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Responses to: Raising Money through Volunteer Labor

Submitted on 24June2003 by Chip Madsen, Associate Director, New Jersey
I partnered with Borders Books on what they call "Benefits Days" where we distributed coupons to our volunteers and any book purchase they made on a specific day generated a percentage of the cost of the book (not the profit! - the whole book!!) to my program. Together we raised about $2,000 for the Newark Reading Is Fundamental program of Protestant Community Centers, Inc and Borders had a spike in their sales on an otherwise slow day, a true win/win.

Submitted on 4June2003 by Valerie Sen, Program Director, Volunteer Center of Battle Creek, Michigan USA
My concern about raising money through volunteer labor is: Does the nonprofit fully know who they are partnering with? For example, what if an anti-racism agency partnered with a company on a fundraiser and after the fact the agency finds out that the company had a history of supporting apartheid in the 80's and 90's. How would that make the volunteers involved feel? Should the agency return the money based on principles? What if the press gets a hold of this? It could definitely do damage to the image of the nonprofit. Large corporations have "fingers" in so many different areas, that it is often an arduous tasks to discover who they represent. Where do agencies draw the line in researching which companies are ethical enough to partner with?

Submitted on 2003Jun4 by anonymous, Volunteer Coordinator, Alberta, Canada
Sometimes I worry about corporations riding on the good name of an organization and wonder about the ethics of using "free help" for sales promotions. Volunteers generally don't question our ask for help and yet it's crucial we never break their trust.

Clear agreement by both the fundraiser and the host corporation is essential. We agreed to "partner" with a national store that holds local charitable campaigns. I nearly lost a volunteer on our first day with that business due to a change of task. We walked in with the understanding that we were to be available to describe who we are as an organization but when we arrived, we were asked to basically accost customers for donations!

We also were asked to serve hot dogs at a business with a marvelous reputation but located in a neighborhood ravaged by poverty and homelessness. The business advertised free food but invited us to serve and receive donations. As the event unfolded, volunteers were asked to limit customers to one hot dog each. Some people brought in the ad that clearly said "FREE hot dogs"--it is so important that neither the corporation nor the organization appear to be misrepresenting themselves.

Last summer, we did an event that turned out to be a fantastic volunteer social but rather disastrous as a fundraiser. I had a sense from other organizations involved they felt the business that ran that event basically looked for free help. They had a number of repeat concessions so it was the "luck of the draw" depending on where your concession stand was located.

I'm interested to see other responses! Thank you for addressing this issue!

(I appreciate this response being posted anonymously please--this topic is just cooling off as a hot topic in our office! :) Thanks!)

Submitted on 2003Jun1 by Cara Blank, Director of Online Publications, Energize
Every holiday season at the Barnes & Noble where I worked, several nonprofits would come and gift wrap books for customers and ask for a donation. B&N supplied all the tools: gift wrap, tape, scissors, decorated table, donation jar. Several years the Humane Society made over $400.00. Technically, if the volunteers didn't want to do this, B&N employees would have to do the gift wrapping, although the company, in that case, probably would not encourage customers to get their books gift wrapped.

I remember a lot of smiles at this time. B&N employees really liked stopping and visiting the volunteers and seeing how much money they earned so far, and the volunteers were always so energetic (minus a few teenagers occasionally). Also, I think B&N employees felt good about something that was happening for a nonprofit, rather than just focusing on corporate sales during the holiday season. This seemed to brighten the situation of having to work for a capitalistic giant who turns a festive season into a sales war.

This seemed to be a win-win situation. However, from a theoretical perspective, I can't help but wonder if the corporation was truly interested in serving nonprofits or hiring 2 less sales people for each its 600 stores.

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