up, what are you most excited about in the year ahead?
Lynn: I’m excited about the power of engagement of all sorts of individuals, whether it is through the corporate channel, which I think has a ton of potential, through families, individuals. I really do feel that we are living in a time where people are seeking meaning, they’re seeking purpose, and if we can get them excited about our work and our mission, the possibilities are endless. And so for me, at Cradles to Crayons, we are really looking to build awareness of clothing insecurity as a basic need, alongside housing insecurity and food insecurity. And I’m excited because I know that once people have awareness that there is a need in their community and they are given tangible things that they are asked to do, that the opportunities are limitless.
Tobi: Fantastic. Could not have said it better. So tell us where people can find more about Cradles to Crayons, get in touch with you if they’d like and maybe support your cause.
Lynn: So our website is cradlestocraons.org, and we’ve got social media through LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn. Lynn Margherio. We’ve got cradles to crayons on LinkedIn. We’ve got an online donation platform called Giving Factory Direct. You can learn more about that. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, and we’d love to hear from you.
Tobi: Fantastic. Well, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for I hope this alleviated a little bit of anxiety. If folks aren’t out there spending time getting to know their potential partners in the community and devoting time making sure you’re setting aside time to do this, it does take time to build relationships with employee volunteer programs and other community partners. So you really kind of have to put it on your calendar, make it happen. But once you start connecting with people, you start to see that people are people or people are people, and people want to help. And there are people out there in your community who want to help your nonprofit right now.
So get out there, start talking with people. And thanks for joining us for this episode of The Volunteer Nation. If you liked it, I hope you will share it with a colleague. And of course, rate and review. It helps us reach more listeners and get the word out about all the good causes out there in the world and the power and potential of volunteerism. So join me next week, same time, same place on The Volunteer Nation. Take care, everybody. Thanks for listening to this episode. So to the Volunteer Nation podcast. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review so we can reach people like you who want to improve the impact of their good cause. For more tips and notes from the show, check us out at Tobijohnson.com. We’ll see you next week for another installment of Volunteer Nation.