Corporate Social Responsibility

This edition of Research-to-Practice looks at three reports that examine corporate employee volunteering. Employee volunteering is an area of considerable growth and of great interest, but how can volunteer-involving organisations and volunteers managers make the most of relations with business? The three reports reviewed here are a survey of employee volunteering from national research in the UK, a study of corporate responsibility and volunteering in 7 countries, and a research project to evaluate the employee volunteering scheme of one bank in the UK.

The emergence of employee volunteer programs has been one of the most significant developments in volunteerism in the past 20 years. In this issue of “Along the Web,” we look at 42 resources from six countries with solid information to help both businesses and charities make use of this new approach to volunteering.

The Saguaro Seminar is a program of Harvard University that builds on the work of Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone: Collapse and Revival of the American Community). One of its initial activities was to conduct this national survey of almost 30,000 people, released in February 2001. This survey is the largest investigation of civic involvement ever conducted in America. The study examines a number of areas of social capital formation, including religious engagement, political and civic participation, levels of trust, giving and volunteering, and informal socializing.

Key findings of the survey follow in this article.