Health and Wellness is a major topic in our nation, regularly making headlines in the media and always a focal point in boardrooms.

Let’s just talk about Wellness spending from enterprise businesses – so understand these numbers don’t even include Small to Medium sized businesses. On average, enterprise companies implement 21 programs focused on prevention, lifestyle, condition and other wellness programs with no cuts in sight. In fact, more than half of them plan on adding an additional wellness program each year. Continue reading →

California and activism go together like peanut butter and jelly. They’re virtually synonymous terms to most Americans and the do gooder stereotype is one I think a lot of us Californians like to perpetuate. We are one of two states with an official State Office of Volunteering and Service. We’re home to VolunteerMatch, Causes, Fundly, and the hottest names in social entrepreneurship. Even our Hollywood celebrities love to get in on the action, with marquis investors like Ashton Kutcher and Justin Beiber becoming household names in impact investing circles.

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Every year more than a thousand bloggers take a day and talk about one subject – one social good idea – and they call it Blog Action Day. Since 2007, each year has a unique theme, from food to poverty to the environment. This year the theme for Blog Action Day is the ‘Power of We’ and we thought it was quite a fitting topic for GoVoluntr because, really, GoVoluntr is all about people working together to make change in their local communities. That is what we have spent the last year doing: making it easier for non-profits to support their communities, for volunteers to find opportunities and volunteer, and for businesses to get involved. We’ve provided youth with rugby coaching, we’ve fed seniors and the under-privileged, we’ve tutored kids in reading and math, we’ve helped with creek clean-ups and charity dinners, we’ve made a difference in our communities. So to each of you that make up our we, thank you. With over 8000 hours and counting, thank you for believing in the Power of We.

- The GoVoluntr Team

Navigating For Non Profits is a non-profit that transformed out of a road trip. We met in September of 2011 through AmeriCorps NCCC in Sacramento and decided that even though the program would end, the volunteer work wasn’t done. We had an idea for a road trip which  quickly transformed from just wanting to get across the country into something much bigger.

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Well, what would you expect? Carl Guardino and the CEO Show loved Young so much from the last Startup Roundtable he was part of, that they just had to have him back! This time, he got his own show!

Listen to the show here.

A few weeks ago I got the amazing opportunity to be part of a panel discussion on millennials in the workforce at Cisco’s IT Executive Symposium in San Diego. One of the questions I continually was asked was how do corporate social values affect the new generation as a workforce and, more importantly, what should we as a company be doing about it. The collection of 110 CIOs and other IT executives knew that without preparing for the millennials coming in they were going to be left behind. So I thought I would share my response here:

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This week’s post is a recording for you all. Young got the chance to be part of a startup roundtable on the CEO Show, hosted by Carl Guardino. Learn more about the show here, or play the recording to hear Young’s thoughts on the future of startups.

Listen

This coming weekend is a pretty special weekend for volunteering. On April 20-22, 2012, millions of people ages 5-25, and their adult allies and champions in over 100 countries on 6 continents will change the world, addressing critical issues including health, education, environment, hunger, poverty, disaster preparedness and response, and human rights.

April 20-22nd is Global Youth Service Day. According to Youth Service America, the hosting organization, “Global Youth Service Day is an annual campaign that celebrates and mobilizes the millions of children and youth who improve their communities each day of the year through service and service-learning. Established in 1988, Global Youth Service Day is the largest and longest-running service event in the world, and the only day of service dedicated to children and youth.”

Students—Join in! This is a great way for you to work towards any required service hours needed to graduate. Volunteering also provides a great place for networking and meeting new people. Plus, who said volunteering has to be boring – get some of your friends and go volunteer together!

Parents—Encourage your child to get involved in volunteering. Volunteering can not only be used for teaching your children great life lessons, it can also help in school. A Davila and Mora study showed that “Students who performed voluntary community service were 19 percentage points more likely to graduate from college than those that did not.”

Oh, and did we mention there’s free stuff involved? Remember, whenever you volunteer with GoVoluntr, you earn VPins that get you free goodies. Plus, this week is extra special, as it’s National Volunteer Week. That means bonus points and more awesome prizes (like the chance to win movie tickets and lunch with the GoVoluntr team!).

You can find out more information about Youth Service Day here and be sure to check out the great events going on around you on GoVoluntr.com!