At OverDrive, volunteering is more than a way to give back. It’s also a way to build connections and generate excitement.
The Garfield Heights-based company, which supports libraries, schools and academic institutions through its digital platforms, has been a BVU member since 2018. (Avid readers likely know it best for its Libby app.)
Since then, OverDrive’s volunteer program has grown steadily. The company now offers nearly two dozen volunteer projects a year, and more than half of its nearly 600 employees take part.
“In office life, this team works with this team, this team works with this team. It is just so great to see the different teams mingling with one another,” said Paul Elrabadi, OverDrive’s manager of events and outreach. “Friendships grow from hanging out at volunteer projects.”
Every OverDrive employee, including those who work remotely or outside Northeast Ohio, receives eight hours of volunteer time off (VTO) each year.
“There’s really an appetite from our staff for volunteering,” Elrabadi said. “Of our group of willing volunteers, they spend just about every available hour that they have.”
Case in point: Employees in the U.K., inspired by their stateside colleagues, organized their own projects so they could join in. And a virtual project with Girls Love Mail, which delivers handwritten letters to women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, engaged team members across the company, wherever they were located.
DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES, DIFFERENT INTERESTS
Mandee Strefas, a coordinator at OverDrive, said asking employees for feedback has helped the company expand its opportunities and boost participation.
“We have a lot of different personalities in our staff,” she said, noting that different causes draw different crowds.
Every couple of years, OverDrive surveys employees about the causes they care about most. The current top five: literacy, children and youth, the environment, arts and culture, and animals.
Through its partnership with BVU, which works with nearly 1,000 nonprofits across Northeast Ohio, OverDrive has introduced its team to new opportunities that match employees’ interests and meet real needs in the community.
“We have definitely been able to expand our impact areas because of BVU,” Strefas said.
RIPPLE EFFECT
And, the connections often don’t end when the volunteer day does.
Volunteer projects help the community get to know OverDrive, and it’s not unusual for employees to keep working with a nonprofit on their own after a company project wraps up.
“It says a lot about our company,” said Strefas, adding that it’s great to be able to use “our business as a force for good.”