The Importance of Give Day

Next week we have our bi-annual “Give Day” coming up. Many companies, both large and small, organize days of service throughout the year to give back to the local community, but the question of whether or not one day of volunteering actually makes a difference often surfaces. The answer to that question varies by who is responding to it. If you ask me, company led days of service are very important for several reasons.

There are some volunteer opportunities that a day of labor is very beneficial for the organization. During our upcoming Give Day, we will be sending a team to paint the interior of the new transitional housing building at Hamilton Family Center. A volunteer shift like this can do a couple different things, it can frees up staff to concentrate on tasks that are directly related to their clients, or it can save the organization money by not having to hire painters.

So, where does long term impact come in to play with a single day of volunteering? It is a direct line for employees to branch out and explore an organization that they may not have gone to had there been the absence of facilitation. At least that is the reality we have seen here at Yammer. What started as one day with the De Marillac Academy, a non-profit private school for under-served youth, turned into 12 ten week classes over 5 quarters and the creation of an abundance of relationships between Yammer employees and Tenderloin kids.

Days of service exist in part to spread awareness. Although it can’t be expected that every employee who volunteers is going to want to go back every week, the few individuals that do fall in love with an organization and the people they serve are the ones that become repeat volunteers. They create long term relationships with the organizations and introduce their friends and families to the cause. No one person or one company can change the world in a day, but rather it is the baby steps of bridging the gap and creating relationships that start to make the long term difference.