Is Corporate Skilled Volunteering right for my company? How our corporate partners have made skills-based volunteering work

Link UP's Head of Corporate Partnerships shares how companies have incorporated our skills-based volunteering as part of their volunteer offering to employees

Jun 2025

One of the questions I’m often asked when speaking to a new potential corporate partner about our skills-based volunteering programme for companies, Social Impact Solutions is: is this right for our company? It’s a fair question, as I’ve seen first-hand that companies are at vastly different phases in their journey with employee volunteering.  Many have taken the step to offer volunteering days but are struggling with uptake.  Others are looking to expand beyond traditional, frontline volunteering with skills-based offerings.  Others are trying to move from a once-a-year day of service model to something more year-round.  Some are working to understand how to integrate skilled volunteering into their people development, team development, and social value programmes. 

What I can definitively say from several years working on the frontlines of Corporate Skilled Volunteering – serving as an intermediary between corporate volunteers and small, under resourced London charities – is that skills-based volunteering IS right for so many companies, wherever they may be on their journey with employee workplace volunteering.  Skills-based corporate volunteer ticks many boxes and can help companies address many different challenges. 

And what are some of those boxes that can be ticked by Corporate Skilled Volunteering? To name a few: 

• Employees can flex their brains and use their professional skills in a different way, in a volunteering context; 

• Employers can provide a highly satisfying volunteering experience that in turn generates greater ongoing enthusiasm for volunteering in the workplace; 

• Companies can reach untapped employees who are less keen on manual volunteering; 

• Teams can come together for a unique experience away from their day jobs; 

• Companies are able to integrate employee volunteering closely with people development and other company-wide ESG, HR, and L&D objectives. 

To bring to life some of the ways we’ve seen different companies – hailing from vastly different industry sectors – successfully undertake Corporate Skilled Volunteering, I’d like to share three specific case studies.  These companies have each taken skills-based volunteering forward in a unique way that works specifically for them, but all enjoyed impressive results for their employees, and for London charities and their communities. 

Case Study 1: Centrally funded, executed via team enablement 

In the case of one of our corporate partners, corporate skilled volunteering has represented a careful balance between central planning and decentralized execution at the team level.  This company authorised a year-long, multi-event budget for skills-based volunteering engagements in partnership with Link UP London, as a strategic component of their overall community impact and employee volunteering strategy.  Individual events were then made open to teams from across the company to bid for, with individual teams selected to take detailed planning forward with Link UP for specific engagements. This resulted in a comprehensive, year-long strategy for skills-based volunteering that really delivered against the needs and interests of individual teams and allowed a wide variety of employees to participate. 

Case Study 2: Corporate Skilled Volunteering via a staff alliance network 

Another corporate partner experienced their first Social Impact Solutions corporate event this year via a forward-thinking staff alliance network seeking a unique volunteering opportunity.  Link UP was able to plug in directly with the company’s Accessibility, Neurodiversity and Disability staff alliance to arrange a Flash Consulting event that brought in an array of charities working in exactly that cause area space for a uniquely customised event.  Big impact, delivered exactly against a key area of interest for a group of passionate, involved employees. 

Case Study 3: Integration with a corporate leadership development programme 

As a final example, yet another Social Impact Solutions corporate partner has worked with Link UP across two years to embed Corporate Skilled Volunteering within its social value programme and its Leadership & Development initiatives.  Through a series of Flash Consulting events integrating senior managers and the Executive Committee lead team, the company has provided guidance and support to a wide array of London charities, including those in the company’s priority cause area space.  Participation in skills-based volunteering has become a means by which to deliver Leadership & Development training to senior leaders from across the company, who are able to see the impact and value of their professional skills in action as they provide tactical guidance to small London charities. 

At Link UP London, we delight in working with each and every corporate partner to make Corporate Skilled Volunteering work in exactly the right way – with the right activities, focus, and objectives – to maximise its impact within the individual company, and to simultaneously deliver for employees and communities.  Get in touch and let us start the conversation.