Charity WLTM Business Professional to Share Experience for Fulfilling Lasting Relationship

THE City of London Corporation's City Action, a matchmaking service for City firms and SMEs that wish to volunteer with community organisations in the City fringe boroughs, is launching an online database to set up more long term, satisfying relationships which fulfill the needs of both parties.

The website ñ www.city-action.org ñ will host a virtual matchmaking/dating site for private/third sector relationships. It will provide online opportunities for community organisations and charities to advertise and provide information on the specific skills and services which they require from corporate partners. There will also be an RSS feed function giving live updates of new volunteering opportunities ñ the very latest 'singles' on the market.

The scheme encourages City firms and SMEs to volunteer their professional expertise, skills and knowledge; example volunteering initiatives include recruitment professionals providing careers advice to students, lawyers offering legal seminars to community groups and IT experts offering basic computer training for lone parents. City Action works closely with both parties to establish long-term, structured volunteering programmes that will provide valuable, lasting benefits and meaningful, self-sufficient partnerships.

Funded by the City of London Corporation, City Action facilitates meetings between volunteering firms and their chosen community group or charity and provides guidelines relating to their volunteering activity. In such cross-sectoral projects, miscommunication and conflicting agendas or timeframes are not infrequent ñ particularly at the outset. City Action works as an intermediary liaison service. Each volunteering match is followed up with an evaluation, which is of particular use to CSR and HR departments, to look at the impact to the individual and which workplace skills were developed or put into practice during volunteering ñ and see how the relationship is progressing as a whole.

City Action has been running for 10 years since 1998 and is the only free brokerage service of its kind which, in the last year alone, has linked 45 active corporate partners with not-for-profit and community organisations, charities and schools in the seven City fringe boroughs. In the last five years, businesses have sent over 5,000 volunteers to community groups due to City Action's matchmaking abilities. Their clients include Credit Suisse, Barclays Bank plc, PRUPIM, Rothschild, Royal & SunAlliance and State Street as well as SMEs throughout the Square Mile.

Example volunteering initiatives undertaken through City Action include:

State Street professionals supporting numeracy initiatives at St Luke's Primary School in Tower Hamlets and one employee taking on the role of a School Governor.

ABN AMRO HR recruitment professionals providing employability and interview days careers advice to students from Central Foundation Girls School.

Standard Chartered Bank plc IT professionals developing and redesigning a website for Karibu Centre.

Carolyn Housman, Corporate Responsibility Manager for the City of London Corporation, says City Action has experienced an influx of interest from businesses that are increasingly keen to encourage 'directed' volunteering which utilizes the existing hard or soft skills of staff, rather than untargeted away days or team building exercises. In light of that, City Action provides tailored advice to make a good 'match' between the needs of a community organization or charity, and the skills and services available from a particular firm. As well as the social, physical and economic regeneration of local communities, companies involved have found that benefits such as the strengthening of company values, exposure to a wider business network and new, innovative product ideas offer a great return for a simple sharing of existing skills and resources.

According to a survey by City Action, volunteering is now expected of modern companies, with employee volunteering initiatives as a key way of engaging staff. The survey shows that companies are also motivated by the desire to promote their company values, raise the company profile, provide training opportunities for staff and give a good impression to both existing and potential clients. They also state that involvement with community organisations improves staff morale as well as positively contributing to recruitment intiatives.