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Home Blog The Best Corporate Volunteering Programs Shouldn’t Feel Mandatory
There’s a particular kind of corporate volunteering day that most people recognize.
Lou Cooper
June 19, 2026
The calendar invite arrives. Someone from internal comms has written something upbeat. There may be matching T-shirts. There is probably a group photo planned. Everyone is encouraged to “give back,” which is, of course, a good thing. Nobody is arguing with that.
And yet…
Sometimes, somewhere between the sign-up form and the staged team picture, the whole thing starts to feel less like volunteering and more like another workplace task.
I’ve seen the other version too. The better version…
90% of employees feel that work should bring a sense of purpose to their lives – Harvard Business Impact
Many employees want to contribute. They want to do something useful. They want to feel that their employer is connected to the real world, not just the world of quarterly goals, town halls, and strategy decks. But people also need volunteering to be practical.
A full day away from work is not always easy. Some volunteering roles require travel. Some require background checks or longer-term screening. Some need a level of confidence or knowledge that employees may not have yet. And for global or hybrid teams, the old model of “everyone meets at this place at 9 a.m.” can be, well, a bit of a hassle.
That doesn’t mean volunteering should shrink in ambition. It means it has to be designed with real people in mind. A few minutes or an hour can matter. A short, well-timed act of help can still be the thing that lets someone get through a task, solve a problem, or feel less alone in that moment. Volunteering doesn’t always need everyone for the whole day.
A mandatory volunteering program can produce attendance, photos and even produce a respectable-looking internal report.
But it can’t make someone care.
Care comes from understanding and being trusted to choose. It comes from seeing, clearly and quickly, that your time has helped another person.
That’s why employee-driven volunteering tends to work better than top-down participation drives. When people choose to get involved, they bring a different kind of energy. They’re more curious. More present. More likely to come back.
When I host Be My Eyes corporate volunteering events, I can often feel the room change once people understand what they are actually there to do. It is not a lecture on accessibility. It is not a passive training session. It is a chance to be useful to a blind or low-vision person in real time.
That feels different.
At Be My Eyes, we think about this every day.
Since 2015, Be My Eyes has connected blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers through live video. Today, our community includes over 10 million volunteers and more than 1 million blind and low-vision users, making Be My Eyes the largest online blindness community and virtual volunteering platform in the world.
The model is simple. A blind or low-vision person needs visual information. A volunteer answers the call from wherever they are in the world, be it in an office or at home. Through the user’s phone camera, the volunteer describes what they can see.
That’s it. And also, that’s everything.
Because visual barriers show up in ordinary moments… Reading small print. Checking an expiration date. Identifying the right can in the pantry. Matching colors. Reading the power level on a device. Looking at a thermostat. Finding a dropped item. Sorting protein powders by flavor. The everyday stuff that sighted people often do without thinking.
For a volunteer, the task may take two minutes. For the person calling, it can remove a barrier from their day and make a real difference.
Be My Eyes works because the user leads the moment. The volunteer listens, describes, and assists.
And I will say this from experience: volunteers often come away surprised by how natural it felt. They expect the call to be intimidating. Then they answer one, help someone read a label or check a setting, and realize, “Oh. I can do this.”
The strongest corporate volunteering programs tend to have a few things in common:
And, perhaps most importantly, they feel worth choosing.
Be My Eyes’ Corporate Volunteering programs have been built around those principles. During a Corporate Volunteering Event, employees participate remotely and receive priority access to calls from our blind and low-vision users.
There is preparation, too. When I host these events, I guide volunteers through simple best practice, including what we call the SEE rule:
Speak: answer the call, say hello, and ask how you can help.
Engage: listen carefully, ask simple questions if needed, and let the user guide the task.
Explain: describe clearly what you see through the rear-facing camera.
It sounds basic, because it should be. The point is not to turn employees into visual interpretation experts in an afternoon. The point is to help them provide useful, respectful support in the moments that matter.
For companies, the format is also practical. Events can work across teams and locations. Calls are usually short and fit around busy work days. Volunteers can take part through the app and simply log out when they are done.
A good example of this in action is our partnership with Zain. Since launch, Zain volunteering sessions have answered more than 80 real-time calls per session, reached eight markets, and reported a 96% satisfaction rate from both users and volunteers. Find out more: https://www.bemyeyes.com/business/zain-case-study/
And, if you’d like to start offering corporate volunteering programs that don’t feel mandatory then explore our packages here.
