Cross Sector Collaboration - National Volunteer Week 2019

As I reflect on National Volunteer Week, I am inspired by the powerful stories shared by many non-profit organizations and corporations that enable volunteers to contribute their time and skills to support their communities. They are great examples of how cross sector collaboration can drive societal impact.

To encourage EY professionals to share their volunteering stories, I posted several examples on how EY volunteers support Boys and Girls Club, Junior Achievement, NFTE, United Way, and highlight our signature programs such as College MAP and EY Connect Day. Each of these examples support EY’s corporate responsibility focus areas in the Americas: Entrepreneurs, Education and Equity in the Workforce.

Over this past weekend, I spoke with many high-achieving college students who are exploring how they may lend their passion to support their communities as professionals and emerging leaders. I gladly shared a few examples of my EY colleagues building their leadership capacity via skills-based volunteering during National Volunteer Week as follows:

Entrepreneurs – Jack Palombo and Mark Janiak are leading a cohort of EY volunteers to provide Lean Startup Coaching to high school students with NFTE. Jack and Mark previously served as volunteers to coach high school students in developing a business idea for a product or service. They are applying their experience to coordinate eight sessions for EY volunteers to help youth complete their business plans. I can’t wait to see these students pitch their business plans at the EY office in early May!

In addition, Onyuka Chinbat, Lauren D’Amico and Daniel Stedman are coordinating seven weekly sessions to empower EY volunteers to teach the JA Be Entrepreneurial Program at a local high school with Junior Achievement of New York. The high school students will explore their entrepreneurial ideas based on product, customer, and competitive-advantage criteria and build knowledge on marketing, financing, management and ethical decision-making. I look forward to welcoming these high school students for a JA Job Shadow session at EY soon. 

Education – Since 2012, Adam Metauro has supported iMentor that enables students and mentors to work one-on-one through an innovative online and in-person curriculum to achieve the goal of going to college. Adam currently serves as a Young Executive Board member and leads a community of 100+ EY volunteers who are each committing 3 to 4 years to help students build critical skills linked to high school and college success. I applaud Adam for recently hosting the Annual iMentor Recruitment Roundtable with representatives from more than 20 companies at EY.

Equity in the Workforce – I am grateful to Sean Baker for inviting me to serve as a mentor at the O4U Business Conference. In addition to discussing volunteerism and leadership, I was inspired by the thoughtful insights on diversity and inclusion. All the students I met demonstrated incredible courage and passion on their personal journey of belonging. Kudos to Sean and all my EY colleagues who generously contributed their experience to support these amazing students as mentors, presenters and role models.

What an incredible week! Hopefully, these examples will help more students and young professionals to apply their passion, skills and leadership as volunteers in the future. 

The views expressed by the author are personal and not necessarily those of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.