Philanthropy as a Networking Tool

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development  

The pandemic-driven economic crash this year has seen a lot of people lose their jobs. While there is some evidence of a recovery occurring in many parts of the world, unemployment rates are still remarkably high in many industries and professions.

Project managers are no more immune to that than anyone else. That means that there are a lot of project managers with more time on their hands, and an increased need for volunteering to help out sections of our communities that are being hard hit by the impact of the pandemic.

That creates the potential for project managers to showcase themselves to potential employers by volunteering—using philanthropy as a networking tool that may result in an offer of employment. But not all opportunities to volunteer are created equal, so how do you go about choosing the best ones—the endeavors that will provide personal networking value? I think there are a number of elements that you can look for.

Define your parameters
The first step in pursuing this strategy is to determine what it is you are looking for in a volunteer opportunity. Obviously, you need to satisfy yourself that you can offer your time and efforts in a way that is safe to yourself and those around you, but in addition to that you need to consider:

• What type of volunteer opportunity do you want to pursue? If you’re a project manager looking for …

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