What is Employer Supported Volunteering?

ESV consists of any form of volunteering where the volunteers employer supports the activity through providing time off, brokering opportunities, or offering financial support to the recipient of the voluntary work.

What distinguishes ESV from other forms of volunteering?

ESV is a three-way partnership between the employer, employee and the volunteer organisation (e.g. a community group, school or hospital). For each party, there are clear benefits in getting involved.

Why set up an employer supported volunteering programme?

Employers are increasingly seeking ways to address the rising expectation that business should act responsibly, and the relationship between business and the voluntary sector has moved on, from asking for and donating money, to seeing the value in forming strategic partnerships that benefit all parties involved.

In line with this, employers are seeking to ways to tie employees’ skills and time and the donation of resources such as money and gifts in kind to defined business goals and desired benefits.  By 2003, 74 FTSE 100 companies had some kind of employer supported volunteering programme (source: Business in the Community) and an estimated 1.5m people have volunteered through an employer-supported programme.

Of those employees surveyed by the 2005 Citizenship Survey, 24% worked for an employer who had a scheme for volunteering.  24% received paid time off to volunteer on the employer scheme, up to a maximum amount of time, while 17 per cent received time off in lieu and 15 per cent accounted for the time through flexitime.  28% of employees worked for an employer with a scheme for giving.