We care so much: how many corporate volunteers there are in Russia
Thursday, December 5, marks the International Volunteer Day. It is customary to talk about charitable activities, focusing primarily on non-profit organizations, but in recent years, large corporations have been increasingly contributing to volunteering. Experts emphasize that unwillingness to engage in this activity can be a big strategic mistake for a company. How the largest Russian enterprises promote corporate volunteering and why it is necessary - in the material of Izvestia.
When corporate volunteering appeared
Natalya Gorlova, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor at Plekhanov Russian Economic University, says that corporate volunteering in Russia began to develop actively in the early 2000s as a tool to increase competitiveness and build an image with the target audience.
-The main impetus was the change in public expectations and requirements for business, as well as the course taken by companies towards sustainable development and social responsibility," she told Izvestia.
Volunteer traditions in corporations, however, appeared much earlier than 20 years ago. Yana Belonozhkina, Head of the Employer Brand Development Department at Severstal, says that more than 70 years ago, during the construction of the first shops of the Cherepovets Steel Works, initiative workers worked in the evenings at construction sites in the city and helped build the Metallurg Stadium, the Palace of Metallurgists, and residential buildings.
- Of course, 70 years ago these involved people were not called volunteers, but they were," Yana Belonozhkina told Izvestia. - We took a new look at corporate volunteering in 2022. Then we conducted a large survey and found out that for many people volunteering is an opportunity to survive personal and global crises by helping others.
According to a survey by the Center for Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector Research at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2024 , only 2% of Russians, or 8% of those who engaged in gratuitous voluntary work, participated in volunteering at their place of work.
- "This share was slightly lower than last year, when it was 11%, but in comparison with 2019 it doubled - then it was only 4% of the number of volunteers," Irina Mersyanova, director of the center, told Izvestia. - The leader is the Siberian Federal District: among local volunteers, 16% participated in volunteer labor at their place of work.
She added that participation in corporate volunteering is becoming a competitive advantage of the company in the labor market - especially for millennials and zoomers.
- It's very common for young people in job interviews at any major corporation now to ask: "And what do you do creative for society, besides your core business?" - Svetlana Gerasimova, program director of the project office "Strategies and Practices of Sustainable Development", told Izvestia. Svetlana Gerasimova. - This is an important story, because young people are focused on such things. Not doing this is a big strategic mistake for the company.
It is curious that people over 35 are most often interested in volunteering at companies, corporations told Izvestia. For example, Rusal has 40% of volunteer movement participants at this age.
-Joining the volunteer community, the company's employees become more loyal to their employer, because they are bound not only by working relations, but also by a common desire to make the cities of their presence better," Elena Snezhko, head of Sibur's social investment program "Formula of Good Deeds", told Izvestia.
Real work or demonstration actions
Svetlana Gerasimova says: when corporations first approached volunteering, they were often random initiatives, a set of disparate practices.
- Then they suddenly discovered that NGOs were asking businesses not to give gifts to children in orphanages. This caused a shock: a company sows reasonable, good, and eternal things, and they say 'don't give them'," says the expert. - And it became clear that in fact such an action will not solve any problems, and the children need something that will help them to get a foothold in society, to socialize. And for this work it is necessary to involve people who are well versed in the case.
At this, the second stage of development, there are also "breakdowns". For example, one of the companies was asked not to send its volunteers because "they trampled all the ecological paths".
But now a system is being built.
-There is a stage of professionalization, when a company, having worked for a certain period of time, begins to cooperate professionally with NGOs, to offer complex integrated solutions," says Svetlana Gerasimova. - Now there are a lot of successful projects that were made in such a partnership. For example, Beeline helps the LizaAlert project in the search for missing children, already understanding the specifics of this work, its algorithms and needs: the company's technologies, which it transfers to NGOs, have become very complex.
There are many examples of corporate volunteering projects. For example, in Nizhnekamsk, the project "Together with Mom" has been in existence for two years thanks to funding from the "Formula of Good Deeds" social investment program implemented by Sibur Holding. It was first started by a psychologist to deal with children with disabilities (disabled), and Sibur Digital employee Roza Valieva joined as a volunteer. In 2024, Roza picked up the project as a curator and reformatted it: now the project emphasizes introduction to various professions rather than psychological work.
- We had activities on creating pottery, floristry, we painted shoppeople, went on an excursion to the fire station, rode a streetcar - children got acquainted with a variety of professions," Roza Valieva told Izvestia. - And we notice that many children have already chosen various hobbies for themselves and are immersed in them very deeply. One child this year even held a master class for other children!
For the project "Together with Mom" in 2024, the interlocutor received a grant of 80 thousand rubles. The city knows it - it complements inclusive practices in Nizhnekamsk well.
And Anastasia Prosyanik, an employee of the Petrochemical Transportation Company (part of Sibur) from Tobolsk, has been engaged in volunteer activities for 12 years. She implements projects both within the framework of the Sibur grant program and simply on her own initiative: she helps children in a social rehabilitation center for minors, helps an animal shelter, and greens the city.
-But I will not go to help where it is not necessary, it is always important to study the target audience, " she told Izvestia.
Elena Snezhko says that Sibur's corporate volunteering program "People Changing the World" appeared in 2017 in response to numerous requests from employees.
-Its goal is to unite and rally the company's employees and give them the opportunity to realize their potential in solving social problems unique to each city, " she said.
According to her, the company's volunteer projects now cover point needs that do not fall within the perimeter of large projects of the Good Deeds Formula. Curators of volunteer initiatives fully develop ideas and concepts of projects to receive a grant from the company, and novice volunteers can be helped by the program's ambassadors.
One of such ambassadors is Anastasia Prosyanik. She notes that for her , working on a charitable project becomes a kind of her own enterprise, in which she acts as a manager. It also helps in her main job: more competencies are developed, more tasks are solved, and sometimes they are super tasks.
How corporate volunteering is organized
Most large corporations have their own corporate volunteering programs and grant competitions, and thousands of employees are involved in volunteering. Severstal has a program "For Our Own: With Care for Everyone", and more than 3.5 thousand employees from 18 cities are volunteers. The projects supported range from cleaning up the remains of old barbed wire in the Kalevalsky National Park to comprehensive support and socialization of children from the Cherepovets orphanage. Rusal has more than 3,000 employees involved in volunteer activities and has its own grant competition, which has supported more than 80 volunteer projects over the past two years.
The United Metallurgical Company has more than 9,000 volunteers, and the OMK Partnership grant contest has been held since 2015. Russian Railways is engaged in the development of corporate volunteering together with the Pochet Charitable Foundation, which provides social guarantees to the company's pensioners and also implements a number of social programs, acting as an operator. Nikolay Zakharov, general director of the Pochet Foundation, says that 85,000 railroad workers, about 20% of all employees, are now involved in volunteering, and Moscow is hosting the fifth Russian Railways Volunteer Forum, which has gathered 400 of the best representatives of the movement from the entire railroad network.
Elena Snezhko from Sibur said that now more than 9.6 thousand employees of the corporation are volunteers. And the number is increasing every year: in 2019, 13% of employees were volunteers, and in 2023 - already 28%.
Corporations note that the focus of projects often depends on where the corporation's enterprises are located. For example, Nornickel has a program called "Combine for Good" with many different projects, but many of them are dedicated to the environment and protected areas. For example, in the Pasvik Nature Reserve in Nikel, Murmansk Region, volunteers this year built eco-trails, repaired the entrance area, built a bridge over a stream and helped electrify the only residential structure on Varlam Island - the house of ornithological scientist Hans Skonning. And OMK financed the construction of a "safety corridor" in the Klyazminsko-Lukhsky wildlife sanctuary in the Vladimir region, where wild bison live, to minimize contact between wild red-listed animals and humans.
In addition, corporations allow not only employees, but also outside people to participate in their projects. Nornickel tells the story of Maria Malyutina, who in 2019 participated in the company's eco-marathon "Ponoselo" - and thanks to her activism was noticed and invited to work. In 2023, she became a deputy in Monchegorsk.
Why employees of companies need it
Irina Medvedeva, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at OMK, notes that corporate volunteering becomes one of the incentives to stay in the company and prevents professional burnout. It is also a social elevator for employees and an opportunity to build a social career by becoming an opinion leader in local communities.
Yana Belonozhkina from Severstal emphasizes that especially in smaller cities, volunteers become visible to representatives of NGOs and budgetary institutions. In big cities, their influence is slightly less.
- But one way or another, each of our employees, through their good deeds, changes the world for the better and makes their lives better," she said. - Volunteers note that the projects help them feel needed, brighten their leisure time and find new friends.
Anastasia Prosyanik, a Sibur volunteer, confirms: she has indeed made a lot of friends and acquaintances who are perceived as a real team.
- People can stop me on the street and say: "Nastya, I saw your post. And I have this idea..." And I say: "Cool, let's realize it", - shares the interlocutor. - It seems to me that in our world people help only themselves. And I don't want to be like that. I want to feel like a man with a capital letter: we are so good, we won, we did something good. It is very energizing.
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