We value our corporate culture as one of the most important aspects of the company, and one way we give back is by employing 1% community time. What that means is all employees get to spend 1% of their time helping a non-profit in the community, fully paid for by the company. With a typical 50 week year, and 40 hours per week, for a total of 2,000 hours, 1% comes out to 20 hours, or 2.5 days of community service time. Yes, it is optional, but a good number of team members take advantage of it.
What are some advantages of 1% time? Let’s take a look:
- Great for employee morale
- Powerful for team building and cross team rapport building
- Positive impact for the community
- Helps put things in perspective
We’ve had events with Junior Achievement, helped clean up a park in South Atlanta, and have an event with the Boys & Girls Club coming up.
My recommendation is to consider 1% community time for your company.
David Cummings on Startups 
David,
It’s great to hear that you are putting your employee’s skills to use for the betterment of the Atlanta community AND paying for it! I love it!
I challenge you to go further and extend your 1% commitment to more of your company assets, 1% of product and 1% of equity. Marc Benioff at salesforce.com designed and implemented a 1/1/1 model as part of the company mission from their launch. Check out their foundation’s model. http://www.salesforce.com/company/foundation/
Keep up the great work!
Erik