Your Red Cross Update

By Alex Keilty

Many Bay Area organizations are making community service part of their annual plan by giving staff paid time to volunteer or organizing events that benefit a cause close to their employees’ hearts.

Deloitte, a professional services organization and longtime supporter of the American Red Cross, hosts an annual in-house “Impact Day”. Impact Day is Deloitte’s national annual day of service in the US, an opportunity for professionals to come together and engage in social impact efforts that reflect Deloitte’s purpose commitments to help create positive change for ourselves, each other and our community, and—together—drive progress toward a more equitable and sustainable future for all.

On Friday June 7th, Deloitte professionals, nonprofit relationships, and communities connected in over 1,200 social impact projects across more than 100 US cities to drive social and economic prosperity in the communities where they live and work. This year’s Impact Day took a unique approach when Deloitte’s local staff was asked to troubleshoot a real issue: the difficulty of recruiting and retaining volunteers to transport donated blood to hospitals in the San Francisco area.

Steve Hoeschele, Red Cross Regional Philanthropy Partner, compared the experience to the excitement of a televised game show, where teams of Deloitte professionals made their pitches to a panel of judges.

Ankita Agarwal of Deloitte described the day: “The atmosphere was busy with everyone formulating ideas and seeing how to best implement them. Although we were all enjoying the team activities and discussions, it was also nice to see a bit of competitiveness in the atmosphere as well!”

The teams focused on the Red Cross case study in detail. “They took a deep dive…looking at it from top to bottom,” said Jonathan Bernier, Red Cross Regional Volunteer Services Officer.

Suggestions included tapping into the volunteer ranks of organizations such as National Charity League Chapters and nearby universities, providing incentives to delivery drivers, using driverless cars and more.

“We received valuable knowledge from of a couple dozen staff who problem solve on a daily basis. They were able to help us address this vexing issue that we have had,” said Steve.

Jonathan agreed. “We walked away with a lot of good ideas.”

Some Deloitte staff also partook of other Red Cross activities provided that day including hands-on CPR training.

Ankita, who had been a Red Cross volunteer back in high school and college, was proud of the assistance the teams were able to provide to the Red Cross. And proud that her team won!

“I thought that there is no better incubator for ideas than something like Impact Day and if we could think of effective changes, it may be able to play a big role in the community,” she said.

The Red Cross appreciates its support from Deloitte and the “pro bono” consulting provided on its Impact Day.