This is Our Moment to Give & Connect

During these unprecedented days of Social Distancing, our need for social connection is great. As individuals and families, we look for opportunities to maintain a connection to our community - but amidst all of the challenges that we feel, our hearts and thoughts are with our neighbors who are struggling right now just to get enough food on the table, or enough diapers or detergent for their families, or even just enough soap to keep hands clean. So what can we do? How can we help?

Building Impact is launching a brand new Virtual Volunteering platform that we are calling “Stay In, Reach Out.”  Our goal is to make volunteering simpler, easier, and most importantly, more effective in support of the challenging work of our community partners on the front lines. Building Impact’s mission is to strengthen our community through volunteering, and now along with our partners, we have transformed our work to make it possible to volunteer virtually - to connect in new, impactful ways to support our community. 

Already, thanks to the generous help of our volunteers we have delivered four thousand hand sanitizers provided by Tufts Health Plan to organizations on the front lines of street outreach at the St. Francis House and Eliot Human Services. With the generous support of partners like PNC Bank, we are delivering 8,000 bags to Boston Public Schools this week to support their meal distribution for kids across the city. But, our work does not stop there.

We are taking our model Virtual at 3 Levels:

• Share a Thought - an opportunity for volunteers & their families (kids included) to share a thought, drawing, photo or video in gratitude for the professionals who are on the front lines of this crisis - at healthcare settings and nonprofit organizations like shelters across our city. There is no cost to participating in this program - please create & share so that we can share these uplifting messages with care providers this week!
• Create a Kit - Virtual Volunteering Kits are offered to meet specific needs on our community. By Listening to Needs in the Community, co-designing projects to support our community partners, and Measuring the Outcomes - our Create-A-Kit program allows you to virtually assemble a kit and personal note to the receiving individual.
• Phone Tree Corporate Challenge - a final program in our Virtual Volunteering platform is a skills-based volunteering program. We are asking corporate teams to find 10 volunteers who are ready to commit to 4 total hours of volunteering by calling a senior and spending time with them on the phone to determine needs they may have for meals or medication, but also to assist in combating social isolation they may be experiencing.

Whether it is by leaving a note of thanks or encouragement to those healthcare professionals on the front lines, or by building a kit for outreach to those experiencing homelessness in our virtually volunteering kits; or by volunteering to join our Call Tree Corporate Challenge - there are several ways you can join us in reaching out to the community at this time.

In this new world of virtual volunteering, a few things stay the same:

As always, we recognize the importance of our work in acting LOCALLY - every organization we support is serving urgent needs in our community. We also know the importance of harnessing the power of TEAMS in our work. The collective impact we have as a group, and the teamwork we build will amplify the impact and awareness of the organizations we support. And finally, our MEASUREMENTS - we are focused not just on inputs - the number of hours, calls, cards - but on outcomes in how this contribution will make a difference.

We commit to sharing the outcomes of your volunteering with you - in our Impact Reports, in our photos and in the notes from our community partners at the time we make our deliveries.