Daily CSR
Daily CSR

Daily CSR
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The Tech Impact Day Hones Employee Skills At Fidelity & Common Impact



01/31/2017

Fidelity Investment and Common Impact come together to create opportunity, investment options, and skill development medium for Durham’s non-profit on Tech Impact Day celebration.


Dailycsr.com – 31 January 2017 – Common Impact is a non-profit organisation that has been pioneering in “corporate skills-based volunteering”, whereby the group is now extending a partnership hand towards “Fidelity Investments on its 2nd wide scale day” service which has been designed for building “technical infrastructure” along with the “know-how” of non-profits belonging to the “Raleigh-Durham area”.
 
The “Tech Impact Day” will assemble “125 Fidelity technologists” for designing “data, networking and web strategies” for the fourteen non-profits of that area, whereby anticipating an investment of over “$100,000”. In the words of the Chief Executive Officer of Common Impact:
“Nonprofits have very limited funding for the technology infrastructure that enables their programs to run and scale efficiently. On average nonprofits spend less than 2% of their budget on critical business functions, such as technology.  Fidelity has realized the asset that their technologists represent for nonprofits in the area and are bringing them out in force.”
 
Fidelity Investment adopted the “skills-based volunteering” quite early, whereby the latter provides a volunteering model that is gaining popularity in the corporate world wherein fifty percent of “companies with established pro bono programming”. While, the Regional Co-leader as well as the SVP of Fidelity, Chris Melia, added:
“Fidelity has made a significant investment in North Carolina, and we have more than 2,000 technologists in the region. Our employees recognize the transformative power of technology and are eager to user their knowledge and expertise to make a difference in the communities where they work and live.”
 
According to Common Impact:
“The Fidelity teams help provide the guidance on the technology landscape and frameworks that enable nonprofits to implement solutions that meet their requirements without unsustainable financial investment”. 
 
The purpose of the Tech Impact Day is not just to create the infrastructure of “these organisation”, while it also hones the “talents of the Fidelity employees” who take part in it. The technology leaders of fidelity sees these “initiatives” like an opportunity for cultivating “consulting, creative and client-facing skills”, very much needed to run the race on the market competition that demands “agility and adaptability”. The IT strategy and planning head at Fidelity, Darrell Fernandes said:
“When our employees take on nonprofits as clients, they need to think creatively about how to solve challenges with limited resources and how to create multi-dimensional solutions that consider both the business and social impact. This approach empowers our employees to be creative, innovative and adaptable, which not only develops skills that are critical to the vitality of our firm, but also to the success of today’s technologists.
“Companies are starting to realize that their people are their most strategic philanthropic asset, and heeding the call of the millennial workforce that demands that companies move past a singular focus on the bottom line.  One of the most powerful social investments that a company can make is through pro bono programs that align employee skills to the nonprofit capacity building challenges they’re best positioned to address.”
 
 
References:
ethicalperformance.com