Learning Series | Skills-Based Volunteering With Revere

Summary: Brian Kurth joins us to discuss skills-based volunteering and its growth across CSR!

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Transcript:

Ben - WeHero: Perfect, Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian Kurth: Hey, thanks for having me again.

Ben - WeHero: So folks that are listening, we're very excited to have Brian cur here today. Who's the founder of Revere software and Brian, are you founder or co-founder? I wanna make sure I introduce you the right way for founders. Perfect. And we're really excited to have Brian here today because skills based as many of us know is this booming of corporate volunteerism. Brian has just a depth of knowledge and my past conversations with him just felt like every time I stepped away from that conversation, I learned something new about how skill space is actually being executed. And so Brian, super excited to have you here today and maybe for folks that are listening, just give us the spark notes version of who is Brian cur. Like how did you, you get into this space and, and why are you so focused on skills space volunteering?

Brian Kurth: Well, I'm happy to say that I, I am very grateful for being in this space, but I happened upon it. It was by accident. I started not to go way back, but you know, I was a corporate guy in product management for the phone company. So a bit like Gilbert working for the phone company and product management for at and T and Ameritech the regional bell operating company back in Chicago. I mean, this is 25 years ago and then fast forward I got laid off right before nine 11 in the in first downturn, not the great recession, but the downturn in, in 2001. And and I had this spark of an idea that I wanted to explore. So rather than going out and getting another corporate job, I traveled across America for six months. And I took notes of folks who I met with.

Brian Kurth: And the question that I ask people is, you know, what's your dream job? What do you want? And do you have those skills to do it today? And if not, what are you willing to do to, to make that happen? And I said, what if you had two or three days of direct exposure with an expert in the field with those skills that could show you the ropes, would, would you do such a thing? Would you take what I called a vocation vacation? And with that, I launched this hobby little business called vocation vacation. That then became a bit of a media juggernaut. Had it for 15 years where we really did place people. We had a thousand advisors across America. So this was my entree into skills and, and working with experts and had a TV show, had a book and all based on vocation vacations.

Brian Kurth: And then people stopped dreaming and started stopped exploring because of the rate recession. So I had to come up with a different way of providing skills. And what I realized was, you know, that things hadn't changed. People still wanted those skills. And and so, but they wanted their employer to provide it. They wanted their university to provide it, their alumni association to provide it and started going down the path in the education space. And we still do have some clients in the education space. And then a client came to us at and prospective client. This is four years ago and said, we love what you're doing. Can you private label this for our skills based volunteering program? And I said, well, skills based volunteering. I assume it is what it sounds like, but I had never heard the term quite honestly. And the rest is his. And and then realizing that there was, you know, opportunity in the space from a business perspective, but also just an enormous feel, good factor of the fact that our clients, our corporate clients, but their end users, the people using the platform, getting the expertise and the best practices that they so desire and really need are the nonprofits and purpose driven entrepreneurs across the world. And and so that's very long answer to a short question.

Ben - WeHero: No, but it's a great answer. And you talked about, you know, you hearing a skill space for the first time and assuming, I assume it's exactly as it sounds, but let's talk about that more for folks cuz you and I, Brian, we talk about skills based all the time, but what is skills based volunteering? Let's just dissect that for one moment and, and talk about that.

Brian Kurth: Well, it really is providing one's skills that they have that, you know, in, in their day job, but it also could be something that they've done in the past. It could be something that they, that is advocational as well. So it's not always, you know, perceived as being, you know, a product manager is offering his or her product management skills or, you know, a web developer is providing web-based skills to build a website for a nonprofit or you know, project management in terms of, you know, a capital campaign for a nonprofit and, and fundraising and social media, all of those things are examples of skills that can be provided by an employee and expert in those areas, but they can also include advocational skills. And that's what I love about seeing you know, on the Revere platform, we have all those categories that are core, you know, hard skills, so to speak as well as soft skills.

Brian Kurth: But there are also other areas as well of interests and, and hobbies that can really, you know, there might be all things being equal, a software engineer that could help out with a you know, a, a new development for a nonprofit may also be a advocational phenomenal photographer and might be the perfect photographer to, to take some photos for the new website. That's also being designed as part of the project. So it's varied. I mean, you know, it is skills based. Volunteering can almost be anything you want it to be whatever you have as an employee, whatever you have passion for. And you're really good at provide those skills flip side on the nonprofit side, the nonprofits have a huge array of needs. Everything from the examples I've given, you know, from a new website to a capital campaign that they may need finance advice, they may need some HR advice, you name it, everything in between.

Brian Kurth: And and it's meeting those, the, the mat creating that match where the connective tissue between the nonprofits and the employees, what we do differently as well is we put the nonprofit in charge. They are making the requests for, for example, setting creating a application for a team project. That's not so unusual. They know what their need is. They create that team project. What we do that's different is that they're encouraged to have one to one meetings first with a variety of different experts on our corporate clients, branded platforms, programs so that they can get those questions that they need for their projects answered up front. Some of them can be very quick and fast and easy if it's related to creating a, a finance model in Excel or, you know, or something more in depth like software engineering, but they might through those one to one meetings, they at the nonprofits request of our corporate clients' employees are critical to the success.

Brian Kurth: Not only for those one to one meetings independent, you know, within themselves, but then also they, they basically build the foundation for a phenomenal kick project because a lot of the nonprofit profits questions or questions they don't even know to ask yet are answered upfront before they submit their application. So that there's far less garbage in garbage out when it comes to team project applications coming in from nonprofits. So we do both one to one meetings, team projects. We will be launching events, traditional events as well this upcoming year. And we do it all virtually and all in person as well. Once, you know, clients are ready to do that post COVID, you know, we're, we're getting closer and closer. So one to one team projects, events as well as virtual and in person.

Ben - WeHero: And this space is just, it's just growing so rapidly and you're in this very fast growing sector. It's a very niche sector, but it's exploding. I think that for good reason, like when we go in and design a volunteer program, you know, a skills space is increasingly becoming a very large portion of that. And, you know, we need platform providers like yourself to come and talk to me a little bit, Brian, about the space about the space you're operating and, and you already highlighted some of the difference with Reve differences with Revere, but what are the kind of types of solutions that are out there? And then one of the things that I like about Revere that I want to double click on is rather than the nonprofits pro providing job opportunities with the hope that employees are going to go and apply for those it's reversed in the sense of the employees are building profiles with their skills. That's right. And, and the nonprofits can select from that, which in our point of view is a very, it's a much more powerful model and much more successful model. But talk to me a little bit about how you're viewing this space right now.

Brian Kurth: Well, to, to dovetail that piece first you, you nailed it. It's critical in terms of human behavior, because for everyone listening and watching right now, how often on a Friday afternoon, after a tough week, do you go in say, Hmm, what can I do to volunteer? You know, through my employer, let me go check out what's available. It's not common, especially these days, especially during COVID where you're dealing with, you know, school in session, or are you teaching your kids at home and everything else going on in our lives. Instead, the nonprofit profit is reaching out directly. As you mentioned, the employee has the profile built listing, you know, some of their personal information, you know, in terms of, you know, their background, not personal information, but their, their background and their professional skills, et cetera. And the nonprofit is able to then make that request, you know, are you available next way, Wednesday at 3:00 PM.

Brian Kurth: And, you know, maybe give some other times as well. And if the employee is not available during those times, they can suggest other times it puts the power in the hands of those in need. And that's the nonprofit, meanwhile, it's a complete dopamine hit for that employee when they get that request rather than going in and saying, you know, over the weekend on a Saturday night family dinner, or with friends saying, you know, Hey, I went and submitted yesterday for this you know, need that a nonprofit posted instead, you know, it's an egos stroke and a dopamine hit for that individual. They are being recognized that is really critical. They are being recognized for their skills and that that nonprofit has reached out. And it gives me goosebumps whenever this happens. You know, one of my favorite just really quickly is, you know, during early days of COVID when the country of Togo, the healthcare ministry reached out to one of our clients' employees for help with data visualization in advance of COVID hitting their a country.

Brian Kurth: That's the power that is in making those connections and putting the nonprofit or in that case, you know, governmental agency enabling them, empowering them to reach out. So back to your previous question, in terms of the overall space it is a growing space. We, we consider ourselves one piece of a huge puzzle. And so we are very agnostic. We love working with everybody. So we partner with folks like you guys, what we hero. We, we partner with marketing agencies in the space. We, we partner with all the big boys and girls out there in the software space, especially in the employee giving side show, Benevity your cause, et cetera. So, you know, skill space volunteering is a niche within the space. And we're very comfortable in our own skin knowing that within skills space, volunteering, employee, giving let's face, it is always gonna be number one.

Brian Kurth: I mean, it just is nonprofits first and foremost need money in order to operate. Great. So hence why we do work with all those other folks you know, cyber grants, Benevity your cause. And the like, but the number two priority for those nonprofits is indeed skills. So we do have some friendly competitors, you know, catch a fire as a friendly competitor. They do things a little differently than we do. And it's a growing space where you know, the project management software folks are now in tune to what's happening. So Asana and Atlassian they understand that there's data now to be coming into their platforms from folks like us. So that's all very exciting. So the message to everyone watching and listening is that this is an ever changing space. And there is not one player right now that is incorporating traditional volunteerism skills, space, volunteerism, employee giving, doing it all, all, all super well.

Brian Kurth: Well, well showing instead we encourage, you know, take a best in class approach and, you know, for employee giving figure out who's going to be the best you know, company to work with and, and same for skills, space volunteering. And then in terms of project management and team event management. And, and, and there are, you know, obviously that's a busy space as well, but luckily it's a very friendly space and, and we all seem to take, I know you do Ben. And, and I do too. We, we all subscribe to you know, basically abundance versus scarcity. There's so much opportunity out there and we, we really do have, you know, the needs of the nonprofits in mind first and foremost. So we, we all are partnering together.

Ben - WeHero: Yeah. And, and I was thinking about a few things and your points there. And one of the things I was thinking about is you talked about the dopamine hit that the employee receives when they receive that request. And I was just thinking, I, I love talking with employees that are using to your point a skillset that is not their core work skill. It's a hobby or an interest of theirs that all of a sudden they're getting recognized for and getting to exercise. And that's really powerful. The other thing I was thinking of, I was having a conversation the other day, Brian was someone about the benefits that the nonprofits receive from those skill space, volunteer opportunities, also the benefits that that employee receives. And, and could you talk a little bit about that? Cause I think that's something that we miss. Oftentimes, what is the benefit of the employee volunteering for that nonprofit? What do they get outta that? It's,

Brian Kurth: It's shifting again, go going back to, you know, first and foremost, all, all of our intention and all of our, our goals and objectives are with the nonprofit in mind. Absolutely. That's number one always will be, but a close number two from a human resources perspective, from a recruitment engage, ongoing engagement and retention perspective. There's much to gain from having your employees provide their skills to nonprofits and purpose driven organizations and what I love it, it really, it, I, I sound like I wanna be careful not make it sound like I'm some, you know, grouchy old man, get off my porch. The you know, back back in my day we didn't have the opportunity to provide our skills to nonprofits. We were told in my corporate days, no offense to at and T and you know, but 20 plus years ago you were told, you know, you are going to give in no offense to United way.

Brian Kurth: It was United way to United way. You had no control over where your funds would go. And I know this is really tough for millennials and gen Zers to imagine that you wouldn't have control over where your money would go. And you were even told how much you were giving based upon your salary range. Those days are thankfully gone. And United way, you know, is obviously tweaked that many, many years ago. Very grateful for that. Now we have employees saying, you know, beyond the obvious, like I want leadership skills, I want project management skills, you know, that kind of thing. Those are obvious things that they get, the skills that they can hone within skills based volunteering, but it's other things being it's like, I wanna focus on my level of empathy for others. I, I a sense of mindfulness and balance in my life, my work and personal life things that would just never have been 20, 25 years ago.

Brian Kurth: And, and it's thanks to the gen Z and, and the millennials of saying, Hey, you know, yes, we have all these skills, but we're also people too. And, and we need to get something out of it. And it may not necessarily be that, you know, project management, leadership skills, it may be something more of a soft skill of, of really feeling, you know, fulfilled in and, and tapping that dopamine hit and stripping it down into, well, what's, what's at that core. Why is that driving? What, what is that, how is that making me feel? And that's now loop that back into HR, any HR person listening, that's critical, that's retention. You have good people. You don't wanna leave them during this. You have them leave during this you know, big resignation, great resignation that is occurring right now, tap their skills, tap their advocational skills.

Brian Kurth: If they have some, in addition to their, you know, pro bono skills that they'd be offering through their work, but also other skills that they may have. You know, we're, we, we work with folks at magnify impact and they call it the superpowers. And you know, it really, truly is that I'm careful not to overuse that, that term, but it is an employee superpower. And it's not to your point earlier. It's not just their day in and day out work skills. It's other skills as well that they, you know, from a past life past work experience and, or just simply applicational that can be critical and can still be valued. You know, the average dollar value for an hour of skills based volunteering is $195 value to the nonprofit in current, in today's current world. That's a lot. So, and they're getting it for free.

Ben - WeHero: Yeah. To put that in comparison, I think the average value of just volunteer time, like, you know, visiting with the bank's like something like $28 or something like that. So just to give people perspective of how different that is.

Brian Kurth: Exactly.

Ben - WeHero: Yeah. Loving this. So the biggest question I have Brian is how is this going to keep evolving? What's exciting you right now, what does the future of skills space look like for companies just would love you to look through the lens and give us your take and what you're seeing right now?

Brian Kurth: Well, what we're seeing is it's basically evolving into a hybrid first and for, and that's not a shock to anybody listening or watching, you know, we, our, our entire lives have become a hybrid, you know, in person. And, and so that's a no brainer. So I won't dwell on that, that people will understand that, that that's now the way things are. And that's true for both one to one meetings and team projects. We have one client who we, we launched our team projects module earlier this year. So it was new. And, you know, we have one client that's, you know, more than a hundred projects that are team based, the employees loved it because, you know, they're back with their team, not in person, but they're able to work with this nonprofit that might be in Rwanda or might be in Appalachia, might be, you know, anywhere in the world and sing with their, their colleagues.

Brian Kurth: They're now reconnecting with their colleagues that they perhaps only would see once a year at, you know, an annual meeting of, you know, all hands meeting, that kind of thing. Now they're seeing each other more often through virtual and the, in ones coming back, the team projects, I'm thrilled to, to say the team projects in person are coming back and that's very exciting. There are rules and regulations that the, the employers are putting in place, but it's happening. So we're very thrilled with that in a bigger picture, beyond that, what we're seeing is kind of going back to what we were just talking about, you know, we've always led with the, the nonprofit being empowered and that will always remain the case, but what we're seeing is the employees taking the Baton and running with it. And basically, you know, team leads not only just, you know, running with something that they've been assigned to that came in as a nonprofit application, but also the employees are saying, I love working with animals.

Brian Kurth: And my favorite nonprofit has a need. And you know, we need to, I work for an architectural firm, an engineering firm, and they have to, they really, there's a humane society that has a huge need for more kennels. And I want to submit an application for that and be the team lead and get my colleagues on board. Phenomenal. I mean, that's, you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier is that, you know, the employees are taking charge as well. So it's really a forming a partnership where it's in the past, it's been, you know, the nonprofits are saying, here's our need, here's our need. The corporations have been like, here's what we can offer you, you know, hope it fits your need. You know, those days are now gone in terms of these silos. It's now the partnership that's happening.

Brian Kurth: But between the nonprofits, you know, through means like Revere of, you know, that connectivity and machine learning you know, to make those right matches. That's just really exciting to see what's happening in 2022 and beyond is just how the mesh of human behavior is really in the partnerships that are occurring. I jokingly say we haven't had any best of my knowledge, any dating coming out of it or any marriages, but that'll be the next thing, because these partnerships are just becoming so fluid and organic that, you know, friendships are forming. And, you know, I think that, you know, over time there probably will be some, you know, we met through, you know, our corporate volunteering platform you know, I'm with a nonprofit and I'm the employee. And, you know, we met and the rest is history. That's certain to come because this partnership concept of the, of the two is just now at the core

Ben - WeHero: And the technology is becoming so immersive and so good that, yeah, you're just starting to see this. And, and to some of the points you're making Brian, the, the employees are charging so much of this, and you're seeing this expanding definition of what volunteering even is, which is that's right. Amazing thing. So keeps all the players on their toes. It creates a huge amount of opportunity, and it's just, it's really exciting.

Brian Kurth: It's going, it is now part of the DNA of most companies, not all. And you know, every, like I say, going back to employee giving and matching is prob probably going to forever be the lead, the mothership in terms of, cause that's ultimately what the nonprofits really, they can't exist if they can't financially support themselves. But this piece is becoming ubiquitous. Now there are companies I spoke with a company yesterday with a thousand employees, so small to medium size, you know, a thousand employees that's not tiny, but it's not fortune 500 either. And you know, and thankfully it was, you know, an in-person meeting, you know, one of the fir first in-person meetings that I've been having, again with a perspective client, and it was so rushing to hear her say this, this being skills based is becoming a core to what we do day in and day out.

Brian Kurth: And they are both professional employees, you know, with specific skills as well as, you know, they have a factory. You know, so to also you know, skilled employees, but not in the traditional format. And so we were talking about how we can, you know, offer up categorical skills for those who are working the assembly line literally. And is what we talked about before, you know, don't judge a book clients cover in terms of what skills that individual may have, just because they might be working in assembly line. They may have some skills that if you don't do a survey as an employer, if you don't find out what your employees want to provide as their skills and what they do have underneath, you know, their job title you gotta tap all that. And so that's really exciting. I guess what I'm trying to say is it's also going down market.

Ben - WeHero: Yeah. It is,

Brian Kurth: You know, from, from fortune 500 to fortune 1000, which is where we've been, you know, we started in the fortune 1000 space. Now we're going up market into fortune 500, but we're now also going down into small to medium. We have a, our smallest customer today has 600 employees. Okay. But, but we're looking forward to working with even smaller companies and we're adjusting, you know, the modules so that you can, so that reer can be for any, any company.

Ben - WeHero: So you know, for these smaller, medium size business, actually, it could be for any size business, Brian, but if there's a new CSR leader or a new HR leader, and they're trying to do skill space for the very first time, what is some advice that you would give them and launching that program?

Brian Kurth: Oh, well, first of all have your strategy in place first work with folks like you guys and some of our, of our other friends in the space, we've learned the lesson, the hard way that if a company comes to us, looking for a technology solution before they knew, know who they are and what they want to be in terms their CSR. So first have it down in terms of your strategy, your goals, your objectives, who are you wanting to work with? Who do your employees want to work with? Don't try to make it a mismatch of, you know, if you're, if you're working primarily with, you know, let's say engineers and you're thinking, well, we wanna really focus on nonprofit that have engineering skills, but what if your employees are like, you know, I I've had enough in my day job, you know, I've got this other skill that I'd really like to tap and, and explore, you know, it that's really critical.

Brian Kurth: So having the, who, the, what, the, where the win of your program in place, the full, or you come to us for a technology solution. So work with folks like you first, then come to us once you do that, we always, always, always almost require we don't use, we don't use that term, but we really almost require I, I come from product management. So you test first, you pop iLet first. So first let's get your stakeholders on board, who are your stakeholders, marketing, HR. It, we bring them on board right away. And we highly encourage our CSR social impact, you know, folks who are basically signing on the dot line with us, but they have key stakeholders that, and their program is gonna fail unless they get the buy-in from it, marketing and HR specifically. So we get them on board and then we do, we will build things out and we will do a pilot for anything.

Brian Kurth: It could be a week. It could be two months depending upon the client and make certain that they're comfortable with what they have going on. And that pilot could be within a business unit, or it could be a geographical focus. It could be within a skills based area. So, you know, it's totally up to the client as to what, and then, then with some clients it's focused solely on their products. You know, they're really doing pro bono where it's really based on product based services. Others are wide ranging, you know, provide product support, perhaps through skills based volunteering. They may, if it's a software company, they may be selling and licensing their software through like tech soup, for instance. And then it's a one, two punch. And in addition to getting your deal through tech soup, we also want you to get some skills based volunteering hours and your nonprofit through our program powered by Revere.

Brian Kurth: So, you know, it can be the gamut as to what that pie it looks like. And we always listen to what the client needs. We're flexible. We can make it whatever you want it to be. And then you hit cruising altitude, and then you start bringing on more and more employees and encourage them to create their profiles. You approve those profiles as the administrator, the programing off you go. And then within, you know, six months, you're at for sure at cruising altitude at that point. And then managing a program can take as little as two, three, no more than five hours a week. So that, you know, it is not a anywhere near a full-time job which is really refreshing to social impact. C are professionals because they are spinning so many plate,

Ben - WeHero: So many plays, the teams are small.

Brian Kurth: Then the teams are small. They're worried about, you know, budgeting. We try to work with them in terms of budgets for, you know, software, but they you know, they oftentimes, we, most of our folks are, you know, in the fortune one that space it's one or two people heading up the entire program. So you can't take a lot of time, you know, if, if your software requires a lot of management hours, it's gonna fail you, you need to make it easy for them.

Ben - WeHero: Yep. Right. Working people learn more about Revere working. People learn more or about yourself.

Brian Kurth: Well, certainly go to our website, get revere.com. And a lot of folks think we're based in Boston. We're not because of Reve. I think Paul Rere. And I'm okay with that because people think, you know, that the, you know, the British are coming, the British were coming, are coming. He, he was sharing information, sharing expertise. But we really it's. It's about get Revere in terms of Reve one's knowledge, Reve one's expertise, Revere's one's best practices. So go to get revere.com follow us out on social, you know, and Twitter and, and LinkedIn. And and we're pretty active and, and always providing you know, detailed information and, and we need to start doing more of this, of hosting some of our own. We haven't really done a ton of that, but we do a lot of providing a lot of resources as well. If you go to resources on our website, you'll see a lot of great information. So specific to skills, space, volunteering, and then also just the CSR space overall.

Ben - WeHero: Yep. For folks listening, I've been on that resources page, and it's a great resource. It doesn't have the wrong title. And for folks looking to learn more, how to encourage you reach out to the folks or veer, reach out to Brian. He's definitely a thought leader when it comes to skill space. And that's why we had him on this. So Brian, I want thank you immense, just for taking the time to share your wisdom with all of us and just what's happening with skills space, what you're noticing and what reer does to play in this world, where we're all trying to perform in a very optimized fashion, all trying to make a positive social impact. So thank you so much for your time.