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Sports blog: Warrior Nation

By A.J. O'CONNELL

Villager Staff Writer


WILTON -- In the beginning, Deloitte's IMPACT Day consisted of a group of U.S.-based auditors painting fences, weeding and doing other chores. Last Friday, which marked the 10th annual IMPACT Day, showed just how much the professional services firm's community services day has changed in the last decade.

Nearly 100 members from 72 non-profits crowded into the cafeteria at Deloitte's Wilton headquarters Friday morning, ready to enter seminars on finance, public relations, and recruiting, all taught by Deloitte professionals.

"A lot of the nonprofits need more professional training," said Candace Burke, of The Volunteer Center of Southwestern Fairfield County. Burke's organization works with Deloitte's Wilton office to determine which seminars will be offered.

"It's also nice for them to attend something they don't have to pay for," she said.

Holly Cook, Deloitte's senior manager of national community involvement, called the seminars "skills-based" volunteerism.

"We can give our intellectual capital back to the community," she said.

Deloitte's IMPACT day isn't completely "skills-based;" Jim Quigley, Global CEO of Deloitte, spoke to the nonprofit leaders in Wilton before heading out to STAR's Ryan House in Norwalk to do some painting.

"We're also going to give back in terms of good, old fashioned perspiration," said Quigley. "I think we will soon find out that I'm not the painter I might have once been."

Quigley, a resident of New Canaan since 1998, thanked all the leaders of the non-profits for being part of IMPACT day, and hoped that Deloitte's employees would not only teach, but also learn something from Friday's seminars.

IMPACT Day began in 1999, when the professional services company, then called Deloitte & Touche, decided to give their consultants a day off so that they could volunteer. At the time, because consultants were constantly on the road, the company couldn't simply encourage those employees to give back to the community on their own time. As a result, IMPACT Day was created as a way of building volunteer work into the work schedule.

The event has changed considerably since 1999, according to Quigley.

Later Deloitte & Touche expanded IMPACT Day beyond the consultants, to all its professional employees. After that, the company included employees in other countries.

Quigley says that his staff usually tries to keep him from thinking about the number of man-hours spent in the community on IMPACT day.

"If you put 50,000 people into the community for one day, as a professional services company, which sells its services in hours... that's a big number," he said.

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