Benefit or Burden? An NPO ‐Centered View on Corporate Volunteering

ABSTRACT Corporate volunteering is generally described as a “win–win–win” arrangement, where companies lend extra manpower to non‐profits while reaping benefits on both the organizational and individual employee levels. However, there is a lack of research from the perspective of the third category of “winners”, the non‐profit organizations (NPOs). Through interviews with 14 NPO professionals, this paper challenges the assumed win for this third actor by exploring the genuine benefits and drawbacks that they encounter when participating in these programs, as well as identifying under which circumstances these outcomes prevail. Benefits and drawbacks have been identified on the NPO level concerning the NPO's daily operations and its capacity development, along with the impact of corporate volunteering programs on different stakeholder groups. Key findings suggest that these outcomes are heavily influenced by the motivation of the individual corporate volunteers, the commitment of the sending company, and the extent to which the corporate volunteers use their professional skills, as well as characteristics such as the duration of the assignment and the size of the group of corporate volunteers. This research highlights the importance of not simply assuming the non‐profit's win, but rather understanding its multi‐faceted perspective on corporate volunteering.