With HR and CSR leaders increasingly aware that strong corporate volunteer and giving programs are an essential part of a positive employee experience, the vexing question on everyone’s minds is: but how can I get employees to actually participate?

Corey Diamond, COO of volunteer consultant firm Realized Worth, believes the answer may seem contradictory: focus less on volunteer participation, and more on the volunteer experience.

Too often, volunteer opportunities are created and executed with a “check-the-box” mentality. Overworked, under-resourced managers are doing the best they can just to get something — anything — organized. Fortunately, modern tools make the process of managing campaigns easier and more efficient than ever before.

But a powerful and sustaining volunteer program doesn’t just come from ease of use.

What this means is that waiting until the last minute to ask employees to donate to your holiday giving campaign is not the best way to maximize engagement. Instead, the challenge is to create a long-term relationship between your company and a nonprofit, where you can establish goals, benchmarks, and a demonstration of impact over time. Then find ways to connect your employees to that effort so that they can have an experience of personally making an impact.

Increasingly, corporate foundations are linking their giving to the broader company effort around a nonprofit. “Companies don’t want to just hand out grants,” Diamond has found. “They want a clear snapshot of how they’re impacting the community through grants and employee volunteering and giving. All of this becomes a seamless experience to support the individual participating; employees know that the company is backing their efforts with a big check, and they feel that they’re part of something much bigger.”

Read the full article about volunteer participation by Ryan Scott at Forbes.