How to ensure your volunteer work makes a difference #CharityDay

Achieving Goals

09/05/19

Alexandra Nemeth

Back in 1997, the United Nations declared September 5th the International Day of Charity.#CharityDay is meant to educate and mobilize stakeholders around the world to help others through volunteer and philanthropic activities. In the intervening decades since #CharityDay was first observed, our world has changed considerably. It is now time for our collective concept of “charity” to evolve as well. According to the Oxford Dictionary, charity is the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need. But this narrow definition implies a problematic power dynamic. One wherein the people in a position of relative wealth and power are making the decisions about how much (and what kind of) help others deserve. At the heart of the act of charity lies a desire to help others. And that is something we should continue to encourage. But we must be thoughtful in the way we act on that desire to ensure that our efforts don’t end up causing more harm than good. We must find a way to go beyond the charity mindset of “helping people” to supporting a truly transformational movement that achieves real change in our communities. To honor the original intent of #CharityDay, use the tips below when searching for your next volunteer opportunity. These will help ensure that you’re engaging in the most respectful, ethical, and sustainable way. Focus on skills-based volunteering and avoid Voluntourism Voluntourism involves short-term ‘projects’ designed to benefit the volunteer, rather than the community being served. Think: playing with kids at an orphanage or teaching English in vulnerable communities. The practice of voluntourism can erode dignity, create dependencies, and reinforce paternalism – ultimately creating more harm than good. Unlike voluntourism, skills-based volunteering seeks to transfer skills to local groups already developing their own solutions to real problems. This approach keeps the needs of the community being served at the heart of the work. Factors to consider when choosing a project A quick Google search for “skills-based volunteering” will yield over 73 million results. That’s a lot of options to sort through! To help you narrow things down, here are 8 factors to consider when choosing a volunteer engagement: Skills Make sure there is a strong alignment of an organization’s needs with your skills. Remember to focus on your real skills. A good place to start is with the skills you already use in your day-to-day job. Remember: if you aren’t qualified to do something in your home country, you aren’t qualified to do it abroad just because the regulations may be different! Timing Find a start date, end date, and duration that is agreeable to all parties. Make sure you do an honest inventory of your commitments and availability so that you don’t overextend yourself. Don’t try and do too much in a short time, or you’ll risk leaving both you and your host dissatisfied. Motivations Be clear about what you and the hosting organization are each hoping to get out of the experience. The more time you spend discussing this upfront, the more you’ll get out of your time on the ground. This also helps to ensure that expectations are met on both sides! Sustainable Impact Focus your work on projects that have long-term potential. And also where you can build the skills of people to sustain the projects after you leave. For example, if you’re helping a grassroots organization develop a digital marketing strategy, train someone on the local team in social media best practices. This helps them so they can implement the plan after you’re gone. Communication Ensure that you can clearly communicate with each other. If possible, get to know your local point of contact via Skype or email before you arrive on the ground. Doing the pre-work with your host to align around expectations, deliverables, and logistics will pave the way for a successful project. Commitment Both you and the host should invest time and resources in the engagement and agree to certain outcomes. Your host organization shouldn’t be charging you to volunteer, and ideally, they are able to provide some type of benefits in exchange for your skills (like housing while you’re on-site or meals while at the office.) Ethics Make sure the project is locally-led, doesn’t erode jobs and is in the best interest of the community. This video from LearningService includes a helpful checklist you can use to ensure it’s a responsible volunteer placement. Partnership Work hard to build a partnership that benefits both parties. Before you commit to a project, make sure to begin a dialogue with your host organization to more fully scope and plan your project. A successful engagement is a two-way street! For additional guidance and more details about the factors above, check out the MovingWorlds Complete Guide to Volunteering. — Done right, volunteering can have a transformative impact on both the volunteer and the community she’s serving. Taking the time to read this article is a testament to your willingness to help, and with the guidance you’ll be empowered to do so ethically and sustainably this #CharityDay! For more tips and resources about volunteering sustainably, check out the MovingWorlds #MakeVolunteeringMatter series.

How to explore social impact work while working a full-time job

08/08/19

Alexandra Nemeth

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill You’ve worked hard to establish yourself in your career, and you like your job. You’ve put in the time and energy to master each new role, advance up the ladder, and build a solid professional reputation. So why does it feel like something might be missing? We all want to feel like the work we do matters. Engaging in work that has a positive impact on others not only feels good, but it’s also proven to give us a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment. If you aren’t currently getting to make the impact you want, there are plenty of ways to explore social impact work that doesn’t involve quitting your full-time job to travel the world Eat, Pray, Love style. Here are five ways to explore social impact work while working full-time: Become a social intrapreneur within your current company You don’t have to leave your company to find ways to make an impact at work. Social intrapreneurs are corporate changemakers; they design and test initiatives that create social and/or environmental good, while also moving the company’s mission forward. Taking an entrepreneurial approach within your company is a great way to innovate for the greater good without assuming all of the risk of striking out on your own. To identify opportunities for social intrapreneurship, start by thinking about your company’s overall goals. For example, if recruiting new employees is a key priority, you could propose a corporate volunteering program to re-invest into the local community while at the same time leveraging it as a tool for recruiting socially-conscious talent. Another great source of inspiration is your company’s competitors in the market – what social impact initiatives are they running, and what have their results been? Answering these questions will help you identify opportunities to help your community, your company, and yourself by piloting an initiative that makes a real social impact. For more guidance, check out this complete guide to corporate social intrapreneurship. Volunteer your skills in your local community You already have what you need to make a real social impact in your community: the skills you use daily in your full-time job. Are there any organizations in your community that you admire or that have missions you personally relate to? Don’t be afraid to reach out to them – impact organizations are frequently working with limited resources and staff, so offers of support are usually appreciated. If you don’t have an organization in mind already, check out resources like: The global registry of organizations working towards the Sustainable Development Goals on the United Nations partnership platform VolunteerMatch, where you can create a profile and browse opportunities by skill type, cause, and more. LinkedIn Social Impact, where you can discover volunteer and board service opportunities. Serving on a nonprofit board is a tried and true way to not only make an impact but also to develop your leadership ability in your full-time role. Volunteering has surprising benefits, including helping you build new skills, boosting the experience on your resume, decreasing your risk for depression, and strengthening your feeling of connection to others. Use your time off to experteer overseas We all need time away from work to recharge and refresh. For your next getaway, go beyond the typical tourist experience and immerse yourself in the local culture. One way to that is by volunteering your skills with a grassroots social enterprise. In as little as one to two weeks, you can make a real impact through platforms like MovingWorlds and VSO International. When looking for opportunities, make sure that the work you’re doing is solving a real need. As opposed to voluntourism, which centers around the volunteer’s experience rather than the ultimate impact on the beneficiaries. Spending your next trip this way will benefit not only the community you’re serving, but it will also help you develop leadership skills, empathy, and a fresh perspective that will make you even more effective once you return to your job. If you already have the vacation days, volunteering abroad is a great way to explore social impact work in a way that fits into your schedule. If you don’t have enough time off, you might be able to convince your boss to give you more time (and maybe even budget! * Interested in learning more? Check out this guide to volunteering abroad! Join a professional group or meetup One of the best ways to learn about making an impact is to connect with people who already are. Platforms like MeetUp make it easy to find like-minded people so you can do more of what matters to you. Joining a social impact Meetup is a great way to plug into the local social impact scene. It can also help you start building a network that will lead to new types of opportunities. Informational interviews are a great tool to learn more about how others create an impact in their personal and professional lives. Interviews allow you to explore different options before committing to a single one. Start or join an employee resource group An employee resource group (ERG) is a voluntary, employee-led group made up of colleagues who join together based on common interests, background, or demographic factors. ERGs are a great way to identify and fill gaps in your company’s overall strategy. They can focus on things like sustainability or community outreach with the support of like-minded peers. Finding other internal stakeholders who share an interest in social impact will help you source ideas from different perspectives. It also helps hold each other accountable when it comes time to implement them. According to the Society of Human Resource Management, ERGs are also good for business – these groups make sure employees have an opportunity to be heard, valued and engaged. Talk to your leadership team about the business case for your ERG and see if additional time and/or resources can be

How I Made The Career Switch To Social Impact – And How You Can Too

Achieving Goals

06/17/19

Alexandra Nemeth

Two years ago, I had a terrifying realization: I was in the wrong career. The work wasn’t fulfilling and the culture was wearing on me mentally and emotionally. As I looked ahead of me up the corporate ladder I realized it would only get worse at the top. How had this happened? And more importantly, what now?! I needed a career switch! If you relate to my experience, you know how scary it is to realize that something needs to change. But what I’ve found is that realizing you’re not fulfilled in your job is a catalyst for launching yourself into the meaningful career you want. Currently, I work for a purpose-driven social enterprise doing meaningful work that I actually enjoy. And I get to work with people who inspire me to grow as a leader of positive change. Taking the time to introspect and reflect helped me get here. Ask yourself these 5 questions so you can navigate the transition, too: What are you good at? Start by taking a step back to audit your strengths. Look for things that you genuinely enjoy doing that energize you (not just what you’re good at). You can use self-assessment tools like Gallup’s Strengths Finder to gain insight into your core strengths. Additionally, you can get a more holistic perspective by asking friends or colleagues to complete a reflected best self exercise. Taking the time to identify and prioritize your strengths will set you up for success in choosing a career path that is a better fit. Research shows that the use of our strengths in our work is tied to greater job satisfaction, engagement, and productivity. What do you care about? When I was navigating my own transition, I realized that one of the biggest sources of my dissatisfaction at work was a lack of purpose. Think of purpose as the “so what” behind the tasks you spend your time doing – why does it matter? Purpose is not a cause — it’s what gives you energy while you work. For me, that means doing work that has a positive social impact. Resources like the Imperative Purpose Assessment, ALV’s Illuminate Your Purpose Program, or books like The Invisible Leader can help you uncover your own purpose drivers. This helps you hone in on the type of work that gives you a deep sense of fulfillment so you feel confident making a career switch. What options are out there, and how will I know which is best for me? Once you’re clear on your strengths and purpose drivers, use that insight to set a vision for where you want to go. Do some research to see what industries, organizations, and types of roles exist in the space you want to move towards. When I was doing this research, I learned about the social enterprise movement. That’s how I decided that I wanted my next role to be with a mission-driven organization using business as a force for good. With this goal in mind, I narrowed down the scope of my search based on what was important to me. At MovingWorlds, where I work now, we use a “career validation framework” in our leadership development programs to guide Global Fellows through testing their options. By taking a human-centered design approach to your career, you can create hypothesis about what type of environment is best suited for you. You then to conduct small tests by volunteering, observing, and/or networking to decide what fits. What transferable skills can I use to build experience? Ultimately, it’s experience and proof of being able to deliver results that will get you your next role. Even if you’re pivoting to a completely different industry, many of the skills you’ve developed are highly transferable. They can be leveraged to connect the dots between the two careers. For example, my experience at a large corporation helped me develop skills like marketing communications, public speaking, and processes optimization. I continue to use those skills in my current role, just applied in a different context. What skills can you transfer to apply in a different context? There are many different ways to get experience, so try to think outside of the box. You could gain experience by volunteering, job-shadowing, board service, and even traveling if you’re spending your time productively. Take a few steps outside of your comfort zone to get the experience you need to develop your skills and confidence. This also helps improve your network and resume. How can I connect with like-minded people on the same path? Surround yourself with people who encourage and inspire you along your new path. I became a member of MovingWorlds before being hired by MovingWorlds. By taking that step I put myself in the position to take advantage of that opportunity when it arose. Join a local professional group to network and even find a mentor. Check out MeetUp.com to see if there’s a social impact group in your city. Online communities are valuable, too – try resources like Google Groups and Reddit. A friend of mine once described leaving his secure role at an organization he’d been attached to for a decade as “tantamount to cliff diving into the ocean”. I would agree with that assessment. But on the other side of that fear is a rewarding career switch that fits you – instead of the other way around. As Silicon Valley entrepreneur Randy Komisar said, “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”