Dedicate a week to children and young people with serious or chronic pathologies. Sleep and eat with them. Assisting them in doing activities they didn't think they could do. With the aim of entertaining them and helping them to increase their self-esteem, making them more independent. Is called corporate volunteering and it was the activity of Tim employees who, from 2010 to today, have volunteered at Dynamo Camp, the first Recreational Therapy camp in Italy that hosts sick children aged 6 to 17, with programs also aimed at their families.
You can see them in the video Cinzia and Riccardo, two of Tim's people who have had this experience, telling how they learned about this opportunity and how they lived it, amidst emotions, questions and discoveries. An experience that changed their way of thinking and seeing life, demonstrating that, with the will and help of others, nothing is impossible.
“At Tim – reads a note – we strongly believe in corporate volunteering which we consider essential for developing inclusion and listening skills. In the last two years they have been over 10.000 volunteer opportunities attended by Tim's people. We are talking about various projects ranging from blood donation, to distance adoptions of children, to solidarity banquets and sporting events such as Race for the Cure".
Corporate volunteering in Italy, some numbers
Corporate volunteering arrived in Italy a few years ago, first involving the branches of multinationals, then large Italian companies and finally Small and Medium Enterprises. It is a phenomenon born in the USA, later also arrived in Europe. The definition of corporate volunteering shared by the Sodalitas Foundation is this: "A project in which the company encourages, supports or organizes the active and concrete participation of its personnel in the life of the local community or in support of non-profit organizations, during of work".
But what drives companies to offer employees initiatives of this type? According to a research carried out by Sodalitas in collaboration with GfK Italia, there are two reasons for the company, one towards the outside and one towards the inside.
As far as the outside is concerned, 64% of companies want to help support projects of non-profit organizations or other organizations towards the community, 49% want to support corporate reputation while 34% intend to develop local social networks to create value.
Internally, 47% of companies aim to promote greater motivation and cohesion within them and 14% want to develop skills among employees. In Italy, 38% of these projects are managed in companies by the Corporate Social Responsibility function and 21% from Human Resources. In first place as thematic area for corporate volunteering is the environment, followed by social issues (young people, childhood, the disabled, the homeless, women, foreigners, etc.).
And the results are indeed there, according to what this research says: 60% of companies point out that employees feel more involved, 49% report improved company climate, 38% improved teamwork and 28% employee retention.
Again according to the companies that participated in this research, corporate volunteering initiatives also help improve corporate reputation (57%) and community relations (49%).
