Call to Volunteerism Drawing Support in Corporate World
Perhaps you are one of the many Americans inspired by the recent conference on volunteerism but already too overwhelmed with job and family responsibilities to figure out how and where to make yet another commitment.
Well, if you worked for Tootsietoy Co. in Chicago, which manufactures certain Sesame Street and other brands of toys, you could use some of your vacation days to work for a charitable organization where you have your holiday--and the company would reimburse you with additional time off.
Or, if you were an employee of the Walt Disney Co.--or worked at any of its Disney Stores nationwide--you could become a “VoluntEAR” and spend some time working with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Or, if you worked at IBM Corp., you could join the company’s “technology corps” and offer your expertise to nonprofit organizations.
In response to the recent call to action by President Clinton and retired Gen. Colin L. Powell at a volunteerism conference in Philadelphia, corporations have been lining up to pledge community service hours, expertise and money--as well as create ways to encourage their employees to get involved.
The three-day volunteerism meeting, held in late April and chaired by Powell, brought together corporate participants and grass-roots activists in an effort to identify avenues to enable more Americans to volunteer, especially in ways to help the millions of the nation’s at-risk youth.
Early signs show a strong response to the call--an estimated five dozen companies, academic institutions and other organizations have made commitments.
For example, Bell Atlantic Corp. and its counterpart in the New York area, Nynex Corp., have earmarked $50 million to create programs to establish “safe havens” for children after school. “This program grows out of an idea we have been studying for the past 18 months,” said Raymond Smith, chairman of Bell Atlantic. “We want to make sure that good things happen to our children when they aren’t in school, and when they’re not at home.”
Pfizer Inc., which develops and manufactures pharmaceutical drugs, has pledged $5 million to help promote children’s health. The Taco Bell Foundation will seek to place 30% more at-risk teens into their so-called safe haven TEENSupreme Centers.
The new Tootsietoy volunteer program will set up a network of charitable organizations in different cities and will encourage the company’s 585 employees to donate time to these groups if they vacation in the vicinity. And the encouragement comes in the form of a direct benefit.
Rick Mazursky, a spokesman for the company, said: “Suppose somebody wanted to work in a soup kitchen, for example. For every day they do volunteer work on their vacation, we would reimburse them an extra day of vacation.”
Disney has promised that its employees will deliver 1 million hours of volunteer service through the year 2000. Their projects include working in children’s hospitals, mentoring high school students, supporting safe houses for battered women, working with the Special Olympics and helping with environmental projects.
Disney’s biggest commitment will be to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, with at least 75,000 hours devoted to this organization, mostly by employees of The Disney Store, which has locations nationwide. The 425 stores and 14,500 employees will be matched with local Boys & Girls Clubs in 200 cities in the United States and Canada.
“It is our intent to touch the young and those in need with the Disney magic, and make a positive impact on their lives,” said Disney Chairman Michael Eisner.
While specialists in domestic policy agree that the goals established by the Philadelphia conference are laudable and the initial response well-meaning and valuable, many continue to argue that the nation’s problems are far too daunting to be easily solved by volunteerism alone. It should not be a substitute for continued and substantial involvement by the public sector, they say.
“Private volunteers can supplement, but not substitute for, the education system, for example,” said Mark Greenberg, senior attorney with the Washington-based Center for Law in Social Policy. “We may want to have volunteers helping third-graders learn how to read--but there’s still a need for third grade. Counseling services, mentors, developing networks--none of this goes to the basic questions of food, shelter, medical care and the costs of subsistence. I think what has gotten lost here is the question, to what extent any of this can substitute for the role government plays.”
Margaret Weir, a senior fellow in urban politics and policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, agrees. Creating workplace incentives to encourage employee volunteerism is “a nice idea, but I’m not sure that the benefits are enough,” she said.
“I’d put my priorities in health care and jobs,” she added. “Some amount of many of these problems in unstable neighborhoods would take care of themselves if people had jobs and health care.”
Nevertheless, Thomas M. McKenna, national executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the oldest mentoring program in the nation, said the volunteerism conference “has become a very important organizing tool for us to grow our program.”
As a result, the organization’s 510 affiliates across the country have pledged to double their caseload by the year 2000, meaning the addition of 100,000 more young people to the mentoring program, he said.
He added that the new interest corporations have shown will make meeting that goal easier by cutting down on the current one-to-one screening of mentors.
It is more efficient and less expensive “if we can go in and make a pitch to 60 employees of a company at one time, and then begin to do the screening,” he said. “When it’s site-based, it’s more structured and you’re reaching more people at one time.”
