Skills-based volunteering: how MAPFRE turned in-house talent into measurable social impact at national scale

Summary

MAPFRE's corporate volunteering program, with a structured group track, connects employees to NGOs pre-vetted by Studio FH to solve real challenges faced by social organizations — end to end and 100% remote. Over three annual editions, the program mobilized 167 employees, supported 30 NGOs in more than 30 cities and reached more than 186,000 people.

The challenges

• Going beyond one-off charity

  Building a program that went beyond donation drives and one-day volunteer events to create real, measurable and ongoing impact.

• National scale without a physical presence

  Mobilizing employees across the country without relying on a single city or in-person meetings.

• Real NGO needs

  Social organizations face management, technology and communication problems they can't solve on their own.

• No budget for consulting

  NGOs can't afford to hire specialists — and the knowledge they need exists inside companies.

• A bridge that didn't exist

  There was no structure connecting the technical knowledge of MAPFRE employees to these organizations' concrete needs.

“There was no structured bridge between the technical knowledge of MAPFRE employees and the real needs of these organizations.”

How Studio FH helped

Studio FH designed the program end to end: it created the skills-based volunteering model, set the criteria for nationwide vetting of NGOs aligned with MAPFRE's guidelines and structured how groups were formed, mixing skill profiles and seniority levels to maximize the quality of the deliverables — avoiding a single hierarchy level per group.

On top of this architecture, Studio FH ran every stage of the journey:

1. Nationwide NGO vettingSelecting organizations across Brazil whose causes align with MAPFRE's guidelines.
2. Upfront needs assessmentMapping each organization's real challenge before forming the groups.
3. Sign-ups and group formationManaging employee sign-ups and building teams by skills and seniority.
4. Alignment meetings and follow-upRunning alignment meetings between volunteers and NGO leaders and following the 100% remote execution via Teams/Meet.
5. Structuring the final deliverablesHelping turn the groups' work into ready-to-use solutions for the NGOs.

“Seeing people who want to build a more conscious and humane society gives me hope for a better future. I'm grateful for the opportunity to take part in the initiative run by MAPFRE in partnership with FreeHelper.” — Reinaldo Camilo de Oliveira, Regional Coordinator at MAPFRE

The results

• 167 employees engaged as skilled volunteers across three editions.
• More than 100 professional deliverables for 30 NGOs in more than 30 cities across Brazil.
• More than 186,000 people reached by the volunteers' initiatives.
• More than R$317K saved by NGOs on specialized services.
• In the 2025 edition, 100% approval from the leaders of the NGOs served and an average satisfaction score of 9.43/10.
• Deliverables ranging from fundraising plans and LGPD (Brazil's data protection law) compliance to complete HR management systems.

In every case, the deliverables solved real needs of organizations that would normally have no access to this level of technical expertise.

What employees get from the program

In practice

Three deliverables from the 2025 edition that show what skills-based volunteering solves inside an NGO.

Conclusion

The partnership between MAPFRE and Studio FH showed that corporate volunteering can be both people development and a professional solution for the nonprofit sector. With a skills-based model, nationwide vetting and 100% remote operations, 167 employees produced more than 100 deliverables for 30 NGOs, reaching more than 186,000 people and saving the organizations more than R$317K — with unanimous approval from the NGOs served in the latest edition.

The program continues as a structured MAPFRE initiative, with new cycles, new organizations and the same principle: the knowledge that already exists inside the company, put at the service of those who need it most.

Studio FH is FreeHelper's social impact studio, responsible for designing and running corporate impact programs.