The Nationwide Foundation, together with the Abbey Charitable Trust and Volunteering England has launched research into how charities and companies can work better together for mutual benefit.
The research was undertaken by The Smart Company - now Corporate Citizenship - a consultancy which specialises in corporate community investment, cross sector partnerships and corporate foundations.
The research found that companies can add significant value by offering the specialised skills of their staff through volunteering programmes.
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Skills-based volunteering in core areas such as management strategy can drive the growth of the charity and help build capacity. The research concluded that an increase in this type of support would be valued by charities.
Lisa Parker, chief executive of the Nationwide Foundation, which gives grants for core work and helps charities to build their capacity, said: "The research found that while companies typically offer team volunteering days at charities, undertaking activities such as painting, or gardening, they could give charities more and better quality support by offering individual staff with specific skills as volunteers.
"The charities contacted during the research commented that in addition to grants they would value help with financial issues, PR and strategy development. These are just the types of skills large companies have in abundance and could consider sharing with charities.
"The benefit to companies in offering such support provides improved personal development opportunities and new experience to staff.
"For relatively little additional output already given to charities by companies, far more benefits could be gleaned all round. It's about common sense working."
The research showed that more companies are developing programmes to offer professional services in long term partnerships with charities, so the market is in someway developing to meet the need, although it revealed that more can be done.
The Foundation is now working with Volunteering England and Abbey Charitable Trust to share the findings of this research with companies and charities across the UK. The research can be found on The Foundation's website.
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