Reflections on how corporate volunteering grew up
By Dewi Thomas, CEO, Employee Volunteering
When I founded Employee Volunteering in 2006, corporate volunteering wasn’t yet something businesses thought about in structured or strategic terms. Sure, some companies supported charities and often employees volunteered, but there was no established approach to bringing those efforts together in a way that delivered lasting impact.
Looking back, I can see that we were at the very beginning of something. At the time, though, it didn’t feel like pioneering a genre, it felt like solving a practical problem:
- Communities were facing growing and often complex need
- Employees were open to contributing beyond their day jobs
- Businesses increasingly wanted, and were expected, to play a constructive role in society
What was missing was not goodwill, but a reliable way to connect those forces so that support genuinely strengthened charities rather than adding pressure.
Employee Volunteering was created to build that structure. Over the past twenty years, I’ve had the privilege of watching corporate volunteering move from informal activity to an increasingly thoughtful and embedded part of modern business life.
This isn’t a history lesson, it’s a reflection on what that journey has taught me, and what I believe still matters most.
The early realisation: goodwill does not scale
My understanding of volunteering did not start in a boardroom. It began years earlier, working with the UK Sailing Academy to restore Gypsy Moth IV and later helping to organise a global voyage for disadvantaged young people.
Those experiences were formative, not because they were dramatic, but because they showed something very practical: when collective effort is organised with care, it becomes powerful. But when it isn’t, even the best intentions can drift.
That insight stayed with me when I turned my attention to business. I could see enormous goodwill on all sides, but what was lacking at the time was structure:
- Clear intention, design and coordination
- Safeguarding and risk awareness
- Long-term continuity rather than one-off activity
Too often, volunteering depended on enthusiastic individuals driving it forward in spare moments. That made it fragile, inconsistent and difficult to sustain across larger organisations.
Creating Employee Volunteering was about introducing thoughtfulness and stability into that space, bringing professional standards, partnership and continuity to something that had largely been informal. In doing so, we helped shape what is now widely recognised as organised corporate volunteering.
What volunteering reveals about people at work
Long before engagement surveys and purpose statements became standard, volunteering showed me something important about people in organisations.
When hierarchy softens and titles matter less, different qualities surface. People collaborate more freely, leadership emerges from instinct rather than position, and generosity becomes visible.
Over the years, we have seen this across sectors and seniority levels. Employees who rarely interact in normal working life find themselves solving problems side by side. Managers see new dimensions of their teams. Senior leaders witness how culture actually plays out when KPIs are removed from the equation.
Research from Gallup and Deloitte reinforces what we observed early on: meaning and connection are strongly linked to engagement and retention. Volunteering often provides a setting where that meaning feels tangible and shared.
For businesses this has been instructive. Volunteering has acted as a lens, sometimes even a mirror, reflecting strengths, blind spots and untapped leadership capacity.
How corporate volunteering matured
The development of corporate volunteering has not been marked by dramatic turning points. Instead, it has evolved steadily and, in many ways, quietly:
- From informal activity to intentional programmes
- From one-off days to sustained engagement
- From counting participation to focusing on outcomes
- From transactional charity contact to long-term partnership
Bodies such as the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) and NCVO have highlighted that while many businesses support charities, those that commit over time, refining and deepening their approach, tend to deliver more meaningful impact.
As programmes expanded, the expectations around safeguarding, inclusion and reputational responsibility rightly increased. Approaches that worked for small groups did not always translate to larger, dispersed workforces.
That is when expertise became essential. Businesses began to look for trusted partners who could:
- Design volunteering thoughtfully rather than generically
- Facilitate safe, inclusive experiences
- Anticipate risk rather than react to it
- Support continuity year after year
The shift from coordination to partnership was subtle but significant, and it marked a new phase of maturity for the discipline.
Growing alongside modern business
Corporate volunteering did not grow in isolation but developed alongside broader changes in how businesses understand their role in society.
Over the past two decades, we have seen increasing emphasis on:
- Employee wellbeing and belonging
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- ESG accountability
- Social value in procurement and regulation
As these priorities became more prominent, volunteering moved from the margins toward the centre. It offered a practical way for organisations to live their values rather than simply articulate them.
Employees increasingly expect to work for businesses that contribute positively to society. Investors and clients look for credible evidence of impact. Communities want partnership rather than publicity.
Volunteering became one of the clearest bridges between purpose and practice.
Innovation driven by need, not fashion
Innovation in employee volunteering has rarely come from chasing trends, but has emerged from responding to real pressures.
During COVID-19, in-person volunteering paused almost overnight just as community needs intensified. Charities faced rising demand and reduced income. Businesses wanted to help, but traditional models no longer worked.
Remote and skills-based volunteering quickly became central. Geography mattered less, and digital collaboration accelerated. At the same time, coordination across large organisations became more complex.
It was in that context that we developed our specialist Volunteering Hub technology. The goal was not to digitise for the sake of it, but to reduce friction, making opportunities more accessible, programmes simpler to oversee and impact clearer to understand. Just as importantly, it reduced the administrative burden on charities already operating under strain.
Today, volunteers increasingly support charities with digital capability, systems improvement and responsible AI readiness. These developments are not abstract innovations; they are responses to practical challenges facing the voluntary sector.
The lesson remains consistent: meaningful innovation begins with listening.
What time has reinforced
Over twenty years, many things have evolved – scale, technology, governance, expectations. But some of the most important lessons have remained remarkably consistent.
Impact takes patience. Trust builds gradually. And the programmes that endure are those treated as long-term commitments rather than annual campaigns or calendar events.
The businesses that see the greatest benefit from volunteering tend to ask themselves two simple but searching questions:
- What is our volunteering objective?
- Where are we prepared to contribute consistently over time?
When those questions are taken seriously, volunteering moves beyond activity and becomes part of how a business expresses its values in practice. It shapes culture, influences leadership and strengthens relationships with community partners over time.
Where those questions are avoided, volunteering can drift, well intentioned, but disconnected.
In my experience, the difference is rarely about scale, it’s about clarity and consistency.
From participation to contribution
Corporate volunteering is now well established. It appears in ESG reporting, features in board-level conversations and forms part of how organisations demonstrate social value. That in itself represents real progress.
What feels more interesting to me, though, is the shift in emphasis I’m beginning to see.
In the early years, the focus was understandably on participation – encouraging people to get involved, building momentum and proving that structured volunteering could work at scale. That was necessary at the time.
Now the conversation is becoming more considered. The question is no longer simply how many people can take part, but where an organisation can make a steady and meaningful contribution over time.
A personal note
When I look back over the past twenty years, I feel proud. Not because we were early, but because we helped shape something that has strengthened the relationship between business and society.
Employee supported volunteering has grown through collaboration – clients who committed seriously, charity partners who trusted us, and employees who gave their time and skills with real care.
Employee Volunteering began at a point when the idea of structured corporate volunteering was still emerging. It has matured alongside the organisations we work with. If we have played a pioneering role, it has been by staying close to the practical realities of communities and businesses, and by raising standards steadily rather than loudly.
The next twenty years will require the same mindset: thoughtful design, long-term partnership and a willingness to contribute consistently.
That, to me, remains the heart of employee volunteering.
If you’re reviewing your corporate volunteering approach or thinking about what the next stage could look like, we’d love to explore how Employee Volunteering can support you.
