Everyone Contributes With Accessible Volunteering

Whether in our volunteer work or our day-to-day mission as a company, we have a strong belief that everyone contributes to our overall success. In the spirit of inclusion and making sure everyone can bring their skills and give their time to community efforts, a focus was placed on highlighting accessible volunteering opportunities.

This focus on accessibility in our volunteering efforts has enabled more team members to contribute in a bigger way to giving back within our communities. This initiative was one of many that enabled us to volunteer more than 866,000 hours of our time in 2021 alone.

It’s a fair question, and I think maybe it’s best illustrated by an example.

I should say that in some ways this is my story. I have cerebral palsy spastic quadriplegia. I get around with a power wheelchair and I’m using speech recognition to dictate this article.

I have a ton of skills, but the ability to do manual labor isn’t among them. I’m much more useful teaching someone to read over the internet then packing boxes at a food pantry.

But it’s not just my story. What I look for when searching out volunteering opportunities might be very different from what someone who is hearing-impaired or deaf might look for. They might want an activity that’s safe even if there’s not a ton of verbal communication.

Maybe someone who can’t stand for a long time wants to do something they can complete while sitting. If stamina is an issue, maybe there are times they need a break.

All of these individuals have skills they can bring to any number of tasks, but having the right opportunities highlighted easily matches individuals to activities that align with their skillset.

Bryan Beran, the Director of Volunteer Engagement and Giving at Rocket Community Fund, said that it comes down to having an all hands on deck approach to engaging in the cities we call home.

“With a goal of reaching 60% engagement across volunteering and giving participation, our team has been focused on promoting inclusive and accessible volunteer and giving opportunities that encourage engagement of all our team members,” he said. “We believe having more accessible volunteer opportunities plays a critical role in our team’s strategy and effort to overcome barriers to engagement.”

When tackling any problem, you first need to know whether you’re asking the right questions to figure out what you don’t know.

To that end, Beran said it was important to engage with stakeholders who are impacted. He and his team talked to organizations we routinely volunteer with, and they also started discussions with one of our Team Member Resource Networks (TMRNs).

“The team facilitated focus groups with team members within the TMRN, Unstop-ABLE, to gain feedback and recommendations around what information is helpful when searching for volunteer opportunities,” he said.

From this, they were able to survey the volunteer organizations with many questions both about the type of work needed and questions related to accessibility including:

• Number of handicap parking spots
• Number of restrooms
• Whether there was an accessible entrance
• Service animal policies
• Types of accommodations able to be made

As an example of the last category, perhaps volunteer activities could be performed sitting down.

With this information, the Rocket Community Fund was able to build out a system of filters enabling volunteers to find opportunities where they could help while not having to worry about obstacles related to disabilities or chronic conditions. The three main categories for which accessibility is tracked are:

• Mobility
• Hearing
• Accommodations

While the third category is a bit broad, it tracks activities in which accommodations can be made so that a person can participate in the experience to their fullest potential.

In addition to this, the tagging system was more broadly revamped to help people find volunteer opportunities that fit their aptitude. COVID-19 also led to some reimagining of what volunteering looked like in general. Many of the requests are now for virtual volunteering that requires not your physical presence, but your brainpower.

Something I’ve been doing for many years now that I find personally very gratifying is working with a program called TutorMate^®. It pairs a first grader who needs extra support in reading practice with one of our team members serving as a virtual tutor. This provides one-on-one time that teachers may not have to give to every student.

There’s something incredibly cool about hearing in a child’s voice when the lightbulb clicks on, and they begin to read with confidence. Although the pandemic has made this a little more challenging in recent years, we’ve been able to meet the student at an end-of-the-year event celebrating their success.

Other team members knit for local hospitals or participate in letter writing campaigns, sending encouragement to sick children or troops fighting overseas. What you see here represents just a few examples of the many ways we’ve been able to engage team members of all abilities in our volunteer efforts.

Everyone should have an equal chance to support the communities they call home. The Rocket Community Fund is committed to providing our team members with resources they need to find opportunities where they can make the most impact.