Brokering Employer Sponsored Volunteering Strategies: Creating effective engagement between employers and third sector organisations

A core aspect of the evolving corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda has been the emergence of Employer Sponsored Volunteering (ESV) schemes, whereby organisations encourage their staff to participate in a range of volunteering opportunities with local communities and voluntary sector groups. Through a process of active research projects and an employee volunteering network the researchers have identified a significant challenge for these schemes to reconcile the needs of business, employees and third sector organisations. As a result much ESV activity is focused upon a relatively small range of activities due to a restricted awareness of the types of opportunities available and a narrow understanding of how to value and measure the impact of different types of volunteering opportunities. Practitioners have identified a need for more effective brokerage processes to match organisations together and to ensure that the aims and objectives of an organisation's ESV strategy are aligned with the volunteering opportunities and requirements of the third sector groups with which they work. However, existing infrastructure around volunteering is struggling to cope with the increased demand and recent funding changes have restricted organisations' ability to meet these needs.

This project brings together academic research and expertise regarding ESV initiatives, with the practitioner work of The Hull and East Yorkshire Community Foundation (HEYCF), who are actively seeking to develop a more effective brokerage role around ESV. In doing so the work will contribute to the creation of a more effective and sustainable infrastructure which reflects the company drivers for seeking to develop ESV activities alongside the differing needs of third sector organisations seeking to engage with the business community, and the motivational drivers of employees who undertake the volunteering. To achieve this the project will focus upon the following key objectives:

1) to create an effective brokerage model for HEYCF to utilise in co-ordinating ESV activities within the Humber and East Yorkshire region.
2) to advise on the piloting, and evaluate the effectiveness, of the brokerage model being developed by HEYCF.
3) to work in partnership with HEYCF to identify the processes through which this model can become financially sustainable.
4) Examine ways in which the brokerage model can be disseminated to other groups and locations.
5) To consider the implications of the development of brokerage activities within the context of the coalition government's policy changes regarding third sector infrastructural funding and business-community engagement around the 'Big Society' agenda.

In order to address these issues the project will undertake a number of different phases of activity.

Phase one: To map the skills, training and development requirements of ESV for participant organisations and examine how third sector organisations can market and tailor their volunteering opportunities to incorporate these requirements while ensuring that ESV activities bring tangible value to their own organisation.

Phase two: To track ESV engagements to assess the way in which the brokerage process has been able to match ESV participant organisations' requirements with volunteering opportunities; examining the experiences of the ESV participant organisation and its employees and the third sector organisation and its employees.

Phase three: To examine the challenges and barriers to making the brokerage role financially sustainable and to investigate the extent to which brokerage organisations can effectively fill the infrastructural role created by changes in government funding policies.

Phase four: To develop a public access document which sets out the findings from the project in the form of a user orientated tool kit. This will be disseminated around the networks that exists on ESV and CSR more broadly.

1) Private and public sector organisations implementing or developing ESV strategies - While many companies are seeking to engage with CSR through ESV schemes, the limited amount of knowledge currently available regarding the type of engagement activities and the potential impact of these activities results in organisations often picking more easily identifiable opportunities rather than those that potentially can have the greatest impact, both for the local community/third sector organisation and for the organisation and its employees undertaking the ESV activity. As organisations are keen to evaluate and measure the impact of their ESV activities, the findings and toolkit developed from this project will provide a valuable resource for ensuring that resources are utilised effectively.
2) Third sector organisations seeking to engage business. With increasing restrictions on traditional public sector funding avenues, many third sector organisations are now seeking to engage with the business community for funding and support. However, many of these organisations find it difficult to market their organisations and the accompanying volunteering opportunities to the business sector. The brokerage model will help provide a bridge for engagement. Similarly, the resulting toolkit will provide third sector organisations with guidance and advice in identifying, marketing and costing the volunteering opportunities that they can offer. As currently many third sector organisations suggest that engaging with business around ESV can actually be costly to their organisation, both in terms of supervising and training volunteers, and utilising staff time that could be spent elsewhere, making engagement more effective will have a significant impact.
3) Organisations undertaking, or seeking to develop, a brokerage role for ESV. As the number of companies engaging with ESV increases, so the demand for suitable volunteering opportunities expands. Organisations that have traditionally co-ordinated volunteering activities are finding it increasingly hard to keep up with the current demand; this has been exacerbated by increasing government emphasis upon developing volunteering activities for the long-term unemployed, young people, etc. In addition to these traditional groups, brokerage roles are being developed by consultancies and other organisations, seeing this as a significant potential source of revenue or as part of the reshaping of infrastructural support for third sector organisations. Again, this project will provide invaluable material for these groups.
4) Government Policy makers. The increase in volunteering activity and the greater involvement of both individuals and businesses within their local communities has been a cornerstone of the governments 'big society' agenda. The findings from this project will have direct relevance for policy-makers within this field, both at a national and local level. With major budgetary cuts and large scale infrastructural reductions, the successful development of brokerage frameworks such as this may provide a valuable tool in effectively directing support to local community groups.
5) Company Employees undertaking ESV activities. Because the brokerage framework focuses upon creating a more successful connection between the volunteering opportunities available, the company aims for ESV and employees motivations to engage with the schemes, the project will also have an impact on the employees actually undertaking the volunteering activities.
While the project itself focuses upon activities being developed and undertaken within the Humber region, the application of the brokerage framework and toolkit is of far wider relevance. Through the ongoing activities of the Employee Volunteering Network and strong links with business and community organisations such as Business in the Community, there will be excellent opportunities to publicise and expand the impact of the project nationally.