Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that acts of service were the great equalizer. "Everybody can be great," he noted, "because everybody can serve."  That's why Dr. King's wife, Coretta Scott King, once said that "the greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and...

Employee volunteer programs are one thing, but what about centering your entire enterprise around service? It might sound like a pipe dream, but San Francisco-based Fuse Corps is making it happen.

According to Fuse Corps' website:

We provide opportunities for entrepreneurial professionals to spend a year...

Crowdfunding is generally defined as an internet-based collective effort between people who pool money to help fund an activity or an entrepreneurial endeavor. Also called crowdsourcing, crowdfunding is used to underwrite a variety of activities, including new products, artistic efforts, political campaigns or scientific research, just to name a few....

According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), over 1.5 million non-profits are registered in the U.S. While many of them receive assistance through corporate philanthropy and employee volunteer programs, in general all of them compete for a limited giving pool. So how can nonprofits...

There's something about having your cake and eating it too that appeals to me. The benefit of getting something extra without added effort or expense is hard to resist.

Serving as the beneficiary of a company's non-profit fundraising ideas can be this sort of cake. That's because workplace...

Employee volunteer programs make employees feel good and, as such, evidence suggests that such programs lead to greater employee engagement. But what good does a corporate social responsibility program do for the rest of us? Isn't all this corporate philanthropy just an attempt at getting...

Like any healthy coupling, the recipe to a happy, long-term business relationship between a non-profit organization and its corporate volunteers and donors is commitment, communication and compromise, with a large dose of appreciation sprinkled on top.

As the Manager of Volunteer Services at Family Centers, Jennifer...

Human resources professionals know the drill: if you want to maximize an employee's potential, you need to engage him as fully as possible.  That's why attractive employee benefits and compensation packages only go so far, and why corporate volunteer programs are on the rise. Corporate managers...

Sometimes they're a true blessing. Other times, well, not so much.

Hopefully your non-profit's experience with corporate volunteer programs has been nothing but positive.  The program was organized, the volunteer team was filled with eager and genuinely engaged employees, the team took their work seriously, stayed...

There's one in every crowd and at least one at every workplace: the cynic. He might be highly motivated and intensely career-minded, but your garden variety cynic tends to be skeptical of corporate volunteer programs. And yet, with a bit of attention, cynics can be transformed into your...

The grim jobs report in May has riveted the nation like a slow-motion train wreck, confirming our darkest fears about a sputtering economy that may be stuck in a stall or, worse, falling. We're a country of Chicken Littles now, squawking about a double dip recession while wringing our hands...

In the world of those who volunteer to make a better world, some dream of settling down. But not you. Nosiree. You enjoy the variety of volunteering with many different organizations and causes. Last month it was a cancer nonprofit, today it's a dog rescue. You heard that...

Part of a Causecast ongoing series that examines how Corporate America is finding new ways to help veterans.

What would the world look like without the dedication of nonprofits trying to improve it? Tough to imagine, which is why I consider the business of nonprofits so vital....

Part of a Causecast Memorial Day series that examines how Corporate America is finding new ways to help veterans.

If you want to get your blood boiling, consider this: many of our country's servicemen and women who have bravely fought for us in Iraq or Afghanistan must...

Part of a Memorial Day series by Causecast that examines how Corporate America is finding new ways to help veterans.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that "the unemployment rate for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any...

5 Things To Know About Your Gen Y Staff

Let's do a headcount:

Millennials: 79 million. Baby boomers: 76 million.

No wonder the younger tykes are increasingly stamping their mark on workplace cultures. Millennials are the fastest growing segment of today's workforce,...

Corporate volunteer programs offer such a multitude of benefits that they sometimes seem beyond reproach. When these programs are executed well, employees get to participate in meaningful work outside of the office that is recognized and supported by their employers; companies earn the appreciation of their employees and...

When I founded a company called Causecast in 2008 out of a shared warehouse space in Santa Monica, it operated from three fundamental beliefs:

1. There was a dark hole where the technology should exist to make nonprofits more successful.
2. The rising wave of cause marketing would require technology...

We all want to help, right? But I contend we inevitably deny more than give. We give to the cancer fund at the supermarket so we feel comfortable ignoring the homeless man outside. We sponsored a friend's walk for AIDS so it's unnecessary to bring cans of soup into the...