Use your professional skills to boost the impact of volunteering
Photo by Ray Sangga Kusuma on Unsplash
On Feb. 9 I’ll speak about pro bono consulting on a panel with Ellevate Twin Cities and the Minority Business Growth Alliance. [Register for “Embracing Allyship in 2022”] My co-panelists and I will talk about why people use their professional skills in volunteer engagement, how to find and scope a great volunteer engagement, and how to show up as an ally, particularly if you are there to support a marginalized community. The panel is free to attend, though you’ll be asked to register as a “Limited” member of the Ellevate network.
My approach to volunteering and giving back has evolved over the years as I’ve sought ways to increase my impact. I’ve been volunteering with my kids’ schools, my church, and one-off events like Build A Bike and Feed My Starving Children for years. As my career evolved and the Pandemic limited access to group volunteering events, I started looking for ways to use my growing skills and increase my impact.
I was attracted to the mission of the Minority Business Growth Alliance before it even had a name – when Mary Rapaport invited her LinkedIn network to help support minority business owners in our community. It was shortly after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, and much of our community was on fire – literally and figuratively. My friends and relatives had gone to Lake Street to help shovel debris, and we organized food drives for residents whose access to groceries had been cut off. But once that work was done, I wasn’t sure how to help.
Mary’s original idea was to help the businesses directly affected. The organization and its mission grew bigger than offering acute care, though. Mary and her leadership team developed a model to offer sustained pro bono consulting to minority business owners, to help them grow and find access to strategic advisors and tactical support that could help them grow revenue and connect with investors.
It’s the kind of help I got from my network when I started my consulting business – the kind of help I had access to because my friends were lawyers and finance pros and marketers and user experience experts and consultants.
Donating time to for-profit businesses
I had donated a lot of time to my kids’ schools and other nonprofit organizations over the years, but through MBGA, volunteers were giving time to for-profit businesses. It wasn’t charity and it wasn’t obviously community service.
The client I worked with has a barbershop and skin care product line. That’s how he pays his bills. But he spends a considerable amount of time organizing his community and connecting neighbors with city officials. He does work I’m not suited or positioned to do. I saw my work with him as an opportunity to support a community leader – to help make his revenue a little easier to come by and free up time and energy for rest and his own community service.
Mary Armstrong, an instructional designer and my colleague on MBGA’s communications committee, is even more intentional in connecting her work to racial justice. “This country needs to make serious investments and reparations in communities that have suffered economic damage over generations. I am not holding my breath on reparations given the state of the nation, so I consider volunteering for MBGA as my own personal reparations effort – to try in some small way to use my writing/editing/instructional design skills to benefit business owners who are people of color.”
Account management leader Dede Ciprari serves as a business champion for MBGA. She says, “Small business is the backbone of America, yet I'm shocked at how little support these businesses receive, and how hard it is for them to survive and thrive. If I can play some small part in making that happen, I'm going to do what I can to help.”
Extending professional skills to organizations you believe in
A lot of skills-based volunteers I know are grateful for opportunities to use their professional skills to make things easier for organizations they believe in – whether they are for- or nonprofit. Han Pham, an operations director, notes that “The things that I’ve been doing all my career and seem easy to me, can actually quite difficult things for many of these non-profits. Where a task might take them days to complete, I can do in a few hours. That right there appeals to the efficiency part of my brain. But the bigger thing is that when you know that the work that you’re doing is contributing to tangible help for a good cause, then you may find that the work is actually enjoyable. Volunteer work doesn’t feel like ‘work’ to me.”
Agency owner Benjamin Warsinske has donated his time to other business owners over the past few years. “Sharing my experiences and helping others avoid some of the mistakes I've made just feels like the right thing to do, especially helping other young entrepreneurs as they build their business. Seeing them succeed, learn new skills, and reach their goals is a great feeling and knowing that I am having a positive impact on the community - that's a pretty amazing feeling, too!”
Medical Device marketer Stacy Eichenlaub says that a good day includes doing what she can to help others succeed. “That feeling occurs at my day job...but being able to provide those same skills/insights to a non-profit or company that may not have otherwise had access is especially rewarding if I believe in the mission. It is the culmination of these small 'assists' from different experts that could lead to long term success.”
I especially appreciate Stacy’s acknowledgment that the assists are often small. Pro bono clients are in the driver’s seat, and we are helpful only when we remember that they’re the hero of the story.
Called to serve
A lot of people noted that they feel called or even obligated to spend some of their time volunteering. B2B marketing leader Lydia Flocchini says she has a deep commitment to service and being able to share her talents and gifts to help others. “If I can help a charity or non-profit by leveraging my sales and marketing expertise, then I'm all in. I love when I can help with fundraising efforts to advance the mission and to help volunteer efforts be more efficient through tech.”
Nonprofit leader and retired corporate CIO Lisa Schlosser echoes that sentiment: “Giving back has always had a personal aspect for me. I have time, talents, and treasures to share and feel it’s my obligation to do so. I choose causes that are meaningful to me. As a woman in tech, a group that is underrepresented, I feel strongly that girls/women have the right to experience tech. Whether they choose that path or not, having the opportunity to try is what matters.”
People using their professional skills for social justice initiatives feel this calling acutely. Wisconsin based counselor and coach Maria Shea is using her communication skills to bring awareness to the sacred and stolen land at the confluence of the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. And in Virginia, Attorney Erin Austin has been doing voter protection work for more than 20 years. She says it’s “Exhausting but super important.”
Personal development and fulfillment
Law firm social media consultant Sameena Kluck says she donates her social media and personal branding skills to a few organizations she believes in. “My social media work can ensure more folks hear about the great work they're doing. For 3 years I wrote and managed all the grants for my kids' school. It was a lot of work but I could see the impact I could bring. And it helps me hone my skills and network too, but that's a side benefit, not the point.”
Schlosser, too, has noted that she benefits from her pro bono work: “From skills I’ve been able to develop (finance, marketing, and sales are outside my normal comfort zone), to things others have taught me, to that awesome feeling that happens when you can remove hurdles to allow others to succeed. Giving back is never one-way.”
Many, many others have noted that the emotional payoff of working with a nonprofit or small business owner is far greater than that of working in a large corporation. Seeing results and feeling impact is a rush that’s missing for people caught in the grind of a matrixed enterprise.
I so appreciate the wide range of perspective my network shared for this article. So much of what they said resonates with me – wanting to make an impact, wanting to give real time and effort to some element of racial justice, wanting to answer the spiritual call that asks us to do all the good that we can for all the people we can for as long as we can.
There are boundaries, of course. I recently toyed with joining a nonprofit board -but then I looked at my list of projects and realized that I have only seven more years with kids in the house. I trust that the other work will be there for me when I have time to do more.
Register for Embracing Allyship in 2022: An Online Panel Event, happening Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. Registration is free, though you’ll be asked to sign up for a “Limited Membership.”
Learn more about the Minority Business Growth Alliance. Here’s another great organization to connect with for skills-based volunteering: Hands on Twin Cities.