12 Skills-Based Volunteering Examples for Companies

Activity-based volunteering — litter picks, food bank shifts — is valuable and accessible. But skills-based volunteering, where employees donate professional expertise, often delivers far greater impact per hour, because you're giving charities something they genuinely can't afford to buy.

Here are 12 practical examples, organised by the department best placed to deliver them.

Marketing & communications

• **Brand and website refresh** — Many small charities run on outdated branding and DIY websites. A short project can transform how they're perceived.
• **Campaign strategy** — Helping a charity plan a fundraising or awareness campaign, including channels and messaging.
• **Content and storytelling** — Writing case studies, annual report copy, or social content that helps a cause tell its story.

Finance

• **Budgeting and forecasting** — Helping a charity build a robust budget or cash-flow forecast.
• **Finance process review** — Tightening bookkeeping, reporting, and controls for an organisation without a finance team.
• **Pro bono financial mentoring** — Coaching a charity leader through financial decisions.

IT & digital

• **Systems setup and training** — Implementing a CRM, productivity tools, or a donations platform.
• **Cyber security review** — Helping a charity protect supporter data — a growing risk for under-resourced organisations.

HR & people

• **Mock interviews and CV coaching** — Supporting people moving back into work, a perennially high-demand skill.
• **HR policy and recruitment support** — Helping a charity build fair, compliant people processes.

Legal & professional services

• **Legal clinics** — Advice sessions on contracts, employment, or governance that charities can't otherwise access.
• **Trustee and governance roles** — Longer-term board contributions that strengthen a charity's leadership.

Why skills-based volunteering is worth the effort

It takes more coordination than a team day, but the payoff is real:

• **Higher value per hour** — Professional time is scarce and expensive for charities. A day of pro bono legal or finance work can be worth thousands.
• **Deeper engagement** — Employees use their actual expertise, which feels more meaningful than generic tasks.
• **Skills development** — Volunteers build leadership, communication, and project skills they bring back to work.

The trade-off: it requires good charity-partner matching and clear scoping, so both sides know what success looks like.

Measuring the value

Because skills-based volunteering is worth more per hour, it's worth valuing properly. Rather than a flat national average, use a rate that reflects the professional value of the time donated. Our social value calculator lets you set a skilled rate, and how to measure the social value of volunteering covers the methods in depth.

To run skills-based volunteering at scale, you need to match the right people to the right projects and track the hours and outcomes. With Kind Folk helps you organise it all — and capture the value so it shows up in your impact reporting.