Moving social impact from corporate commitment to execution

VERIZON · PACE EMPLOYEE RESOURCE GROUP

Business Need
Verizon launched Citizen Verizon to bring its responsibilities to customers, employees, shareholders, and society into one business strategy. A central part of that commitment was mobilizing the skills and time of its 135,000 employees to generate 2.5 million volunteer hours by 2025 across digital inclusion, climate protection, and human prosperity.

By December 2021, employees had contributed one million hours, with more than 89,000 employees participating. ERGs were an important part of sustaining that momentum: they helped the CSR team identify nonprofit partners, reach employees, and create opportunities connected to the communities their members cared about. As chair of Pan Asian Corporate Excellence—one of Verizon’s larger ERGs, with more than 4,200 members—my role was to help put that strategy into practice.

The Space Between
A company-wide goal and a volunteer platform created the infrastructure, but employees still needed a reason and an accessible path to participate. Nonprofits needed meaningful support, but hosting volunteers could require additional time, planning, and coordination from already stretched teams.

Skills-based volunteering offered a stronger connection between the two. Employees could contribute expertise they already had, while nonprofits could receive help with specific business challenges. Making that model work required someone to connect the partners, clarify the need, recruit the right people, and keep the engagement focused on something the nonprofit could use.

Working in System
I worked across PACE, Verizon’s corporate social responsibility team, and Common Impact, a nonprofit that designs and manages skills-based volunteer programs for companies and social-impact organizations. Common Impact sourced and vetted nonprofit partners, scoped projects around defined business challenges, prepared participants, and managed the engagements.

As the PACE point person, I helped bring those opportunities into the ERG, communicate their purpose, recruit employees, and assemble cross-functional volunteer teams. I also participated directly in two types of engagements: longer-term team consulting and short, intensive days of service. That gave me experience on both sides of the model—helping employees enter the program and leading teams once the work began.

Impact
Through PACE, I helped connect nearly 20 nonprofit organizations with teams of approximately six to eight Verizon employees. I also contributed more than 70 hours of direct service. Business challenges were diverse and had varying levels of complexity. For example, during a consulting engagement with Hopeworks, I developed a website prototype organized around the needs of young people, employers, donors, and volunteers. For a Common Impact Skills for Cities day of service, I led a team helping PROP begin its search for a new donor-management system. We defined the organization’s requirements, developed a weighted selection method, and compared five prospective tools for implementation.

The nonprofits left with practical work they could continue using, while employees gained experience leading, collaborating across functions, and applying their professional strengths in a new context. Together, executing the skills-based volunteering program helped translate Verizon’s social-impact strategy into direct employee participation and useful support for community organizations.