Lin Series: Volunteerism – A Comparative Perspective

Guest Blogger credit to LIN Center for Community Development: Info@LINvn.org

[INTRODUCTION: In April, LIN’s Community Liaison, Mr. Pham Truong Son, joined a three-week study tour in the U.S., which was designed to examine the impact of volunteerism on the volunteers themselves and on the communities they serve. “Volunteerism: United We Serve,” part of the U.S. Government’s International Visitors Leadership Program, brought together 102 participants, from around the world, to meet and engage with their professional counterparts. What follows are Son’s thoughts and impressions after returning to Vietnam.]

Over the years, I observed many youth from America and other Western countries coming to Vietnam to volunteer. Some volunteered to take care of children or teach English; some helped not profit organizations with office administration or event logistics; and some participated in trips to rural areas to provide health care or build houses for the poor… When I heard about these volunteers, I often wondered: Why do they do it? What encourages them to participate like this?

During my time in the U.S., it became clear that the U.S. Government and many U.S. Presidents play a key role in motivating and appealing to citizens to support their communities and society. This high level call for engagement in volunteerism is further facilitated by U.S. not-for-profit organizations, which provide opportunities for all types of people to volunteer from young children and businesspeople to the elderly and underemployed.

After visiting volunteer host organizations in the US, I saw that they have good volunteer management systems. The advantages, they tell us is that these systems help with management of volunteers but they also help with reporting outcomes as well as fundraising for the organization. I know that this practice is still new in Vietnam – many Vietnamese NPOs, groups and clubs have not yet professionalized their volunteer engagement though many are getting better and better each year.

Pro Bono Volunteerism

Before I joined LIN, I did not know about pro bono volunteerism. It is a new concept in Vietnam as it is in many Asian countries. After joining the team at LIN Center last year, I gradually began to understand the importance and potential benefits that skilled volunteers can offer to not-for-profit organizations in Vietnam. My three-week exchange program on volunteerism in the U.S., helped to build and reinforce my understanding as well as give me an opportunity to learn about the tools and best practices that are used by U.S not-for-profit organizations to employ these volunteers to benefit their communities.

In the United States, effective not-for-profit organizations (NPO) have found ways to promote volunteerism among the local business community. Volunteering has provided an opportunity for employee team building and socializing outside the workplace. It also provides companies with an opportunity for employees to build skill sets and improve their image within the community. Perhaps because of the growing importance of CSR among US consumers and companies, there has been an upsurge in the number of individuals and corporate volunteer programs that serve not-for-profit organizations in the US.

Despite this growth, I was interested to learn that matching and managing skilled volunteers has proven to be a challenging job. My counterparts in the US explained that it requires patience and innovation in order to improve awareness and promote good practices by the stakeholders involved, which includes corporations, professionals and NPOs.

On the business side, there is work to be done to ensure that businesspeople, Directors and/or Human Resource Officers understand the goals, objectives, and responsibilities that are involved in encouraging and engaging employees to support the community through the provision of professional services to NPOs. On the NPO side, there needs to be clear communication before engaging a pro bono volunteer and mutual understanding about the services that will be provided (and those that will not) with a vision towards how this work will support the mission of the organization.

In the U.S. there are several intermediary organizations that facilitate the process of matching skilled volunteers to NPOs. These organizations create opportunities for both parties to meet, exchange information and form relationships. Organizations like Taproot Foundation, Points of Light Foundation are just two examples. We learned that companies like Deloitte and Baker Hughes Corporation have partnered with intermediary organizations to help connect their employees to community service opportunities.

Lessons Learned

I could see that there is a strong system to promote and facilitate volunteerism in U.S. communities. Government, not-for-profits, businesses and schools, all work together to promote and engage people in volunteer programs. Like in the US, volunteer programs in Vietnam help government and not-for-profit organizations to raise awareness about community challenges and to attract much needed human resource support and skills necessary to implement programs that address these challenges. They also help people that want to volunteer to find meaningful ways to support their communities.

Although there did not seem to be many organizations in the US that introduce skilled volunteers to NPOs, those organizations that are providing this service are very professional. They help enterprises identify skilled volunteer opportunities for their employees while they work with local NPOs to help them identify skilled volunteers to support their organizations.

As I was meeting with these intermediary organizations in the US, I was thinking about how I could apply some of their best practices to my work with the LIN Center and what advice I could share with our partner organizations who work with skilled volunteers. For example, I thought about the following opportunities:

• Attract companies and professionals to the idea of skilled volunteerism by providing examples of successful volunteer – NPO matches.
• Inform and introduce companies to the roles, responsibilities and benefits of facilitating and enabling employees to volunteer with local NPOs. Show examples of how corporate volunteer programs have helped to empower staff, build professional or life skills and/or strengthen the community.
• Help organizations think about ways to show their appreciation to volunteers (i.e., effective use of volunteer time, T-shirts or badges; volunteer certificates)
• Identify companies that might be interested and most suited to this type of volunteerism. Companies that provide consulting services (e.g., law, accounting, advertising, education) are often more interested in skilled volunteer programs compared with other businesses.
• Raise awareness about the potential benefits of corporate volunteer and pro bono volunteer programs. (For example, many companies feel that such programs are part and parcel of their corporate social responsibility programs. Other companies say that these programs help to empower employees, promote leadership skills and ensure balance between work and life for their employees. Not to mention the important impact skilled volunteers can have in improving NPOs impact among the communities in which they work.)

In Vietnam, I think it is compelling to offer a service that matches individuals with knowledge, skills and experience to local NPOs to support the organization and strengthen the capacity of the team. Especially now, with many NPOs facing limited budgets and a shortage of trained staff (two important challenges that seem to constantly reinforce one another.), NPOs need to find a way out of this cycle and pro bono volunteers might very well offer such opportunity. They can help organizations to become more efficient, for example, by training up and retaining staff members.

Among the business sector in Vietnam, volunteer activities and corporate social responsibility is still a rather vague concept. Even among foreign businesses that have formal CSR programs, lower and mid-level staff may not receive briefings on the company’s perspective on CSR and relevant programs. Therefore, information and awareness raising on this topic will be necessary for the time being in order to get more individuals and organizations to participate.

In HCMC, the LIN Center for Community Development is working to introduce this concept of skilled volunteers to businesses and NPOs alike. We are working to provide information that will help to promote mutually beneficial relationships between the business sector and local not-for-profit organizations. Our goal is to offer more opportunities for individuals that want to contribute their skills and experiences and for companies that want to enhance their role in the community by making a difference for their employees, for the people in the community and for Vietnamese society, as a whole.

To hear more about Son’s experiences and lessons learned, please visit LIN’s page on Facebook at: www.Facebook.com/LINCenter, where you can freely share your thoughts, comparisons and other comments.