REMOTE VOLUNTEERING: ACCENTURE EMPLOYEES PARTNER WITH COMPASS TO LOCATE HOUSING AND RESOURCES

Covid-19 changed everything, including how hundreds of corporate employees volunteer with Compass.

“A crisis is when we need volunteers the most. But how do you do that when there’s too much at risk? We had to pivot to remote volunteering and realized the impact could be just as big as in-person volunteering. And in our first event, we realized it can actually be even bigger,” says Karin Lamb, Volunteer and Community Resources Manager for Compass.

Employees of Accenture, a multinational professional services company, offered to volunteer for a half-day event for Compass if we could come up with a remote project. We came up with two projects and they said “yes!”

The projects were coordinated by Karin Lamb and Abigail Vieira, Program Director for our housing program, SF HOME. The first is a landlord outreach project to help our housing team identify and contact landlords in the Bay Area and make them aware of our housing subsidy program. These introductions will hopefully open the doors to more landlords renting apartments to Compass families.

The second project involved mapping different types of resources in cities and counties throughout the Bay Area. This includes food bank locations, employment centers, childcare, language classes, and transportation.

Compass secures housing for families exiting homelessness as far out as Sacramento. As affordable housing is rare in San Francisco, most families must move further and further out which means we need to build relationships with landlords and also map resources in those communities.

Volunteers met on Zoom and were given an overview of Compass Family Services before they were split into two working groups where they were provided an outline for each project.

The results were impressive. Several new connections were made with landlords and available apartments were identified. The Accenture team added 9 new potential landlords in 3 counties! And the resource team mapped 30 new resources in Sacramento and 17 in Vallejo.

All of the new location and contact information was immediately forwarded to housing specialists who are following up. And the new resources identified will now be available to families in those communities.

The Accenture team also identified several ways to improve both projects and some volunteers wanted to continue their work after the project ended!

If you or your office team would like to volunteer with Compass, in-person or remotely, please contact Karin Lamb at klamb@compass-sf.org. You can also click below to learn about many other ways we’re you can help.