Originally published in The Corporate Citizen magazine, Volume 48, Issue 2. Read the full issue here.
Last fall, Northern Trust employees contributed the equivalent of seven years’ worth of volunteer hours—in just 31 days during their Global Month of Service. Samsung U.S. employees participated in the company’s fifteenth annual Day of Service—a cornerstone initiative, mobilizing thousands of associates across the country. Meanwhile, Collette, the family-owned global tour operator, launched its first-ever Global Week of Service, rallying more than 250 team members to pack over 100,000 meals for neighbors facing food insecurity. It’s easy to spot the common thread. All three demonstrated what corporate citizenship leaders know well: when companies create dedicated windows for employees to serve together, the impact grows exponentially.
But launching a month, week, or day of service isn’t as simple as picking a date and sending a calendar invite. It requires strategic planning, authentic partnerships, creative engagement strategies, and—for programs that last—a commitment to learning and evolving year after year. Whether you’re considering your company’s first coordinated service initiative or looking to breathe new life into an existing program, the experiences of Northern Trust, Samsung, and Collette offer a masterclass in what works. Here’s what their teams learned about mobilizing employees, maximizing impact, and building programs that employees actually want to participate in.
“ When employees see meaningful, well-organized activities and understand the collective impact their service drives, participation follows naturally ”
Northern Trust: Expanding on a Tradition
As it enters its seventh year of existence, Northern Trust’s global month of service program continues to expand in its engagement and impact. The program, titled Achieving Greater Together (AGT), unites Northern Trust employees across the globe in a volunteering initiative held each October.
Year over year, AGT has continued to grow, with more employees participating annually. In 2025, the program reached a new milestone, recording 63,214 volunteer hours and over 50% employee participation, equivalent to more than seven years of continuous service, reflecting the expanding engagement and sustained commitment of employees worldwide.
In order to continue gathering momentum among a vast number of volunteers and programs, Northern Trust has prioritized making participation simple, accessible, and meaningful. Through platforms like iVolunteer, employees can easily access signups for local or virtual programs, facilitating participation with ease and flexibility. With the addition of skills-based and ‘micro’ volunteering opportunities, employees can easily navigate giving back to their community.
During its seven years of existence, Northern Trust has discovered that a gratifying experience motivates employees to continue participating. They have introduced parallel programs to compound the impact of an hour spent by an employee– in their ‘Meals for Hours’ initiative, 50 meals were donated per hour volunteered. Through ‘Donations for Doers,’ logged hours are converted into charitable donations that employees can direct to the organization of their choice, ultimately empowering participants by increasing the impact of their time. By introducing new avenues of impact, employees are empowered by a sense that their time has real meaning.
Supporting AGT’s global coordination is a nearly 170- member Month of Service Committee. Guided by a central team, committee members help select local nonprofit partners, plan volunteer events, generate excitement within their offices, and capture moments of service to share across the organization. This distributed model ensures the program remains both locally relevant and globally connected.
“When employees see meaningful, well-organized activities and understand the collective impact their service drives, participation follows naturally,” says Shana Hayes, Senior Vice President, Chief Social Impact Officer. By creating goals accompanied by a clear, exciting roadmap, employees feel invited to participate, rather than discouraged by intimidating numbers. The committee acts as a web of communication and implementation for these goals, bringing the overarching goal to a local level.
To maintain the cohesion of the initiative across 20 countries, Northern Trust blends global partnerships with local autonomy. Each employee receives two days (16 hours) of paid volunteering time apart from AGT, which allows volunteers to connect with initiatives specific to their community, while the month-long initiative rallies employees across borders under a single goal.
In order to permit for the kind of growth that AGT has seen in recent years (including a doubling of volunteers and hours in 2023), Northern Trust has remained flexible in the program’s structure.
“What worked in year one won’t necessarily work in year five,” said Audri Williams, Vice President, Senior Program Officer & Global Volunteer Lead. “Companies can avoid the most common scaling challenges by building flexible systems early, investing in staff and technology, creating a distributed support model like our global committee—so the program can expand without overwhelming the core team.”
To sustain long-term success, Hayes also emphasizes the importance of planning for both the time and financial resources required to support large-scale volunteering. At Northern Trust, the return on that investment is clear. By aligning volunteer data with business priorities – such as talent retention, corporate citizenship, and client relationships – the firm demonstrates the value of AGT to both mission-driven and financially focused leaders alike.
Samsung Electronics America: How Annual Service Strengthens Partnerships
Samsung has an annual Day of Service that involves employees across its U.S. locations. The program has continuously evolved in format and duration over the last twelve years and thanks to robust community partnerships and refined engagement tactics, Samsung has steadily increased employee participation over time.
Additionally, Samsung’s focus on employee and leadership engagement brings a cohesive quality to their service program. In 2025, 34% of their team members participated in the Day of Service, including a significant showing by leadership, demonstrating dedication to the program that motivates employees at all levels.
For Samsung, the key to bringing employees back annually is providing a fresh list of opportunities to accompany long-lasting partnerships. Some employees are driven by newness and increased relevancy, while others value the relationships formed from years of contribution to a particular cause. In one instance, a regional employee’s suggestion of nonPareil (a post-secondary, nonprofit training organization serving adults with autism spectrum disorder) turned into an enduring partnership between the two programs. After a volunteering experience proved especially helpful to nonPareil and its clients, Samsung furthered their involvement by creating year-round opportunities for workforce development through networking and interview preparation.
“Building on the success of Day of Service volunteer experiences, we have introduced workforce training programs tailored to the needs of nonPareil’s learners. This comprehensive approach has yielded remarkable results, including the inspiring story of an adult with autism securing a job in mobile repair– a testament to the transformative impact of this collaboration,” said Angela Bader, Head of Community Impact at Samsung.
In 2025 alone, Samsung reached 4,400 people through their employee-led education programs, aiding students and adults in acquiring critical skills for success in the workforce. The Day of Service was a substantial component of this number, as the momentum of a company-wide movement encouraged impressive participation in these initiatives.
Both Northern Trust’s AGT and Samsung’s Day of Service reflect global companies with unified service models. By listening to employees and implementing their ideas, both companies have continued to increase participation and impact.
Collette: Kickstarting an Initiative
Giving back has always been central to Collette’s mission. While it has powered initiatives for employees to use independently in the past, its inaugural Week of Service sought to unite its workforce and amplify impact.
In its first year, Collette chose a theme based on food insecurity. The theme was a timely choice amid hardship experienced by many communities, and it allowed employees to engage with a prevalent issue. Using a web system similar to that of Northern Trust, Collette sourced a sponsor for a large program located near its headquarters, and coordinated with each satellite location to identify a nearby host for high-impact community programs.
“Many employees, especially those with families, understand firsthand how challenging it can be to put food on the table today,” said Melissa Snape, Head of Corporate Citizenship at Collette. “Centering the initiative around a meaningful focus creates inspiration, unity, and a shared sense of urgency.”
For Collette, having roots in volunteering proved essential to kickstarting an annual program. Collette offers four hours of volunteer hours per month to its employees, and the coordinating team for this effort compiled their successes to make the case for the week-long effort. Using an existing team as organizers and having past successes as evidence of potential, Collette was able to expand its foundations rather than starting from scratch.
To generate involvement and anticipation, Collette communicated frequently with employees about the importance and benefits of volunteering. The team prioritized reaching out individually to employees that had not previously participated in volunteering, seeking to engage each employee on a personal level.
While this made for a successful first week, Collette hopes to increase its participation in the coming years. Remote workers and regional sales agents with complicated schedules were more difficult to engage, but they hope that by implementing this takeaway into their plan for the upcoming year, the Week of Service can continue to grow and adapt to challenges.
“Launching our first Global Day of Service at this scale was a reminder that you don’t need every system perfected to make a meaningful impact — you just need to begin,” said Melissa Snape. “We were intentional about bringing in partners, employees, and the wider community in a more cohesive way, and the enthusiasm we saw confirmed that people are eager to jump in and help. Even if the first year is a little bumpy, taking that first step lays the foundation for even more good ahead.”
Collette’s Week of Service began on Veteran’s Day, a federal holiday that would mean cancelled school for many employees with children. This was intentional: that day, an event hosted by The Pack Shack invited employees to bring their children and pack meals as a family. The result was a greater level of involvement and success with a greater number of participants, and employees whose needs and external considerations were accounted for.
The coordination team also took programming suggestions from employees, including one whose son was a member of a local football team. Collette partnered with the team, and it resulted in a community event with eager participants.
Collette has found success in its first year program by selecting a cohesive topic that unites its workers and paying attention to their external interests. As it continues to grow, its philosophy of listening to employee voices will doubtless serve it in creating an effective service strategy.
Conclusion
Across the board, the recipe to success is clear: utilizing effective and accessible technology, blending the global mission with local concerns, and implementing employee feedback. Northern Trust and Samsung have displayed adaptable, successful programs, and Collette seems poised to follow in their footsteps, with many more Weeks of Service to come.