CareFirst and Business Volunteers Maryland Host Skilled Volunteering Event
Access to education is an essential aspect of the health of a community beyond clinical intervention. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst) was proud to host Business Volunteers Maryland (BVM) and Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) to support and advance educational opportunities for students through the BVM skillCONNECT program, connecting City Schools to volunteers for pro-bono consulting, discussion and ideation.
CareFirst is a proud, longstanding partner of BVM, a leading nonprofit organization in Maryland that brings together the talents of local business professionals and other nonprofits seeking volunteers and board leadership. Through volunteerism and connecting motivated people and businesses to nonprofits, BVM programming advances stronger communities and ties our organizations together.
The skillCONNECT program is a highly-structured, several-hour event for skilled volunteering, which brings the expertise of business professionals to nonprofit leaders facing business challenges. While direct service volunteering, such as sorting food bank donations or picking up waste, are essential foundational elements of any nonprofit, skilled volunteering offers critical operational support that is equally important to advancing the mission of any organization. Through BVM, skilled volunteering projects can include challenges related to marketing, budgeting, supply distribution and more.
This event connected CareFirst employees and volunteers from 28 unique local businesses to 10 City Schools to solve business challenges for school leadership. School challenges ranged from expanding trade programs to strengthening daily attendance, addressing behavioral health and more.
The structure of any skillCONNECT event is fundamental to solving business challenges, as it facilitates active discussion and collaboration. Volunteers start with introductions, move into context and background on the business challenges and progress into "brainstorm sprints"—quick bouts of brainstorming to narrow in on solutions
- Brainstorm Sprint Round 1: Volunteers rapid-fire ideas and solutions to the challenge, prioritizing quantity over quality.
- Brainstorm Sprint Round 2: Nonprofit staff select one or two ideas from Round 1, and volunteers brainstorm more deeply on these ideas.
- Brainstorm Sprint Round 3: The group thinks about barriers that stand in the way of Round 2 solutions and brainstorms ways to overcome these barriers.
After the brainstorm sprints, the goal is to find actions and resources available to the organization based on the solutions identified. Perhaps the most impactful portion of any skillCONNECT event is the reflection, where nonprofit leaders and volunteers discuss what they learned from the opportunity.
As part of the shared belief that only by acting together will we create a stronger, healthier Baltimore, BVM, City Schools and CareFirst encourages all to get involved with skilled volunteering to support local nonprofits advancing prosperity in our communities.
Participating Businesses
- ArlieSpeaks Media, LLC
- Aurora Solar
- Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE)
- BlueAlly
- CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
- Continental Realty Corporation
- Data Networks
- Data Quality Campaign
- DemandBridge
- DXM Consulting
- Equity Talent Solutions
- Exelon
- Fulton Bank
- Gorfine Schiller & Gardyn PA
- Johns Hopkins University
- Lineage Logistics
- Little Portion Farm
- Living Classrooms Foundation
- Maryland Institute College of Art
- McCormick & Company
- Northrop Grumman
- Phase 3 Training Corporation
- PH Chakra Network
- tango
- TEKsystems
- The Coordinating Center
- TM Training and Consulting
- Women’s Law Center of Maryland
Participating Baltimore City Public Schools
- Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts
- Baltimore Polytechnic Institute
- Bay Brook Elementary Middle School
- Carver Vocational Technical High School
- Federal Hill Preparatory School
- REACH! Partnership School
- The Historic Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School
- Thomas Jefferson Elementary Middle School
- Thomas Johnson Elementary Middle School
- Windsor Hills Elementary Middle School
“I thought that the work we did here today was just another way to strengthen the community of Baltimore, which I think we always need, and I loved being a part of that. I loved the design-thinking process. It was really nice to have structure and it really helped us to get a lot of work done.”
Niki Schiavone, M.S., Director of Communications, Living Classrooms Foundation.
“Sometimes the barrier to accomplishing and solving some of the barriers of problems that we saw here today is not just funding. Time is a big, big issue. My biggest takeaway would have to be that as we leave here, we all should encourage someone else from our company or our family to do better and volunteer their time because that is such a valuable resource in itself.”
Katia Fortune, Senior Embedded Compliance Analyst, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.
“The connections and the conversations were very refreshing from a school standpoint. It is a trickle-down effect. When we are refreshed and thinking differently, we can impact the kids differently.”
Brooke Brock, Student Wholeness Specialist, Reach! Partnership School.
“Today felt like a time where we were able to set an agenda and work through it. My biggest takeaway was about relationships. Sometimes the relationship brings the challenge, sometimes it’s the barrier. Today it became the solution. So, we are very hopeful and we’re looking forward to continuing our relationships and partnerships with all of our volunteers here.”
Sheila Adams, Assistant Principal, Federal Hill Preparatory School (PREP).
Learn more about CareFirst’s community work here.