Employees have a wealth of skills, and giving them the opportunity to
Allstate has offered volunteer opportunities through its Allstate Foundation since 1952, in areas like
Common Impact connects employees with nonprofit organizations to provide support with leadership training, legal guidance, marketing assistance and financial advice. In addition to saving nonprofits money, these programs allow employees to contribute to the common good and have a positive influence on their communities. By working with a third party to coordinate these programs, employers save time that can then be devoted to other areas of business.
"Common Impact exists to take that burden away from the company," says Rachel Hutchisson, the organization's CEO. "We scope [out] and develop something, and we'll help you deliver it and engage your people. We help [employees] not just leverage their skills, but sometimes learn new skills and learn about their communities. It's really very empowering."
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Allstate's employees are a testament to skills-based volunteering's appeal, which the company has been offering formally since 2010: They logged 186,000 overall volunteer hours in 2023 — a 128% increase from 2022 — and thanks to Common Impact's connections, more than 500 employees and agents spent time sharing their professional skills with 79 nonprofits through four "flash consulting" days — six hours of volunteered time per day — and other projects that can span from hours to months.
"In 2010, we started a program called Allstate Fellows that did longer-term pro bono projects, and since then we've heard fantastic feedback from our employees and our partners," says Carly Keller, manager of leadership activation and nonprofit capacity building at The Allstate Foundation. "Partnering with Common Impact brought us a new way to approach skill-based volunteerism — it allowed us to expand how many nonprofits we were serving per year, and how many employees were engaging."
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Seeing the renewed appreciation employees have for their skills following their volunteer experiences has energized the team, Keller says, and from a business perspective, having employees involved in this type of service is a visible extension of Allstate's focus on compassion for its customers.
"We believe in having purpose-driven people serving our customers and our communities," she says. "It's great when our employees can volunteer, but it's even better when it's making a difference in the community and serving the specific needs of our partners."
Brianna White, communications, culture and engagement senior consultant at Allstate, has volunteered with Common Impact's projects twice, and signed up for another one this month. A large part of her role and a personal passion is communication — a highly valuable skill in any organization.
"The two times that I've volunteered have been a great opportunity to stretch those communication skills, and even better, I've been put in team leadership roles, which has allowed me to fill a gap in my professional development," she says. "It reminds us that anybody can lead from their seat, and we should all be leading from our seat in whatever way we can."
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Working with Common Impact has also connected White with organizations she wouldn't otherwise have known about including one in her home city of Seattle, and has educated her about the needs of her community, she says. By becoming more informed, she was able to use her communication skills to expand her contribution.
"We helped them develop their mission statement and gave them feedback on their website, and other things to help make them be more effective, which also makes them more attractive to other grant opportunities," White says. "I was able to use my voice to amplify their mission outside of that skills-based volunteering experience. I took to LinkedIn, I took to Giving Tuesday. I took it to my Facebook page to say, 'Here's this awesome nonprofit, and they need your help.'"
Having Allstate's encouragement to play a role in helping people and organizations is an example of it walking the walk of a value-based company, White says.
"It feels very authentic, and I love that we have the Allstate Foundation empowering us — this is an Allstate phrase — 'to live into these values' that are so important," she says. "We attract people who are also value driven, who are looking for a better purpose, and I'm proud to work here."
