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.
About the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF)
The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation was established in 1994 and is completely directed and funded by the insurance industry. The foundation seeks to help communities and enrich lives by uniting the collective strengths of the industry to provide grants, volunteer service and leadership. 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. IICF is a registered not-for-profit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code.