Free Checklist – How to Pilot an International Corporate Volunteering Program To get anICV program started at your company, complete the following steps: RESEARCH Before trying to launch a program at your company, first understand your company’s growth, product, and human resource strategies so that you can ensure you propose a program that will have staying power Read this article on ICV programs for data about how they improve recruitment, retention, engagement, performance, as well as leadership and innovation. Read this article about using service to accelerate leadership development: http://bit.ly/1Bq1BQF Read about your company’s leadership development strategies, human resource priorities, and its growth objectives NETWORK Finding a team of people within your company who can share your passion for a program is helpful to make sure you can garner support and align the right stakeholders: Find business units and partners within your company most likely to support an initiative. Schedule coffee chats with as many of the following as possible. Share benefits of ICV programs and ask open- ended questions about how they think your company can pilot a program. Meet with at least one of the following: Talent Development leaders working on leadership development / rotation programs HR leaders working on recruitment, engagement, and performance Business unit leaders seeking to expand into new geographies CSR departments, foundations, and/or corporate giving teams Social intrapreneurship, and/or startup groups Creative / rogue business leaders Innovation teams / task forces DOCUMENT Document the following information about your company: Key business goals and priorities for the coming year in order to gain a clear understanding of strategic initiatives that ICV programs can align with. CSR data, initiatives, and history of philanthropy and cause-marketing efforts. PITCH & SELL Once you have identified an initiative to support and developed a team to support the mission, its time to sell your program internally to find budget and resources: IDENTIFY THE NEEDIdentify that highest-priority business needs your company is working on. Review press releases, executive announcements, and the annual letter to shareholders to see how benefits of ICV programs can map to key business priorities.. FIND A SPONSORFind someone in a business unit, HR, talent development, CSR, that is spending money (read “has budget”) to help pilot a program. BUILD THE BUSINESS CASEUse insight gained in your coffee chats to complete and customize the free MovingWorlds ICV Proposal Template. Start Small While the checklist above can help you get a program off the ground, sometimes it can take a long time to pilot a new program like this. Don’t be discouraged if it takes time, and don’t be afraid to start small. Even if you can’t get a formal program off the ground, you can start by going yourself, or with a few co-workers. Here are some additional tips for how to ask your boss for time off to travel, and pay you for it. You can download a word version of this checklist here.
