Society is all about the people who make it up and this includes businesses as much as any other group. When it comes to a company exercising its social conscience and giving back to its host community there’s a huge number of ways they might consider joining in. One clever way some companies and organizations are helping out is by funding the training of individuals needed by the community.
Charities, especially local ones are often big on ideas but short on funds. This can make it difficult to ensure that the people working for the charity have the skills and training the charity needs them to have. For example, a charity that works with conserving wildlife habitats always needs people who have experience and knowledge about methods and ways to look after say, hedgehogs or other creatures or habitats.
More Than Just Hedgehogs
But it’s not just the front-line work that many good causes need help to carry out. Most charities would be crippled without the help of individuals who can run administration, keep the books and promote the aims and achievements of the charity to the world beyond.
Hiring expert journalists or accountants is often beyond the reach of more modest charities, but with a modest bit of financial assistance, socially minded companies can help train volunteers in the skills and disciplines that their chosen charities need to support. Indeed, by funding such learning programmes, a company both helps the charity in question as well as provides the individual learning with new skills that may open new professional opportunities for them to earn a better living in life.
Distance Learning Colleges and Training Volunteers
For the company thinking of going down this route, distance learning courses represent an ideal solution that blends together the interests of the charity, the sponsoring organization and the volunteer in question. This is because:
- It’s Convenient: Most distance learning providers can offer several start times during the year if not allow potential students to enrol at any time. This means when a charity finds it requires, for example, to train it’s volunteers in turf management they can get started without waiting for the regular term/semester system
- It’s affordable: Distance learning is usually cheaper that courses that require physical attendance. Of course this means that it cannot cover all cases (nobody wants a doctor who got their degree through mail order) but for most roles, there is a distance learning course to suit.
- It fits around the Volunteer: Volunteers usually have jobs, families or other commitments in their lives and can seldom afford the luxury of taking six months or a year off to do a course. Studying via distance learning lets them progress around their own responsibilities, making them ready to put their new abilities to use for the charity quicker than might otherwise be the case.
Lastly, there are a huge range of fields that can be invested in by a company to help volunteers gain the skills they need to help their charity. From administration staff to front line work, there’s a skills shortage. Why not making addressing it part of your businesses corporate social responsibility?
