We often talk about skills-based volunteering in terms of social impact: the time, expertise and skills employees contribute, and the access to resources and capacity social impact organisations gain.
Both matter. But there is another part of the story that deserves attention: the powerful opportunities for learning and development (L&D) skills-based volunteering (SBV) provides.
It’s the learning that’s taking place whether we track it or not. But being more intentional about designing programmes with learning in mind, can not only help meet social impact and L&D goals, but can help maximise the long-term impact of these experiences on participants and their companies at large.
A different kind of learning
Organisations invest significantly in leadership development and technical training: ATD’s 2026 State of the Industry Report shows significant investment by companies on direct learning in 2025, and note that formal learning hours per employee have increased in the last year. Much of this learning, understandably, takes place within the organisation: alongside familiar colleagues, and within familiar systems and ways of working.
Skills-based volunteering offers something different.
For a day, a week, or several months, participants step into a different context – a different work environment and with different people. These contexts have the opportunity to stretch participants, leading them to apply their experience and expertise in new ways.
They need to listen before acting; to question their assumptions; and to adapt to a different organisational reality.
Participants engage in work that really matters to their social impact partners and on challenges that are often pressing and critical. They need to understand the context and work out how they can be most useful, rather than simply applying the approaches that have worked for them before and in the same way.
They also acquire valuable insights about the complex and shifting priorities often faced by nonprofit leaders that can mirror the shifts they face inside their own organizations.
This all creates a different kind of learning. One that leadership development leaders should take notice of.
Evidence that learning is happening
Our research shows how the personal stretch that SBV provides has a significant impact on the learning of participating employees. The graph below shows how leadership skills are enhanced, and real shifts can take place as a result of participation in SBV experiences:
“I was able to come out of my comfort zone and corporate experience to work with an organization dealing with real life challenges. I learned to be more flexible and have empathy towards their cause.”
We’ve also clearly seen how these experiences build resilience. As we note in our White Paper, The Resilience Dividend, participants show consistent shifts in how they work, judge situations and respond under pressure after they have been placed into live SBV experiences in unfamiliar settings.
According to Emerging World’s longitudinal data, 77% of participants surveyed reported significant growth in their ability to deal with ambiguity and 68% reported growth in dealing with complexity as a result of participating in SBV.
The learning is clearly happening. But if we don’t view these experiences through a L&D lens, we can fail to capture it. We can also miss the opportunities to build on these learnings, to incorporate them into future activities, and to help foster the long-term impact of these experiences.
How then can we ensure the link between SBV and L&D is made more deliberately?
What companies can do to make learning more intentional
Imagine every pro bono engagement beginning with a conversation between the participant and their line manager — not only about what they hope to deliver, but about what they hope to learn.
Credit Suisse’s Global Citizens Programme took this approach with its participants:
Incorporating this approach into the design of SBV programmes helps the learning become intentional rather than incidental. And it helps ensure the impact of the experience lasts long after the volunteer assignment ends.
Another company Emerging World worked with took an equally deliberate approach by bringing together their Sustainability and Learning & Development teams to jointly design their SBV programme. This meant that while social impact remained a key driver, there were intentional points throughout where learning was being tracked and developed.
This helped participants clearly identify where their learning took place and allowed them to communicate to their managers about the new skills they developed that could further enhance their role at the company.
From Volunteering to Strategic Learning
Whether we are cognisant of it or not, participants are learning through participating in SBV experiences. They gain insights and skills they can take back to their day jobs and that benefit their companies.
But some companies are reticent to support this learning as intentionally as we’ve described. Overtly supporting the learning of SBV participants may be seen as an interference to a company’s mandate to provide support purely for the benefit of the social impact organizations and causes they champion.
Are you making the most of the learning potential in your skills-based volunteering programmes?
The learning is already happening. Let’s make it intentional.
