Credit Unions Track Volunteer Hours

Provident Credit Union is the 20th largest credit union in California and was established in the 1950’s to initially serve the California Teachers Association. They are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with branches throughout California and serve more than 130,000 members. Provident Credit Union is a nonprofit themselves and encourages all of their employees to volunteer in the community. Jim Traceski, now retired, was the head of Human resources when he looked into a volunteer time tracking solution in 2018 and found Track it Forward. He proposed using Track it Forward to his manager by saying, “I need this system because I have a small, busy staff and I know that I need software help, or else tracking hours on an excel spreadsheet will be awful!”

Today, Michelle Oberes-Padre is the HR manager for all 350 employees across 21 branches and helps to organize volunteer opportunities for her home branch. “People really like Track it Forward,” she says. “We did a really awesome event in 2021 with Rebuilding Together, and we are going to do it again in a couple of weeks. We used Track it Forward to manage that event.” Employees can go into Track it Forward to sign up for a specific event at their branch, and the RSVP feature allows them to see how many people are needed for the event and sends event reminders. 

This also allows for Michelle and other administrators to manage volunteer events and report on their impact in terms of numbers. Of course, this is in addition to the physical impact they can see when they get out and volunteer. In 2021, Provident Credit Union worked with Rebuilding Together to give back to a local community member. “We spent the whole day helping a veteran who was immobile and had broken his leg…We built him a ramp to his house. [This year] we are going to do it again for a different family and help rebuild part of their house,” Michelle explains. They also work with Samaritan House, where they volunteer to help prep and distribute food pantry goods.

Provident Credit Union works to promote a culture of volunteerism among its employees, and uses Track it Forward to help showcase their impact and award volunteers. They offer VTO - volunteer time off, which is paid time for their employees to volunteer where and when they wish. They also reward volunteering done on one’s own time outside of company-organized activities. “Anyone can put their hours in Track it Forward, whether we organize it or it’s on their own personal time,” Michelle explains. “For example, I am on a school board…and I can enter that in Track it Forward.”

Every month, Provident Credit Union highlights the volunteer who has contributed the most hours and makes a donation on their behalf to the organization of their choice. “We would like everyone to put in their hours [so we can see], you donated a lot of your time to this and we can see this cause is important to you, so tell us about it!” Michelle says. They also use Track it Forward reports to determine the winner of their annual Community Service Hero award. 

With an easy-to-use system like Track it Forward, Provident Credit Union is able to further its goal of promoting community service among all employees. Employees have the autonomy to enter their own hours for any type of volunteer work, and receive recognition and awards for their work.