It's easy to start a volunteer program at work, and the benefits are immediate

First, find out what your employees are interested in. Whether it's volunteering with underprivileged children, working at a homeless shelter or holding fundraisers, your employees may have specific ideas to help jump-start your program. It's also easy to incorporate your company's mission to match the needs of the community. The donated time of professionals is always welcome. Your web designers might be able to help redesign the website of a local non-profit.

I recommend: The Points of Light Foundation offers excellent information on Employee Volunteer Programs.

Treat your Employee Volunteer Program like any other company project

Make sure you have achievable goals and incentives for your employees. For example, you may want to have one volunteer program per year, per month or per quarter. With fundraisers, it's easy to set a monetary goal. With other programs, your goals may be measured in number of hours spent volunteering or number of employees who participated.

I recommend: The Corporate Volunteerism Council offers great resources on how to implement corporate volunteerism with corporate goals, and the importance of having a "Volunteer Statement," (much like a Mission Statement), as well as goals and how to measure the effects.

Look at what other companies have implemented

Microsoft Corporation, Xerox Corporation, UPS, Citi, The McGraw-Hill Companies and Cisco are all large corporations that have Employee Volunteer Programs. See what the larger companies have done, and scale it down for your small or medium-size business.

I recommend: VolunteerMatch offers case studies of successful Employee Volunteer Programs.