Matchable Employee Volunteering Stories: Tash and Ila
Matchable’s Business Development Manager, Tash, volunteered with Ila, an organisation working to support victims of domestic violence and abuse, to help build their sales strategy.
Ila is an organisation who work to support and safeguard victims of domestic violence and abuse; they’ve created an app called Ally which helps train store staff to create a safe space for victims and enable them to seek help. Tash helped Ila develop their sales strategy for the Ally app, and we caught up with her to hear about her experience.
What did your employee volunteering with Ila involve?
I worked closely with Ila’s two incredible founders, Net Supatravanij and Julie Sane-Pezet, to help begin their journey of signing up more clients. They needed help reaching out to more retailers in an effective way so their store staff could sign up to Ally and get the training they needed. I would meet with the team remotely and discuss strategy, targets, sales tools and even the best ways to report on everything. I was also just happy to answer any questions they had as my career has always been around Sales with a special focus on retail. This included helping them hire their first sales person!
How was it using your skills in a different setting?
It was amazing to see how the knowledge that I use each day - and almost take for granted - could make such a huge impact on an organisation like Ila as they build/grow their company. It was definitely the most important sales strategy I’ve ever built, and knowing that it’s going to help save and improve the lives of domestic abuse victims is such a privilege.
What were your main takeaways from this employee volunteering experience?
I got so much out of volunteering with Ila; firstly, I discovered that I love volunteering! I always thought I wasn’t that driven to volunteer as I had never signed up to those ‘big team bonding days out’ my past employers organised. In reality I just wanted to find something meaningful that matched what I am passionate about and what I believe in.
Moreover, I realised that everyone can make a difference if they want to - we all possess skills, talents and knowledge that we can share and when we do, we can help make the world a better place.
I also concluded that remote corporate volunteering is the future! It’s inclusive for those not able to do physical work, reduces the carbon footprint of travelling to a second location and means I did 2 days of volunteering without ever disrupting my work!
ABOUT MATCHABLE
At Matchable we work with companies and their employees to match them with high impact and innovative skilled volunteering projects at non-profits and impact startups.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how your employees can upskill through our social impact projects, get in touch here.