Global Volunteer Day: How To Start Your Own Global Volunteer Day
Global Volunteer Day (GVD) is a worldwide celebration of EDS’ year-round service in the communities in which we live and work. For this event, EDS employees join with families, friends and clients to strengthen their commitment to the community.
Tens of thousands of volunteers around the world perform service projects in their communities. Projects include helping at orphanages, painting, collecting clothing, giving blood, renovating buildings and serving meals.
As part of the global EDS team, employees experience team-building with co-workers, clients and family members while making a positive difference in the community. Also, by teaming with clients, GVD offers a unique opportunity to strengthen those relationships.
Volunteerism has many business benefits, such as corporate awareness, improved employee morale, better teamwork skills and increased opportunities for personal and professional growth.
Steps to Starting Your Own Global Volunteer Program
- Develop a mission statement for your program that employees can rally around.
- Set a date.
- Survey employees in different areas for holiday schedules. Consider allowing a window of time for the event, such as two weeks or a month, to accommodate worldwide schedules. EDS finds October to be the best time of year because weather tends to be acceptable at most of our locations, and we don’t have to compete for time with many other corporate programs.
- Communicate the event via as many mediums as possible to reach your employees worldwide.
- Some suggestions are: company newspapers, electronic mail, bulletin boards, leader communication, direct mail, voice mail messages, speeches at group meetings, pre-event posters and any other communication vehicles available. (Consider translating one or more communication pieces into the different languages spoken in your global organization.)
- Ask for volunteers to lead projects when you are communicating.
- Collect interested people’s names and addresses in a database. Stress the leadership development aspects of leading a volunteer project.
- Provide step-by-step project planning and recruiting instructions to people interested in leading projects.
- Send this tool three to four months before the event and include information about how to recruit volunteers, choose a project and a recipient organization, report results and give feedback, recognize volunteers, and talk to the press. For a copy of EDS’ Global Volunteer Day information kit, send an e-mail message with your name, mailing address, and company name to Elizabeth Bushman.
- Report results from the projects.
- Let everyone know what a difference they made. Use many of the communications vehicles you used to communicate about the event. Make a special effort to recognize the project leaders.