Matter’s Helping Hands initiative encourages a nationwide community service effort that is rewarding and fulfilling for all of the employees. With 1000 plus hours of impactful volunteer work done each year, Matter is truly making an impact on its surrounding communities.

129 volunteer hours!

In June, our employees volunteered 129 total hours, bringing our year to date total to 744 hours! Below is a recap of events across the agency.

In celebration of Pride month, our Helping Hands and Diversity Committees teamed up to make a donation to The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ youth.

 

Newburyport

A group from the Newburyport office prepared and served a meal to approximately 60 people at the Salvation Army as part of the organization’s weekly Thursday dinners. The office also held a successful personal care collection drive for Our Neighbor’s Table.

Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy program, the office volunteered at the Weeding Wednesday event at Frick Park. They helped care for the park gardens by pulling weeds, as well as cutting dead leaves and flowers.

Haley House. This organization is a decades-old non-profit that runs a soup kitchen, food pantry, live-in community and more in the local Boston area. They collected almost 60 items!

Youth Pride Inc (YPI). This organization is located in Providence and is “dedicated to meeting the unique needs of youth and young adults impacted by sexual orientation and gender identity/expression while working to end the homophobic and transphobic environments in which they live, work and play.”

 

Nationwide

In addition to our Pride month donation to The Trevor Project, each office represented a different color in order to create a giant Pride flag across the agency to celebrate and show support.

Matter’s Helping Hands initiative encourages a nationwide community service effort that is rewarding and fulfilling for all of the employees. With 1000 plus hours of impactful volunteer work done each year, Matter is truly making an impact on its surrounding communities.

84 volunteer hours!

This past month, Matter employees nationwide reached a combined total of 84 volunteer hours. This brings the current yearly total to 615 hours, more than halfway to our 2019 goal!

Matter is one of the many companies that offer employees time to volunteer during work hours, a concept becoming known as VTO (Volunteer Time Off). VTO does not cut into an employee’s sick or vacation time; it is a tangible benefit above regular PTO. If you are considering adding VTO to your benefits package, you should know that it is known to aid in recruitment, retention and corporate visibility. In an article in Fortune, it is stated that employees feel a deeper connection and commitment to the work when they get to participate versus there being a corporate donation. This month, Matter employees were thrilled to help make an impact and volunteer with a few different organizations.

Below is a recap of events across the agency in May.

 

Newburyport

A group from Newburyport volunteered at the Lazarus House. The Lazarus House is a non-profit organization that provides food and clothing programs through its soup kitchen, food pantry and thrift shop; as well as transitional housing for the homeless. The team helped with gardening and landscaping activities at their Ishah House, which is their women’s transitional residence.

Cradles to Crayons and were able to help a total of 691 children by putting together packs of essential clothing and supplies to succeed.

Community Food Share helping with gardening and yard clean-up activities. They also volunteered at the International Dog Institute, a non-profit that trains dogs to assist those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, at no cost to the recipient.

Providence Children’s Museum, serving food to over 400 hundred local families in partnership with AmeriCorps. They also had volunteers help with gardening at the Roger Williams National Memorial.

Providence

The Providence office volunteered at the Oregon Food Bank repackaging and sorting donated goods. They also held a clothing drive for New Avenues, an organization dedicated to the prevention and intervention of youth homelessness. They collected and donated 6 boxes of gently used clothes.

 

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Matter’s Helping Hands initiative encourages a nationwide community service effort that is rewarding and fulfilling for all of the employees. With 1000 plus hours of impactful volunteer work done each year, Matter is truly making an impact on its surrounding communities. 

 

230 volunteer hours!

This April, our employees volunteered 230 total hours, the most hours in one month in the past three years! Our YTD total is now 531 hours.

In addition to this new company-wide record, our Helping Hands program was honored by The Communitas Awards in the Leadership in Community Service and Corporate Social Responsibility category! This award seeks to honor those special companies, organizations and individuals that go beyond rhetoric and whose commitment sets them apart from their competition. Winners are dedicated to helping the less fortunate in their communities and are changing the way they do business to benefit their employees, communities and environment. 

Below is a recap of events across the agency in April.

 

Newburyport

A group from the Newburyport office volunteered at the Community Giving Tree. The team assembled hundreds of Mother’s Day gift bags with a variety of toiletries. Toiletries such as lotion, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste/toothbrush and soap aren’t typically covered under aid programs, but are considered “luxuries” for mothers in need. Through this program, children of families in need can give the bags as a gift to their mothers.

The Newburyport office also held a two-week ‘spring cleaning’ clothing drive for the Leeward Foundation, whose mission is to recycle, reuse and renew for charity. They help feed, clothe and comfort those within the New England community who are in need. Approximately fifteen bags of clothes were donated!

 

Boston

The Boston office volunteered at the Greater Boston Food Bank. The team worked in an assembly line to package non-perishable food items. In total, 7,200 meals were provided by all of the packages they made! Wow!

The office volunteered at the Rhode Island Food Bank. They spent the day sorting donated items.

The PDX team volunteered with the Children’s Book Bank, cleaning and making small repairs to donated books so they could be brought to local children in good condition.

Matter employees supported Equal Pay Day on April 2nd by wearing red. More information on Equal Pay Day can be found here.

As the year concludes and we prepare to to tie all loose ends before we start fresh for next year, we would like to take a step back and proudly reflect upon Matter’s contributions in community outreach for the year 2017.

Surpassing Company Goals

Paid volunteer time is one of the many distinctive perks that help our firm further establish itself as a company that encourages its employees to give back and offer valuable service to the community. Our Director of Human Resources, Danielle Conlin, reports that we had set the goal of reaching 1,000 volunteer hours for the year 2017 and we well surpassed this goal, as we’re on target to fulfilling 1,100 hours by November 30.

The perk of having offices that cover both the east coast and the west coast is that our community outreach can have a larger impact and magnitude. Our different locations enable us to get involved in a wide scope of projects as well as serving different communities in different locations. Between our five offices, we have participated in charity walks, collected donations, completed beach clean ups, volunteered with animal shelters, crafted seasonal greeting cards to send to children in hospitals, helped local volunteer-sponsored events go off without a hitch, among many other exciting initiatives.

Matter’s philanthropic involvement is an integral part of our success not only as a company, but as a group of individuals with different talents and goals. According to the Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey, 92% of surveyed corporate human resource executives agree that contributing business skills and expertise to a nonprofit can be an effective way to improve employees’ leadership and broader professional skill sets. (1).

Through volunteering, the connection and benefits earned between our team members and the organizations we work with is symbiotic. We earn just as much as we give, and it is for this reason that being involved with volunteering is essential towards our advancements and success as a team.

In conclusion to our collection of successes for volunteering in the year 2017, we are thrilled to prepare for our volunteer initiatives for the year 2018. We are aspiring to bring in even more volunteer opportunities and contributions for the new year, keeping involved with our current causes and projects while also branching out and finding new movements and organizations to partake with. We are open to suggestions and encourage our employees to share ideas for new volunteer opportunities and projects.

Matter would like to thank all of the organizations that have invited our team members to volunteer with them for this year. We encourage you to continue to follow along with our volunteer projects and community involvements by following our blog and our social media handles.