Business Support for Employee Volunteers in Canada is a toolkit that nonprofit organizations can use to present a workshop that informs and encourages partnerships between local businesses and nonprofits.

Workshop participants will learn about the ways in which businesses in Canada accommodate and encourage employee volunteering and how encouraging employees to volunteer can benefit businesses, employees, and the community. Participants are encouraged to consider strategies for new and more effective partnerships between businesses and nonprofits in their community.

The Business Support for Employee Volunteers workshop toolkit offers a full range of workshop materials for your organization to conduct a workshop on this topic.

In this toolkit you will find:

Practical tips to help you prepare for your workshop:

• Suggestions for planning and hosting a workshop

Templates of flyers you can use to promote the workshop:

• Promotional Flyer for business
• Promotional Flyer for nonprofits

Materials to organize and deliver the workshop content:

• Workshop agenda
• Introduction video
• Presentation

Ideas to organize and facilitate group work:

• Group activity #1
• Group activity #2

A report and three fact sheets that present the survey results:

• Business Support for Employee Volunteers in Canada: Results of a National Survey
• Employee Volunteerism: What Supports Do Companies Provide?
• Employee Volunteerism: Benefits and Challenges for Businesses
• The Impact of Company Support on Employee Volunteering

A workshop evaluation form:

• Workshop evaluation form

Other resources about employer-supported volunteering published by the Knowledge Development Centre at Imagine Canada:

• Community & Corporate Perspectives on Corporate Volunteer Programs: A Win-Win Approach to Community Betterment
• Corporate Volunteer Programs: Boosting Employee Participation
• Corporate Volunteer Programs: Maximizing Employee Motivation and Minimizing Barriers to Program Participation
• Intra-Organizational Volunteerism: A Manual for Creating Internal Marketing Programs to Recruit Employee Volunteers
• Knowledge Development Centre Bulletin on Employer Supported Volunteerism

Other resources from the Canada Volunteerism Initiative on conducting a workshop:

• Resources to increase and support volunteers
• How to organize training sessions for harbour authorities and other community-based management organizations : a manual

Background: Researchers from Imagine Canada and the University of Lethbridge conducted a national survey in the fall of 2005 to understand the extent and nature of business support for employee volunteering. The research findings were presented at three workshops in Ontario and Alberta in the fall of 2006.

The purpose of these workshops was to present the survey results to representatives of local businesses and nonprofit organizations and to provide them with an opportunity to network and discuss their needs and expectations with regard to employer-supported volunteering.