Council Cultivates Corporate Volunteers

A handful of local companies have joined a volunteer center to form the Corporate Volunteer Council of the San Fernando Valley to help one another and local charities.

“We are trying to find corporations interested in bettering the community,” said Joan Kagan, administrator of agency relations for the Volunteer Center of the San Fernando Valley, which started the council based on a model created by the Points of Light Foundation.

Valley businesses that have joined the council include Rocketdyne, Northridge Hospital, the Walt Disney Co. and the Burbank Hilton. Earlier this month, a survey was sent out to 200 other local companies to solicit more members.

Kagan said by coordinating with the Volunteer Center, companies can more effectively use employees who want to volunteer and help the community but don’t know where to go.

“Employees who get involved in volunteering are better employees,” Kagan said. “And the more they make the community a better place, the more business they will get out of that.”

The Volunteer Center helps connect 50,000 volunteers a year to a list of 1,500 nonprofit agencies in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. Work on the Corporate Volunteer Council began after Volunteer Center officials attended a Points of Light Foundation conference in San Francisco in June.

The first formal meeting of the new council will be held in February.

For information, call Kagan at (818) 908-5066.