Month of Service 2019: A Time to Give Back
Every October, SAP employees celebrate Month of Service by uniting globally to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. Month of Service is a time for employees to step away from their desks, roll up their sleeves, and get involved in volunteering within our local communities. SAP Concur joined in the celebrations of this year’s monumental 15th anniversary of SAP’s Month of Service, with employees participating in over 50 different volunteering opportunities hosted globally for SAP Concur. Let’s walk through a couple of volunteering stories SAP employees participated in that illustrate lasting impacts of change, through Month of Service and beyond.
Thinking global, acting local
Rise Against Hunger is one of our largest hands-on volunteering opportunities, located at SAP Concur HQ in Bellevue, Washington. This year, we kept the tradition alive and celebrated our 4th annual Rise Against Hunger event, with more than 175 volunteers working together to package 40,000 meal bags for those experiencing hunger around the world. Volunteers gathered in groups around packaging stations and created assembly lines to measure the right amount of rice, soy, and vegetables for each pack. The nonprofit Rise Against Hunger then sends out these packages to the countries that have the greatest need, with West Coast packages largely sent to Southeast Asia. Many employees participate in Rise Against Hunger every year with their team, as it is a great opportunity for team building and giving back together.
Providing food for communities in need isn’t just an opportunity for Bellevue employees. In the UK, our Crawley office employees worked at Crawley Open House, an organization that supports those experiencing homelessness. Serving as a hostel, Crawley Open House provides food parcels for people experiencing food insecurity and meals at their day center. Employees helped sort food donations that were piling in, just in time for the organization’s new warehouse opening and the holiday season. Continuing their lasting impact, employees are having a food drive in the Crawley office, and plan to bring back all their collected items back in December to volunteer again.
Giving back with talents and skills
In addition to hands-on volunteering, SAP employees give back through skills-based volunteering. Skills based volunteering is so important, as it tackles systemic change to make a lasting impact. Out of the Prague office, employees offered their mentoring skills to students with the organization Junior Achievement Czech Republic, an international nonprofit that encourages early exposure of young people to business techniques through curriculum and after school programs. SAP Concur volunteers took time to provide business expertise and know-how through the BEAMentor Conference to 12 different classrooms of students looking to get involved in the business world. Our employees will be continuing to mentor the students on a bi-weekly basis until April 2020.
Local Social Sabbatical is another example of skills-based volunteering that was hosted in Bellevue, Washington for our second year in a row. Twelve SAP Concur employees volunteered two weeks out of their day jobs to contribute their unique business acumen at nonprofits in the Greater Seattle Area.Nonprofits that collaborated with our SAP and SAP Concur employees include Pike Place Market Foundation, Imagine Institute, Girls Inc. of the Pacific Northwest, and Summer Search. Together, the teams scoped out business problems and assistance the nonprofits needed for projected success, and the cross-functional teams hit the ground running with creating solutions that will have long-term impact. Local Social Sabbatical focuses on skills-based volunteering that create ripple effects beyond Month of Service, and we’re grateful to our employees for representing us well outside the office walls and into our local communities.
Our year-round impact
Year-round volunteering could not be done without our incredible Volunteer Ambassadors, leaders within the company who guide their colleagues to volunteering in the community. Volunteer Ambassador Monika Jaburkova from the Prague office talked about the impact of Month of Service saying, “I think it’s important for employees to be able to engage in different activities besides their daily tasks. It helps to increase the sense of purpose in what we are doing and is a great opportunity to get to know your colleagues outside of work while doing something good for others.”
Wrapping up this tremendous Month of Service 2019, SAP Concur couldn’t have done it without our passionate employees giving of their time and talents to make it a success. However, volunteering in our communities extends outside the realm of SAP Concur and Month of Service. With the holidays approaching quickly and the need in organizations year-round for volunteers, how will you get involved today to make that impact for tomorrow?
