July 5, 2015

I am pleased to provide this reference for Sarah Hayes with whom I have worked in a variety of

roles for the past twelve years.

While I’ve known Sarah for more than 15 years we had the first opportunity to work together as

board members for IAVE – The International Association for Volunteer Effort in 2004. At that

time IAVE was just learning how to work with companies and how to include them in our efforts

in the support of volunteering worldwide. Sarah was appointed as the first IAVE board member

to focus specifically on engaging corporations in our organization.

It soon was clear that both global companies and IAVE wanted to expand our relationship and it

was logical that we would look to Sarah for support in this effort. Sarah developed and expanded

the concept. She officially left the board and, as a consultant, helped IAVE create the Global

Corporate Volunteer Council (GCVC). This was the first ever global council with global

companies focused on volunteering. Sarah recruited six founding global companies in 2006.

Fast forward nine years to 2015 and we have a current council with 50 global companies. This

has taken a tremendous amount of work and commitment on Sarah’s part to build the

relationships and sell the idea of joining the council. In addition, Sarah worked with many of the

companies who contributed beyond their membership fees and she was able to raise additional

tens of thousands of dollars to support IAVE activities. These include research on volunteering,

world and regional conference sponsorships as well as other projects supporting advocacy,

network development and leadership for volunteer leaders around the world.

Please feel free to contact me at kdennis@iave.org or 202-271-2511 if you have specific

questions or wish more information about the work Sarah has done.

Kathleen Dennis

Executive Director

Secretariat | 805 15th Street NW, Suite 100, Washington DC 20005 | ph 202.628.4360 |

www.iave.org