Resources for Professional Services Firms
Professional services firms recognize the strategic value of leveraging their intellectual capital for social and business benefit. With these tools and research, see how your firm and others can facilitate and contribute to pro bono best practices and advancing the pro bono movement.
Pro Bono Tools
- Designing for Impact Framework [pdf] A guide to the tenets of high-quality pro bono service delivery.
- Business Value Flashcards [ppt] Effectively communicate the business value of pro bono service to meet different stakeholder needs.
- Billion and Change Campaign The President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation initiated a challenge to leverage $1 billion in skilled volunteering and pro bono services from the corporate community.
- Making the Business Case for Pro Bono [pdf] This brief monograph outlines the means by which an investment in pro bono can and will, in the long term, strengthen a firm’s ability to attract and serve its commercial clients.
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Leading Practices Series Takeways:
This series of leading practices conference calls were established to understand some of the trends and practices currently taken across firms from a variety of fields for managing pro bono services.
Pro Bono Research
- Pro Bono As Currency – Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey (2009) – If corporate philanthropy is expanded to include the prized community of workplace talent, that will reap considerably more value – and do far more good – for nonprofits and communities in need.
- Pro Bono Strategic Consulting: The $1.5 Billion Opportunity [pdf] – James W. Shepard & Alethea Hannemann, Taproot Foundation (2008) – Pro bono strategic management is an enormous opportunity that has the potential to dramatically strengthen the nonprofit sector.
- On the Frontlines: MBAs Gone Wild [pdf] – James W. Shepard, Taproot Foundation (2008) – Pro bono strategic services can make a huge contribution to the nonprofit sector.
- Strengthening Leadership and Human Resources Capacity in the Nonprofit Sector: Pro Bono as a Powerful Solution [pdf] – James W. Shepard, Taproot Foundation (2008) – This study examines the human resources challenges facing the nonprofit sector and the efforts currently being made to address them.
- Corporate Baby Boomers & Volunteerism [pdf] – Taproot Foundation (2007) This study seeks to understand the volunteer needs for Baby Boomers and corporate employees.
- Skills-based volunteerism: An unexpected tool for training and development – Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey (2008) – Deloitte released their study on the potential of Pro Bono as a corporate professional development tool.
In the News
- How to get an extra $1 billion from business [pdf] The Chronicle of Philanthropy (2006) As nonprofit groups seek to accomplish their missions as efficiently as possible, they often look to corporations for help.
- Where Lawyers Show us the Way SF Chronicle (2007) Lawyers have long recognized that it is a privilege to have the skills to practice their trade and with that privilege comes a responsibility to make those skills available to those who cannot afford them.
- The Corporate Philanthropist [pdf] Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (Spring, 2008) Pro Bono Service: Leveraging Employee Expertise
- Giving Frugally: Charitable Giving in Lean Times Associated Press (December 2008)
- Volunteering Used for Career Advancement ABC7 News (November 2008)
- Volunteerism 2.0: Exploring a new way of lending our time for good onPhilanthropy (June 2008)
- Pro Bono: For the Good Civic Consulting Alliance video (2008)
- Pro Bono in Action Pro Bono Action Tank video (2009)
