While many of the cultures our global team represents are accustomed to helping others, at times we go about helping differently. This is due our varied backgrounds and life experiences. Honoring these differences, we offer multiple ways to participate through PGLS Cares, as we believe that there is no one right to serve others.
As we build a long-term culture of philanthropy and seek to unite global employees in efforts for social good, we’ve outlined a simple guide to help our team prepare for new experiences. Here are the principles we outline for staff as they prepare to serve others in new ways.
Acknowledge and Respect Personal Limits
We celebrate transformative volunteerism, not performative. Our hope is that communities are transformed just as our team members’ lives are inspired by serving. And as we desire that volunteering be an authentic engagement, we openly declare that it’s ok to have limits. What is meaningful and comfortable to one team member may not be for another. Sometimes, there are wounds from the past that don’t let us engage with emotional or mental safety in an activity now. We hold space for those realities and tensions. We respect individuals’ choices about if and how to engage in activities.
Reflect on Your Reasons for Volunteering
We encourage team members to prepare for experiences by checking their own motives for engagement.
Why Are You Volunteering?
Are you animated by a desire to give back and a curiosity for learning about others’ experiences? Or are you participating out of a sense of obligation or corporate expectation? We applaud the former and try to remove any pressure for the latter. The philanthropic culture we seek to build—of genuine care and concern for others—encourages genuine, self-directed engagement.
Stay Mission-Focused When Volunteering Feels Challenging
One barrier we’ve heard to volunteering is the vulnerability of unfamiliar experiences. Some team members have transparently shared they feel ill equipped to face new, hard realities for the first time. These concerns are valid, and we emphasize that discomfort is a natural part of growth.
Service Over Discomfort
We encourage our team that when volunteering, the best strategy to manage discomfort in the moment is to stay focused on the mission. Whether the mission is to package food for insecure households, teach new skills to new neighbors, or hand out meals and supplies to those experiencing homelessness—whatever the mission, focus on it over self. Service comes first knowing there is a space for honest emotions right after.
Reflect and Learn from Volunteer Experiences
Whether it’s a positive, uplifting experience or a humbling, challenging one, we encourage team members to reflect and process what they lived and what they have learned or how they have been impacted.
Growth Through Reflection
For some, this might mean celebrating a service goal exceeded as a volunteer team. For others, it might be to acknowledge a tie to a painful moment in the past or a sobering new reality in the present. Our philanthropic commitment is human first, always—which also applies to team members’ volunteer experiences. Our corporate culture of learning and improvement encourages us to reflect deeply toward growth in everything we do.
Let Volunteering Expand Your Capacity to Serve
We view volunteering as an opportunity to foster individual and team growth. We grow as individuals and as a collective when we live and reflect on experiences rooted in humanity and community—especially in a business such as ours. Therefore, in preparing our team for new experiences, we encourage them from the beginning to allow the experience to change them.
Pushing the Boundaries of What is Possible
Through volunteering, we hope our team gains a greater understanding of a people group or a new personal commitment to participate in social change. Our hope is that our teams’ capacity to show up for each other, for clients, and for our local and global communities expands as a result of volunteering. Limits are removed and together, we push the boundaries of what is possible.
Building a Global Culture of Social Impact
Volunteerism is not just about giving back; it’s about growing as individuals and as a team. At PGLS, we believe in the power of service to foster connection, learning and transformation. By equipping our global team with the right tools and mindset, we aim to create lasting social impact—together.