September 4, 2024. Yury Blagov, Director of the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility at GSOM SPbU, took part in the IX St. Petersburg Conference "The Future of Corporate Volunteering: Trends and Innovations".

The conference was traditionally organized by the Committee for Youth Policy and Interaction with Public Organizations of St. Petersburg together with the National Council for Corporate Volunteering in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. GSOM SPbU acted as a partner of the conference. The event was attended by representatives of Russian and international companies doing business in the Northwestern Federal District, heads of specialized state and non-profit organizations, experts in the field of corporate volunteering.

 

Yury Blagov acted as the organizer and co-moderator of the panel discussion "Innovations in Corporate Volunteering: A New Dimension". The discussion was attended by Irina Efremova-Gart, Director of Sustainable Development at Mobius Technologies; Irina Zhukova, Chairperson of the National Council for Corporate Volunteering; Ekaterina Govorova, Head of CSR and Non-Financial Reporting Projects at Severstal; Natalya Mikhailova, Manager of Corporate Events and Employee Engagement at IRB Family; Tatyana Goncharenko, Head of the “Vyruchay” Program at X5 Retail Group; Ilya Smetanin, Co-Founder of the “Vse Poluchitsa!” project.

 

Summing up the discussion, Yury Blagov emphasized that, despite the importance of using modern digital technologies, for most Russian companies the most important innovation is a systems approach to corporate volunteering. It not only allows us to consider corporate volunteering as an object of professional management, but also implies deep interfunctional interaction aimed at achieving a whole range of interrelated goals aimed at creating value for companies and their employees, for the territories of presence and for society as a whole.

Corporate volunteering is one of the areas of activity of the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of GSOM SPbU. In 2024, Yury Blagov, with the support of the National Council for Corporate Volunteering, developed an online course "Corporate Volunteering". This semester, this course is offered as an elective to 3rd-year students of bachelor's programs. In addition to watching a series of video lectures, students will take part in the preparation of group projects together with managers of leading Russian companies.

 

Teaser of the Corporate Volunteering course