IBM’s new Corporate Service Corps is being set up to work on problems in the developing world, such as income generation and access to education

IBM recently signed up its 100,000th volunteer. With a global workforce of 350,000, that means almost one-third of its employees is doing volunteer work. However, the company is also about to launch a smaller-scale but more intensive model of volunteer work that it hopes will bring benefits not only to the recipient organisations but to the company itself.

The idea behind IBM’s Corporate Service Corps is to send employees to work on problems in the developing world such as income generation and access to education. Small teams of between six and 10 people will be placed within non-governmental organisations, charities and non-profits in markets where IBM does business, including China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and Chile.

“It’s a corporate version of the Peace Corps,” says Stanley Litow, vice-president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs at IBM. “What we as a company get is leaders with a range of skills that function in the global world. What the individuals get is a unique set of leadership opportunities and training experiences. And what communities get would be the best IBM has to offer.”

Participants might work on anything from developing technology for an NGO in a higher education system in Latin America to applying information technology to a government transportation project in Tanzania. During the next three years – starting in July 2008 – about 600 employees, drawn from across IBM’s global offices will participate in the programme. They will each spend a month working with the organisations to which they have been assigned.

After choosing the six to eight non-profit organisations to work with, IBM will select the participants from among its workforce. Selection criteria will include evidence of community service, high levels of performance and recommendations from managers. Potential candidates will be required to write an essay discussing how they want to use the work to enhance both their community interests and their IBM career.

When it comes to corporate philanthropy, says Mr Litow, the donation of these skilled executives will be far more valuable to recipients than a cheque. “They’ll deliver the equivalent of a highly prized and very expensive IBM consulting exercise, bringing in business process, technology, marketing and consulting skills,” he explains. “So they will produce real significant benefit.”

To maximise the impact on the operations of non-profit recipients, IBM will treat each project as it would a high-paying consulting client, deploying teams with the right mix of skills to address each problem.

“That’s really what makes it work in the end,” says Mr Litow. “Just sending someone with skills to a voluntary agency over a period of time isn’t going to produce the benefits.”

Mr Litow argues that companies should take the “real change” rather than “spare change” approach to corporate philanthropy. “And in this case, that’s the young leaders at IBM,” he says. “The challenge is to deploy them so that they can best use their skills to produce demonstrable benefit and real change on a community level.”

However, in addition to benefiting the communities that IBM participants will be working with, the company believes the programme will bring rewards inside its own business. As large global companies move into new regions and emerging markets, they need executives who are able to operate in an increasingly wide range of cultural and economic environments.

“Knowledge about the developing world is a point of high interest,” says Mr Litow. “And it’s something companies need to develop. But they don’t necessarily know how to develop leaders who can operate in a globally integrated world and in developing economies.”

For IBM, the Corporate Service Corps is a way of giving high-performing staff exposure to these new environments. Web-based interactive projects conducted before their departure will expose the executives to the culture and language of the places in which they will be stationed. They will also use web technologies to continue working with the target organisations once they have returned to their regular jobs.

For the individuals involved, the programme will be a chance to step outside their normal spheres of work and experience the difficulties of operating in resource-poor environments.

Fortunately for IBM, this is something for which many business school students and younger executives now hunger. Moreover, graduates who once might have only considered working in the non-profit sector are coming to realise that in the private sector they can make a difference while earning a corporate salary. So another advantage of such a programme is that it can act as a recruitment aid.

“What we’ve learned is these are exactly the kinds of things that will attract the best talent,” says Mr Litow. “Business school students are asking what companies do that gets them involved in the issues they care about. So being able to say that IBM has these programmes is a unique selling point.”

These business drivers are important to the success of the Corporate Service Corps programme. Unlike corporate charitable giving, which may depend on the personal interests of the chief executive, evidence of tangible business benefits means a programme is more likely to be maintained, even in tough economic circumstances.

“If corporate philanthropy is viewed as spare change, as something that doesn’t have to be measured or produce real benefit, it’s going to be subject not just to the whims of the CEO but to the vagaries of the market,” says Mr Litow. “So if corporate philanthropy or corporate responsibility programmes are thought of as not particularly beneficial, they’re not going to sustain themselves.”