HIV & AIDS Philanthropy
Employee Involvement
The energy and dedication of individual employees or groups of employees can be a powerful tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and organizations can motivate their employees to get involved in a number of ways. Some of the most common approaches that companies employ to strengthen AIDS organizations and involve the workplace in preventing HIV include:
Volunteer opportunities offer employees meaningful ways to donate their time and talent to AIDS organizations and to learn more about the impact of the virus. The types of work done by volunteers are as varied as the volunteers themselves. Organizations and corporations can encourage volunteerism through a variety of different vehicles, including:
- Allowing fliers or brochures about agencies requesting volunteers to be posted in break rooms and common areas
- Provide flexible work hours so that employees can respond to the needs of the AIDS organization requesting assistance
- Providing lunch and learn venues for organizations that would like to send ambassadors into the workplace to talk about the programs and volunteer opportunities.
- Add paid volunteer hours to your benefits package so that employees are incentivized to offer their services to AIDS organizations. Paid volunteer hours can be structured in a number of ways, offered as a monthly or yearly perquisite, and usually requiring evidence of the volunteer activity.
At AMERICAN EXPRESS, four employees chose to work with AIDS agencies under the company's paid sabbatical program. The volunteers have worked at Washington, D.C.'s Whitman-Walker Clinic, Phoenix's Shanti Project, the Bronx AIDS Resource Center, and AmFAR. Other companies provide release time so that their employees can volunteer with local charitable organizations.
- Coordinate and offer corporate volunteer activities that not only provide needed resources to organizations, but also strengthen team building skills, boost morale and strengthen the organizations brand value.
WELLS FARGO has created the "Adopt A Route" and Adopt a Shift" opportunities so that employees in California can assist with food preparation or delivery at Project Open Hand, a community based program that delivers meals to people living with HIV/AIDS.
Board Involvement can not only provide AIDS organizations with strong leadership and human resources in areas such as strategic planning; finance and accounting; human resources; marketing; communications and operations, but it can also provide leaders with insight into how deeply HIV can penetrate a community and opportunities to craft innovative responses. Numerous corporate executives sit on the boards of local and national AIDS organizations.
Loaned Executives are a powerful way for corporations to share their expertise with AIDS service organizations. The company pays the employee's salary while he or she works at the non-profit organization selected for the program. Performance goals and objectives are oftentimes mutually agreed upon by both the loaning and recipient organizations, and leaders considered for loaned executive programs usually provide specific skills needed to grow the participating non-profit organization. Many Fortune 500 companies now regularly loan executives to AIDS organizations, providing much-needed technical and fiscal assistance.
PFIZER'S former CEO Henry McKinnell initiated the Global Health Fellows program in 2002 to send skilled employees to developing countries to help nongovernmental agencies and government agencies build health and social infrastructure in communities ravaged by HIV/AIDS.
