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Volunteering with co-workers bonds team and benefits community

Being dedicated to the communities where we live and work is important to our culture. In fact, it’s so important at inVeritas that it’s part of our vision statement.

One of the ways we show our dedication is through volunteering. As a team, we have worked to build playgrounds, provided building maintenance at food banks, cooked a meal at a homeless shelter and pulled weeds and hauled dirt at a garden spring cleanup at a nonprofit school.

While service to the community enriches the community it also has other benefits. It helps us unite as a team.

An article for U.S. News and World Report listed volunteering as one of the five best bonding outings for co-workers because it encourages giving back to the community while prioritizing the causes they care about most.

“In addition to being a good corporate citizen, employers can feel confident knowing that research suggests that participating in volunteer activities outside of the office can help employees recover from work and come back re-energized,” David W. Ballard of the American Psychological Association said for the article.

Ballard says participating in these volunteer activities helps improve leadership abilities in ways that extend beyond what employees can learn in a seminar.

At inVeritas, volunteering is a team affair. Employees are encouraged to nominate organizations in the community that could benefit from our time and financial resources.

Staff members promote their favorite causes during a team meeting, and the group votes on the charities they would like to support.

There are a number of benefits to this approach but two stand out: The team gets an ownership in deciding what charity will be supported, and we all learn about so many worthy organizations that we can support outside of the office.

Through the years, the team has given their time to the Arkansas Rice Depot, ACCESS Group, Arkansas Hunter Relief Alliance, Our House and Helping Hands.

 

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But we also donate financially to organizations like, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art or to events like, ACCESS Bingo Bash and Starry Starry Night and Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance’s Serving Up Solutions and Hunger Action Breakfast.

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inVeritas is not alone in its efforts. Fortune magazine recently noted the gratification of volunteering is inspiring workers who seek a higher purpose in their day-to-day jobs and compiled a list of the 50 best workplaces for giving back. (See the full list here:  http://fortune.com/best-workplaces-giving-back/)

Find a cause that your team supports and experience the benefits of volunteering and bonding as a team.

 

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve… You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. 

~Martin Luther King, Jr