Volunteer Week Continues in 7 States

More than 3,000 insurance employees have stepped forward to get involved in more than 500 projects around the country for Volunteer Week, the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s (IICF) event being held this week.

During the eight-day industry-wide event that runs from October 15-22, teams of insurance volunteers fan out into local communities to donate three or more hours of service at neighborhood and community nonprofit organizations. Volunteers from more than 100 different industry organizations have registered for IICF’s Volunteer Week.

In 2011, Volunteer Week projects are being held in California, Colorado, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut through the IICF’s Western and New York/Northeast divisions. The newly formed IICF Midwest division is leading volunteer projects in the Chicago area and Kansas City.

Volunteer teams have chosen their projects from a wide range of needs, including disaster preparedness, education, the environment, housing, senior issues, women’s issues, and youth and children. IICF makes volunteering simpler by making initial contacts with the charities, to lessen the organization burden on volunteers and their team leaders.

Volunteer Week, the brainchild of IICF co-founder Bruce Basso and other insurance leaders in northern California, has spread to other regions of the country since its start in 1997. Overall, insurance volunteers have contributed more than 140,000 hours of volunteer service to their local communities. In 2010, the IICF Western division volunteered 6,663 hours by 2,085 volunteers, while the New York/Northeast division logged 13,436 hours by 2,097 volunteers.

The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation is the catalyst for Volunteer Week activities by seeking out volunteer opportunities with community organizations, schools, and other nonprofit entities. The foundation provides web-based registration for volunteer teams and puts volunteer team leaders in touch with the charities with which they’ll work.

Volunteers from a broad spectrum of industry employers—reinsurers, carriers, agencies, brokerage firms, consulting firms, law firms, trade associations and other industry-related companies—are participating in Volunteer Week.

The IICF was established in 1994 and is completely directed and funded by the insurance industry. Since its inception in 1994, IICF has contributed more than $16 million in grants to charities and 140,000 volunteer hours to hundreds of community nonprofit organizations.