Most corporate volunteering ideas fall into two groups. Some happen where your team already is: a conference room, a ballroom or a hotel meeting space, with the donation built on site in an hour or two. Others take your team out to a nonprofit for a half day or longer. Both work. The right choice depends on how many people you have, how much time is on the agenda and whether you can move a group across town.
Below are 20 ideas. The first 12 are programs we run, so the details (group sizes, length, where the donation goes) come from our own events. The last 8 you book directly with a nonprofit, and each links to the organization's own page.
Volunteer ideas your team can do at the office
Each of these runs indoors or outdoors for 30 to 1,000+ people. Teams play short challenges to earn materials, build or pack the donation, and hand it to a local nonprofit. You can name your own charity or ask us for one near your venue, and whenever possible someone from the organization comes to accept the donation in person.
1. Build bikes for kids
Teams assemble new bicycles and donate them, with helmets and locks, to kids from a local charity. It takes 1.5 to 2 hours, and our charity bike build, Bike Build Donation, is the charity program we book most often.
2. Make teddy bears for children in crisis
Teams stuff plush bears, dress each one in a t-shirt they decorate and wrap it in a blanket. The bears go to crisis centers and police departments that give them to children at a hard moment. Bears and Blankets, our teddy bear charity event, takes 1 to 1.5 hours.
3. Pack care packages for people in need
Groups assemble care packages for community organizations that support people in need, with the contents matched to what the receiving organization asks for. We call it Donation Nation Care Packs.
4. Pack bags for people experiencing homelessness
In Helping the Homeless, a homeless outreach team building event, teams earn the items through challenges, then pack care bags for men, women and children experiencing homelessness.
5. Fill STEM backpacks for students
Teams assemble backpacks of STEM kits and school supplies for children ages five to ten, donated to an educational charity. The program is STEM Backpacks for Kids.
6. Stock a classroom
We Care for Schools sends classroom supplies to local schools that are short on them: pencils, paper, glue, paintbrushes and first aid kits.
7. Build a mini-golf course out of food
Teams design and build mini-golf holes from canned and boxed food, play the course, then take it apart and donate the food to a food bank. This food donation team building event is a good fit when the group wants competition first.
8. Collect supplies for an animal shelter
Putting for Pets uses the same mini-golf idea, built from pet food and supplies that go to local shelters and rescues afterward, so it works as an animal shelter team building event.
9. Send care packages to service members
In Operation Military Care, teams prepare care packages for service members currently serving in the military.
10. Assemble comfort packs for cancer patients
Teams work through a series of activities, then assemble comfort care packages for cancer patients going through chemotherapy or other treatment. The program is Cancer Care Comfort Packs.
11. Build wagons for preschoolers
Wagon Build Donation is a wagon building charity event: classic wagons for preschool-age children, a toy that helps with coordination and imaginative play.
12. Make sensory kits for children with autism
Teams rotate through sensory-focused activities, then assemble sensory kits for children with autism, donated to autism therapy programs and schools. We call it Autism Awareness Sensory Donation.
For how the nonprofit is chosen and how the donation is delivered, see our guide to how charity team building works. Book four weeks or more ahead, because the materials ship to your venue.
Volunteer ideas out in the community
These take more coordination and usually a smaller group, but your team sees the work where it happens. Contact the organization early, since group slots fill up.
13. Work a shift at a food bank
Sorting and packing donated food is the classic group volunteer shift. Feeding America's food bank finder lists the member food bank nearest you, and its site covers volunteering and hosting a food drive.
14. Spend a day on a Habitat for Humanity build
Habitat for Humanity runs a program for business partners that brings employee teams to build sites, including companies volunteering together for the first time.
15. Deliver meals to older adults
Meals on Wheels programs rely on volunteer drivers. Its volunteer page says companies can set up group volunteer opportunities, including in more than one city.
16. Host a blood drive at work
The American Red Cross explains how hosting a blood drive works: the host provides the room, volunteers and donors, and the Red Cross handles the collection.
17. Teach a class with Junior Achievement
Junior Achievement pairs volunteers with teachers, so employees bring their own work experience into a classroom.
18. Host a job shadow day
Through the same Junior Achievement program, students come to your office for a job shadow and a tour of how your company gets work done.
19. Join a community cleanup
Keep America Beautiful's Great American Cleanup engages more than 300,000 volunteers a year in litter cleanup, recycling and beautification projects through local affiliates.
20. Run a collection drive
Coats in the fall, school supplies in late summer, toiletries for a shelter any time. Ask the receiving organization what it needs before you start, so nothing goes unused.
How to choose
Start with headcount and the time on the agenda. A 200-person meeting with a 90-minute slot rules out a build site across town, and points to an on-site build. A department of 15 with a free afternoon can go to a food bank or a Habitat site.
Then decide who you want to help. A cause tied to your company or to the city you are meeting in is an easier sell than one nobody has heard of, so start with nonprofits your people already know. If you are building a regular volunteering program rather than one event, our guide to starting an employee volunteer program covers the policies and tools.
