Firm: McGladrey
Type of Work: Community Outreach Initiative
Client: Various
McGladrey has a core value of stewardship and it's never more evident than on Volunteer Day when McGladrey offices across the country turn to their local communities to lend a hand with everything from packing food to building homes.
Last year, McGladrey volunteers participated in more than 110 activities for 95 different charitable organizations. This year, the firm upped the ante—and the overall impact—when it hosted its Volunteer Day across the U.S. on Aug, 6 by having more than 2,600 employees and clients in more than 170 activities benefitting more than 100 different charitable organizations, according to Sara Webber Laczo, Senior Director of corporate communications for McGladrey.
"We've grown the program every single year since we launched it six years ago," says Webber Laczo. "It's about creating maximum impact for or communities and also to make our people feel that they are part of something much bigger. It's a unified effort across all of McGladrey."
That unified effort includes more than 80 McGladrey offices across the country focused on their local communities to lend a helping hand by packing donated food, painting, cleaning and reorganizing building, planting bushes and trees, assisting seniors, helping construct new homes, helping furry friends in zoos and rescue shelters, and countless other activities, Webber Laczo says.
"We've always given a lot to the communities where we are based, but we really wanted to be able to make a bigger impact by being able to focus all of our energy and efforts on that one day," she says. "We have and in each of our office people have different causes and different organizations and different needs in each one of them."
Webber Laczo says McGladrey tries to provide flexibility within the framework where McGladrey chooses the day and takes care of a lot of the logistics on a larger scale, but leave the charitable organization and the causes up to the local offices.
"There's a lot of autonomy at the local level to maximize impact and meaning within that community; that's been a real home run for us," she says. "People want to get involved with something they feel passionately about and allowing them to choose the organization locally means they'll be more invested in the work and more invested in the results."
The mission and focus of the organizations selected are as varied as the McGladrey employees, and include: Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Clubs, PAWS, Olive Crest, Ronald McDonald House, Second Harvest Food Bank and The Salvation Army, and many others.
Joe Adams, CEO and Managing Partner at McGladrey, says: "We are proud to have so many employees and clients come together each year on McGladrey Volunteer Day to showcase our value of stewardship and support the communities where we live and work."
For years, McGladrey employees have been very active in their local communities and the firm always thought that it would be beneficial to coordinate all of those separate efforts, but didn't want to stifle the passion at the local level, Webber Laczo says.
"The culture here is a very giving culture," Laczo says. "We have seen a big uptick of late in all of the community and charitable efforts the firm gets behind, not just the volunteer day but others, such as the Birdies for Love program."
McGladrey was recognized with Social & Community Investment award in 2014 for its Birdies for Love program.
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