Quantifying Skills-Based Volunteerism: Common Impact Launches Pro Bono Calculator
March 9, 2017 /3BL Media/ – Common Impact, a nonprofit that connects corporate employees to high-impact nonprofit organizations through skills-based volunteering engagements, launched the Pro Bono Calculator today. The Pro Bono Calculator is a tool that supports nonprofit leaders and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) professionals in quantifying the value and estimating the investment of engaging pro bono talent to address nonprofit capacity building challenges.
“Common Impact is thrilled to provide the Pro Bono Calculator to nonprofits who are considering a skills-based volunteer engagement,” stated Common Impact CEO Danielle Holly. “Our team sees the transformation skills-based and pro bono service can have on community organizations, but also sees the time investment required from nonprofits to make it truly successful for them. This tool is designed to help nonprofits – and the CSR professionals that support them -- understand what it will take to make an engagement work for them.”
In November 2016, Common Impact shared a framework for quantifying the value – the benefits and the costs – of pursuing a pro bono project in A Nonprofit Guide to Quantifying the Value of Pro Bono. Since then, Common Impact heard back from many nonprofits who loved the framework and were eager for an accompanying hands-on tool that enabled them to bring it to life for their organizations – allowing for the different structures, nuances, and quirks that make each nonprofit unique. The Pro Bono Calculator was created as an answer to that demand.
Who’s it for?
- Nonprofit executives who need to understand the value of a pro bono project
- Nonprofit Boards of Directors who are helping to guide a strategic planning process
- Corporate CSR and Foundation professionals who manage their company’s nonprofit partnerships
“There is a general lack of capacity in the nonprofit sector around project management and an understanding what it means to run a pro bono project” shared Gregg Betheil, President of PENCIL. “It is important for nonprofits to factor in the fact that pro bono isn’t entirely free, as it requires time and investment and to be strategic about where they do and don’t accept those opportunities in advance.”
Skills-based volunteerism is the fastest growing corporate engagement program [i], which has created a new level of access for nonprofits to corporate talent. Further, the early months of the country’s new administration has seen unprecedented levels of civic engagement and individuals wanting to support local nonprofits with their time and talent. Amidst this influx of support, nonprofits are struggling to determine the value of embarking on the skills-based volunteer engagements that are available to them. “The cost and benefit of skills-based volunteering can be hard to specify, but those details are necessary to understand when you’re trying to convince your staff and board that a project should be done pro bono,” Holly noted. “We’re hopeful that the Pro Bono Calculator takes nonprofits one step closer to being able to do that.”
About Common Impact
Common Impact is a nationally-recognized nonprofit that works to build a society in which individuals and businesses invest their unique talents towards a shared purpose: strengthening the local communities in which we live and work. Founded in 2000, Common Impact has partnered with Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of the country’s leading nonprofit organizations to create this transformational change through skills-based volunteering. Learn more about Common Impact’s services, impact, and clients.
Inquiries please contact Lauren Chasanoff (lchasanoff@commonimpact.org).
