Volunteers Wanted

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Volunteer Week, the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s (IICF) event, will be held October 15-22, 2011 in the New York tri-state area and New England. During the eight-day industry-wide event, teams of insurance volunteers will fan out into local communities to donate three or more hours at neighborhood and community nonprofit organizations.

Volunteer Week, begun by the IICF’s West Coast region in 1997, has contributed more than 140,000 hours of volunteer service to local communities across the country. More than 2,000 participants were active in the tri-state area during Volunteer Week 2010, volunteering more than 13,000 hours in nearly 200 different projects.

Betsy Myatt, executive director of IICF’s New York/Northeast division, said organizers expected about 1,000 volunteers in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area last year, but ended up with double that number.

IICF makes volunteering simpler by making initial contacts with the charities, so volunteers and their team leaders can make the most of the time spent hands-on working. Teams can choose the projects they are interested in from a menu of projects including disaster preparedness, education, the environment, housing, senior issues, women’s issues, and youth and children.

David Brinkman, chair of the IICF New York Division and executive managing director of Aon Benfield, said charitable organizations welcome the event. ‘Volunteer Week works for charities, which receive the benefits of hard work, and often find new long-term volunteers and donors,” Brinkman said. “Meanwhile, volunteers get a new way to give back in their local areas, while employers tell us that volunteerism encourages teamwork and builds morale.’

All insurance employers are welcome to participate, including those with only one or two volunteers to offer. According to IICF’s Myatt, the first steps in volunteerism are to create a leadership team, invite employees to volunteer, and choose a cause or project. She offers a few additional tips for leadership teams:

Get the word out: Tell employees through official and word-of-mouth channels that the company is getting together a Volunteer Week effort.

Invite participation from across the spectrum of your organization. Suggest that leaders in the office participate as a way to demonstrate commitment to the effort.

See if you can find a cause that allows people to contribute monetarily, contribute time, or donate material goods. This can get more people involved, in ways they find comfortable for them.

Try to support causes in communities where employees reside (and not necessarily where the office is located).

For more information, and to register, visit the IICF web site at www.iicf.org. There is still time to participate. But don’t delay — local nonprofits are waiting for you.

Topics New York

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