Corporate Forum paper by Gwen van Roekel for the 20th IAVE World Volunteer Conference Panama 2008

Name: Gwen van Roekel

Position and Title: Senior Advisor, Community Affairs

Organization: Univé Insurance Company

Address: Hanzeplein 1, Postbus 607, 8000 AP Zwolle, The Netherlands

E-mail: g.vanroekel@unive.nl, gwenvanroekel@gmail.com

Phone : +31 30 23 00573   (no fax)

Current membership status: individual membership

Forum topic category: Corporate Volunteering

Profile of person submitting the forum proposal: Gwen van Roekel holds a  Master of Arts degree in Speech Communication and works on multi-party collaboration projects between private companies, NGO’s, volunteer and governmental agencies. Her work focuses on sustainable development and volunteerism, specifically on the areas of environment and social development. She has worked on these issues in several countries in Africa, Europe, North and Central America, both as a volunteer and as a project manager.

Presentation Title: Multi-party collaboration to increase solidarity between employee volunteers and community/NGO agencies.

Abstract:
The focus of this forum is on how corporate (employee) volunteers and agencies from the social sector are learning to collaborate with each other and how this is leading to more solidarity and synergy in order to face major social and environmental issues of our time. The conventional philanthropic approach to supporting community projects and agencies with financial donations from private companies is sometimes being replaced by using company employees as volunteers. While not a new topic by any means, this type of support/collaboration is taking place in many countries worldwide and it requires a different approach from all engaged parties. Can community, volunteer and NGO organizations effectively use marketing, communication, financial, management, and computer technology expertise from (corporate) employee volunteers or would financial support be more effective? Why are certain companies shifting their resources from cash support to the donation of the time and expertise of their employees? What can community/volunteer organisations offer companies as part of the collaboration? How does the company benefit and how is it different from how companies benefited before under the philanthropic model? Which companies match which NGO’s or community agencies and vice versa? How does this selection process work? How does the collaboration between sectors specifically lead to more solidarity? Are there pitfalls to collaboration between sectors? In this forum, the presenter will address the questions above (via slide presentation) and present recent examples (positive and negative) of collaboration between (company) employee volunteers and community agencies from Africa and Europe. Efforts to create more synergy between sectors, more volunteer work and more infrastructure to support increased volunteerism will also be addressed. Sufficient time will be reserved to discuss the issues presented, illicit audience reactions and share related experiences on this topic.