Hands On Nework affiliates leveraged their investments to create the kind of community impact you will read about throughout this Annual Report.

The overarching aim of this study is to help companies determine the success of their corporate volunteer programs and to identify the issues they should focus on to improve their programs.

This 2005 study makes clear, volunteerism translates directly into leadership skills that benefit participants' professional development, and indirectly benefits employers and the community at large. Both the community and the workplace are enhanced and enriched when community service is encouraged and rewarded, in other words.

In order to gather information about the adoption and use of Investing in Volunteers, the researchers carried out semi-structured face to face interviews with Volunteer Managers and senior staff from nine organizations using the Investing in Volunteers Standard. This report also addresses the context in which the study took place. The development of the "quality movement" in the U, and the increased interest in, and use of, quality systems in the voluntary and community sector.