A Whole Lot of Good: Making the Case for More Pro Bono and Skills-Based Volunteering in the Workplace
A Whole Lot of Good: Making the Case for More Pro Bono and Skills-Based Volunte…
Originally published on HuffPost
Let’s get real: It’s fairly easy for us to pull up to our desks each morning, put our heads down, and not look up till it’s time to go home in the evening. After all, in our rapidly-changing, quickly-moving, information-overloading world, there’s a lot of work to get done.
But what if that wasn’t the scenario playing out in offices across the globe? What if, instead, it was a “yes, and” scenario, whereby employees focused on their work, yes, and focused on using their skills and expertise to drive change? Just imagine the ripple effects – think of the impact on the employees, the company, and our global society.
Recently, four of my PIMCO colleagues spent one month in Accra, Ghana, as part of the Global Health Corporate Champions (GHCC), an activity of USAID’s Global Health Fellows Program II, implemented by the Public Health Institute and executed by PYXERA Global. GHCC, a multi-company, multi-disciplinary cohort, provides strategic and consultative support to improve the effectiveness of local organizations intent on health system strengthening.
Even more recently, we implemented MicroMentor at PIMCO, and just a few weeks ago, in tandem with Taproot Foundation, we re-launched our PIMCO Pro Bono Corps, a program through which my colleagues build capacity at partner nonprofits in Orange County, CA and New York Metro.
From immersive to ongoing to deep-dive, our firm derives great value from these pro bono and skills-based programs. We offer these programs (and more) to our employees for three big, beautiful reasons.
