GVS ‘25

Global Volunteering Summit 2025

Feb 26-27, 2025
San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Recap

An invite-only gathering of 200+ social impact leaders to accelerate innovation in employee volunteering and spark a global movement.

Speakers at GVS'25

Alice Zients
NASDAQ
Alistair Kiyingi
GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION
Amanda Bisgaard
BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA
Amanda Misbe
Adobe
Andrea Bell
ACCP
Angela Parker
REALIZED WORTH
Becky Taillon
Arrow Electronics
Brian Mattos
Visa
Candace Worley
BENEVITY
Chris Jarvis
REALIZED WORTH
Diann Lawson
SEQUOIA CONSULTING GROUP
Jane Baldwin
LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Kenrick Fraser
PAYPAL
Mallory Burke
ATLASSIAN
Marissa O’Rourke
SERVICENOW
Mark Daniels
Guidewire Software
Meire Braga
Arrow Electronics
Michael Budwig
DEED
Monique Iniguez
COVENANT HOUSE CALIFORNIA
Nancy Prowda
HILTON
Parnita Rane
Red Hat
Sara Link
IBM
Shayla Nielsen
JPMC
Stephanie Bormann
HP Foundation
Stephanie Kuei
ADOBE
Stephanie Smith
FORD
Tara Lubbers
Amazon
Tracey Pennywell
HBCU HEROES
Will Telfer
BYTEDANCE
Alice Zients
NASDAQ
Alistair Kiyingi
GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION
Amanda Bisgaard
BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA
Amanda Misbe
Adobe
Andrea Bell
ACCP
Angela Parker
REALIZED WORTH
Becky Taillon
Arrow Electronics
Brian Mattos
Visa
Candace Worley
BENEVITY
Chris Jarvis
REALIZED WORTH
Diann Lawson
SEQUOIA CONSULTING GROUP
Jane Baldwin
LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Kenrick Fraser
PAYPAL
Mallory Burke
ATLASSIAN
Marissa O’Rourke
SERVICENOW
Mark Daniels
Guidewire Software
Meire Braga
Arrow Electronics
Michael Budwig
DEED
Monique Iniguez
COVENANT HOUSE CALIFORNIA
Nancy Prowda
HILTON
Parnita Rane
Red Hat
Sara Link
IBM
Shayla Nielsen
JPMC
Stephanie Bormann
HP Foundation
Stephanie Kuei
ADOBE
Stephanie Smith
FORD
Tara Lubbers
Amazon
Tracey Pennywell
HBCU HEROES
Will Telfer
BYTEDANCE
...and more

Honoring Excellence In Volunteering

Company Awards
The Mobilizer
Driving the highest participation from the workforce
The Innovator
Driving innovation in employee volunteering initiatives
Impact Accelerator
Rapid scale-up of the volunteering program
The Global Champion
Expanding volunteering initiatives globally
The Purpose pioneer
Mission-driven volunteering programs addressing key societal challenges
The Volunteering
Powerhouse
(<20K employees)
The most consistent volunteering effort
The Volunteering
Powerhouse
(>20K employees)
‍The most consistent volunteering effort
Changemaker Awards
Community Ally
Engaging Affinity Groups in volunteering programs
Marissa O'Rourke
ServiceNow
Rising star
Young practitioners driving employee volunteering in their organizations
Parnita Rane
Red Hat
Impactpreneur
Launching unique and innovative volunteering programs
Kenrick Fraser
PayPal
Engagement architect
Leading champion network development and engagement
Shannon Coyne Rosado
Nielsen
Changemaker of the Year
Exceptional leadership in driving impactful, inclusive, and innovative volunteering initiatives
Meire Braga
Arrow Electronics

Sessions at GVS 2025

Day 1
Day 2
Panel Discussion

Defining the right volunteering strategy

Speakers
Alissa May
Social Impact Consultant
Sara Link
IBM
Shayla Nilsen
JPMorgan Chase
Amanda Misbe
Adobe

Key Takeaways

  • People first. Community first. A successful volunteering strategy prioritizes deep connections with communities, ensuring meaningful impact rather than just high participation numbers.
  • Volunteering should never be a burden to nonprofits; instead, companies must collaborate to solve real challenges and provide necessary resources.
  • Investing in employee champions with training, budgets, and leadership opportunities enhances engagement and long-term sustainability.
  • Measuring impact effectively over the next five years is crucial, shifting from transactional volunteering to high-impact, skills-based contributions. Maximize impact over quantity of kits.
  • Companies should embed volunteering into their culture, leveraging employee skills, AI, and data-driven insights to scale global efforts efficiently.
Partner Spotlight

Benevity X Goodera: Partnering for purpose

Speakers
Missy Peck
Goodera
Candace Worley
Benevity
Abhishek Humbad
Goodera

Key Takeaways

  • Benevity and Goodera are integrating their platforms to streamline volunteering experiences, reducing manual effort and making participation seamless for volunteers and program managers.
  • API integration will enable auto-event creation, real-time data synchronization, and simplified reporting, ensuring better accuracy and efficiency.
  • The partnership aims to leverage AI and automation to enhance event discovery, optimize workflows, and provide smarter engagement opportunities.
  • By reducing admin work and improving data accuracy, the partnership lets champions and nonprofits focus on impact.
Panel Discussion

Expanding volunteering globally: Challenges & Solutions

Speakers
Sriram Shankar
Goodera
Mallory Burke
Atlassian
Stephannie Borman
HP Foundation
Parnita Rane
Redhat

Key Takeaways

  • Companies like Atlassian, Red Hat, and HP focus on maintaining a unified volunteering strategy while allowing for regional customization, ensuring local relevance without losing the global vision.
  • Building strong champion networks helps decentralize volunteer program management, making it more inclusive and reducing the burden on central teams.
  • Platforms like Benevity and Slack help streamline communication, track participation, and provide equitable volunteering experiences for remote and in-office employees.
  • Encouraging leadership participation and embedding volunteering into company culture significantly boosts employee engagement and program success.
Keynote Session

Inspiring a volunteering revolution with storytelling

Speakers
Matthew Luhn
Former Storyteller, Pixar

Key Takeaways

  • Storytelling is a powerful tool for inspiring action, making information more memorable, and emotionally engaging audiences.
  • A strong story structure—hero, goal, obstacle, and transformation—helps connect with listeners and persuade them effectively.
  • Visual storytelling, emotional highs and lows, and relatable metaphors enhance impact and retention.
  • Successful pitches and presentations should focus on personal connections, clear messaging, and audience-driven narratives to drive engagement.
Partner Spotlight

Global Citizen X Goodera: Partnering for purpose

Speakers
Michael Sheldrick
Global Citizen

Key Takeaways

  • Volunteering not only creates meaningful change for communities but also improves mental health, reduces stress, and fosters a sense of purpose for volunteers.
  • Strategic partnerships, like Global Citizen and Goodera, amplify impact by engaging corporate volunteers, leveraging technology, and driving policy change.
  • Storytelling is essential for mobilization—sharing personal experiences and impact narratives helps turn apathy into action.
Unfiltered Session

Skills-Based Volunteering: Making It Work

Speakers
Stephanie Kuei
Adobe
Matthew DePace
IBM

Key Takeaways

  • Measuring the impact of skills-based volunteering requires clearer metrics, as traditional methods may not fully capture its long-term benefits.
  • Identifying and selecting the right projects remains a major challenge in scaling skills-based volunteering, requiring better matchmaking between volunteers and opportunities.
  • Volunteer engagement is highly dependent on effective communication, leadership buy-in, and reducing barriers such as time constraints and burnout.
Unfiltered Session

Meaningful Volunteering for Disaster Response

Speakers
Alistair Kiyingi
GEM
Michael Budwig
Deed

Key Takeaways

  • Disaster response is most effective when companies and nonprofits prepare in advance during "blue sky" periods, ensuring resources like funds, supplies, and volunteer networks are in place before crises hit.
  • Financial contributions, especially recurring donations, have a greater long-term impact than in-kind donations, which often include expired or unnecessary items that are difficult to distribute.
  • Corporate disaster response should balance immediate relief with long-term recovery efforts, integrating volunteerism strategically after the initial surge of aid to sustain rebuilding efforts.
Unfiltered Session

Volunteering for New-Age Companies

Speakers
Mark Daniels
Guidewire

Key Takeaways

  • Effective long-term volunteering demands specific skills and a strong commitment, which not every employee may be ready for, leading to fewer participants.
  • However, the impact—whether through mentoring, supporting small entrepreneurs, or aiding NGOs—can be profoundly transformative.
  • Community engagement should not depend solely on funding size; if corporations contribute skills, time, and expertise, the impact will be far greater.
  • Corporate leaders must navigate HR, compliance, and legal frameworks to empower these programs.
Workshop and Panel Discussion

Building self-sustaining volunteer leader network: From check-ins to Champions

Speakers
Angela Parker
Realized Worth
Marissa O’Rourke
ServiceNow
Will Telfer
Tiktok
Stephanie Smith
Ford
Alice Zients
Nasdaq

Key Takeaways

  • Enable, don’t overwhelm – Social Impact teams are small and mighty, but it’s their full-time job. For Champions, this is an added responsibility. Social impact leaders can support efforts by reducing friction to make their roles easier. Work alongside them to be their support system, rather than the other way around.
  • Structure for success – Clearly define roles (Formalize), tailor programs to regional needs (Localize), acknowledge contributions (Recognize), and equip champions with resources (Budgetize) to scale impact.
  • Align with purpose – Champions need to see how their efforts connect to company values and objectives. Sharing the impact strategy and involving them in planning ensures they feel invested rather than simply assigned tasks. Share the 'why!'
  • Start with people – Purpose should feel tangible. Remind employees how their actions contribute to progress and recognize that building these networks takes time.
Access Session Recording
Panel Discussion

Perspectives from Goodera’s nonprofit council

Speakers
Harshita Goel
Goodera
Amanda Bisgaard
Boys and Girls Club of America
Monique Iniguez
Covenant House of California

Key Takeaways

  • Nonprofits need deeper collaboration with corporate partners to design volunteer programs that are both impactful and aligned with the real needs of the communities they serve.
  • Flexibility and customization are key—every nonprofit and location has different requirements, so corporate volunteering programs should be adaptable rather than one-size-fits-all.
  • Sustainability matters—one-time projects are helpful, but nonprofits benefit most from long-term partnerships that include ongoing support, funding, and skill-based volunteering.
  • Workforce readiness and youth engagement are growing focus areas, with opportunities for corporate volunteers to provide mentorship, career exposure, and AI training to better equip young people for the future.
Case Study

How we increased volunteer participation by 80% in a year

Speakers
Meire Braga
Arrow Electronics
Becky Tailon
Arrow Electronics

Key Takeaways

  • Clear goals and benchmarking helped Arrow set a 17% volunteer participation target, with an internal stretch goal of 23%.
  • Expanding the Global Volunteer Network from 25+ to 155+  champions enabled wider engagement and localized volunteer efforts. Dedicated onboarding, regular check-ins, and continuous support empowered champions to organize and promote volunteering activities effectively.
  • A mix of structured campaigns, spotlights, and ad-hoc events provided flexible opportunities for employees to participate.
  • Integrating Goodera 365 with internal platforms like YourCause streamlined event planning, registration, and reporting. Automated confirmations, calendar invites, and real-time tracking made it easier for employees to get involved while providing leadership with clear insights into volunteer impact
Panel Discussion

Volunteering metrics that matter

Speakers
Vishesh Gera
Goodera
Andrea Bell
ACCP
Jane Baldwin
Lexisnexis Risk Solution
Brian Mattos
Visa

Key Takeaways

  • The session began with insights from ACCP, focusing on the evolving role of corporate social impact professionals and how companies are structuring their volunteering programs.
  • VQ Report 2.0 provided data-driven insights on workforce participation in corporate volunteering, highlighting key trends such as increased engagement and the impact of volunteer enablers.
  • Traditional metrics, including the number of volunteers and hours contributed, remain crucial in measuring participation and benchmarking company performance in volunteering programs.
  • Storytelling was emphasized as a powerful tool for leadership buy-in and reporting, helping to translate volunteering data into meaningful narratives.
Spotlight

Hilton & Sequoia: Amplifying Impact through consumer engagement

Speakers
Missy Peck
Goodera
Nancy Prowda
Hilton
Diann Lawson
Sequoia

Key Takeaways

  • Hilton’s Meet with Purpose program integrates social impact into meetings by reducing waste, sourcing sustainable food, and offering volunteer activities that leave a lasting community impact.
  • Sequoia engages clients in volunteering by providing structured pathways, toolkits, and gamified giving experiences, making social impact accessible and rewarding.
  • Both companies emphasize that incorporating volunteering into customer and client engagements strengthens relationships, builds trust, and creates a shared sense of purpose.
  • Success is measured through participation rates, impact tracking, and storytelling, ensuring that employees and clients see the tangible outcomes of their contributions.
Partner Spotlight

HBCU Heroes X Goodera: Partnering for Purpose

Speakers
Tracey Pennywell
HBCU Heroes

Key Takeaways

  • HBCU Heroes partnered with Goodera to create Mission Future Forward, providing mentorship, career prep, and volunteer opportunities to support HBCU students in bridging academic and corporate gaps.
  • Virtual and in-person engagements like speed mentoring, LinkedIn/resume reviews, and career coaching help students, especially first-generation graduates, gain crucial corporate connections and job opportunities.
  • Corporate partners like LexisNexis and IBM support students through mentorship, interview coaching, and career kits, enhancing career readiness.

Volunteering Safari at GVS ‘25

Explore the future of employee volunteerism

About Goodera

Discover our journey in building the world’s largest volunteering ecosystem—connecting intent with impact, one initiative at a time.

Volunteering Portfolio

We listen, collaborate, and build cutting-edge solutions to make volunteering seamless and effective.

Volunteering Infrastructure

Custom-tailored programs with Host Assured, Nonprofit Assured, Experience Assured, and Logistics Assured—ensuring impact without the guesswork.

Volunteering Knowledge Center

Access expert insights, strategies, and data-driven resources to maximize corporate volunteering success.

Goodera 365

Move from ad-hoc efforts to a structured, multi-region program aligned with volunteering goals.

Goodera Merch Store

High-quality apparel, accessories, and event essentials to elevate your company’s volunteering experience.

We’re already gearing up for
GVS 2026

Mark your calendars for February 25-26, 2026!