Workplace giving: Double the pleasure, double the funds
Does your workplace turn volunteer hours into monetary donations?
Ruthannah Wang, an electrical engineer at Stantec, had already been hammering nails at our construction sites when she found out about her company’s Dollars for Doers Program. She learned that if an individual employee volunteered for 25 hours within a calendar year, Stantec would donate $500 to that organization.
Ruthannah was blown away by this opportunity; she needed just a few more shifts to reach 25 hours and double her impact on affordable homeownership through an employer-made donation to Habitat Chicago.
Before moving to Chicago, Ruthannah had the opportunity to design electrical blueprints for a 36-unit affordable housing complex for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles. She learned so much from that experience and knew that when she moved to Chicago, she wanted to volunteer on the build site to see how blueprints played out in the physical homebuilding process.
“When I'm doing designs, I can now more accurately anticipate what might be an issue [after having volunteered on the build site],” said Ruthannah.
While volunteering with us has helped her be a better engineer, it is the impact of homeownership that inspires her to come back.
“Working on housing has a lot of second-order effects, because once somebody has a stable place to live, it also affects the quality of their health care and education. Once the housing problem is solved, you're basically solving the root of a lot of other social problems,” said Ruthannah.
And that’s exactly why Stantec and other companies have programs like Dollars for Doers.
“What excites me most about Dollars for Doers is seeing our people step into their communities and lead with purpose. The program allows us to support that momentum and make their contributions go further,” said Stantec’s Lana Bertsch, Chief of Staff, Office of the CEO.
Knowing that she could easily increase her impact made Ruthannah eager to spread the word about corporate giving both inside and outside the office.
Left to right: Connie Chan, Erin Davis, and Ruthannah Wang from the USC Chicago Trojan Network pose for a photo during the Day of SCervice.
This past March, she organized a build day for a "Day of SCervice" event in conjunction with the local Chicago alumni chapter of her alma mater, University of Southern California (USC), and has used opportunities like these to speak to other professionals about leveraging their own employers' matching programs.
Want to see if your company has a program like this? Ask your Human Resources department what kind of workplace giving opportunities are offered or use our Double the Donation tool to see if your company matches monetary donations.
