How to Participate in the F5 Volunteer Sprint Program
F5 Global Good is expanding its worldwide employee volunteer program to offer F5ers the chance to use up to two weeks of paid time off in 2025 to volunteer their skills virtually with Global Good’s nonprofit partners.
Launched by F5 in partnership with MovingWorlds, the Volunteer Sprint Program is an opportunity for selected employees to contribute their unique skills and expertise to help a nonprofit solve some of its most pressing challenges.
Examples of the type of skills and project support our nonprofit partners are looking for in 2025 include (but are not limited to): digital transformation, strategy development, program management or rebranding.
All employees at F5 - no matter your tenure, level or location - are eligible to apply for a Volunteer Sprint. But we do have limitations on capacity! In 2025, we have space for 75 employees to participate in total, based on the number of available projects worldwide with our non-profit partners.
Volunteer Sprints are designed to reward F5ers with dedicated, uninterrupted time off to:
Waves are time-bound participation periods. By committing a certain number of nonprofits and F5 employees per wave, the MovingWorlds team will be able to ensure that each project has an employee match.
F5 employees can apply to the following Volunteer Sprint participation wave taking place in 2025:
Here are the key steps you will take to engage as part of either wave of the Volunteer Sprint program:
Join the kickoff call to meet the other colleagues in your participation wave and receive an overview of next steps and how to navigate the MovingWorlds platform.
You will each individually complete the onboarding module linked in your dashboard. It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes, and provides guidance about how to navigate the platform, what to expect when working with nonprofit partners, and tips to help you get the most out of your experience.
Once you’re onboarded, you can start exploring
the platform for a pro bono consulting
opportunity that aligns with your skills and
interests. To get a sense of what these projects
typically look like, check out
these examples of past experteering
projects.
When you find a project that feels like a good
fit, request an introduction directly from the
project description page. We recommend sending
3–5 introduction requests to increase your
chances of finding the right match.
Once you've sent introductions, you'll start meeting with nonprofit partners to confirm a match. When an introduction request you have sent is accepted, we will put you in touch directly with the nonprofit who posted the project to set up time to discuss how you can contribute, ask questions, and get the information you need to determine if it's the right fit.
Choose the project that is the best fit for you based on your scoping calls, and confirm the match with the MovingWorlds team. Once confirmed, the MovingWorlds team will guide you and the nonprofit you're supporting through a planning guide to align on key deliverables and details about how you will work together.
Wrap up your project based on the end date you and the nonprofit you're supporting agreed to in the planning guide. Once the project concludes, MovingWorlds will send you a follow-up survey to learn more about the impact you co-created, and get feedback on your experience as a skills-based volunteer.
Attend a Reflection & Wrap-Up event to showcase the work you’ve done and the impact you’ve made.
We expect the following time commitments will be
necessary:
15-30 minutes: Complete application for
Volunteer Sprint
1 hour: Attend kick-off call for Volunteer
Sprint hosted by Global Good
4-8 hours: Identify a project and connect
directly with a non-profit that best suits your
skills and interests
Two weeks (or 10 business days): Complete
project virtually during the Volunteer Sprint
30 minutes: Complete feedback survey upon
completion of Volunteer Sprint
Only if there are extenuating personal or professional circumstances that require it and your exception has been approved by Global Good.
Potentially. Non-profit projects (or segments of
a longer-term project) are generally designed to
be completed within two weeks (or 10 business
days) and we expect that to be the standard
amount of time volunteers dedicate to a project.
If a project is completed sooner and the
non-profit has no other support required from an
F5 employee volunteer before two weeks are
completed, employee volunteers can either:
No. Our focus is on providing two weeks (or 10
business days) per employee to dedicate to each
project. Some non-profits may have longer
projects where multiple employees participate,
in which case part of your Sprint may include
project onboarding and/or offboarding.
However,
if after your Volunteer Sprint is over you want
to continue supporting the same nonprofit in a
different volunteering capacity, we highly
encourage you to use your Volunteer Time Off
(VTO) or volunteer time matching program.
We expect employees who are accepted to the Volunteer Sprint to select projects with nonprofits that work around or avoid holidays and do not conflict with their vacations. If employees need to take sick days during the Volunteer Sprint, we expect the employee volunteer to alert both their manager and the nonprofit to determine how to complete the Sprint at a later date. If your Sprint project takes place during a quarterly Wellness Weekend you are expected to either coordinate this in advance with your nonprofit partner and still take those days off and extend your Sprint timeframe to ensure all 10 days/80 hours are dedicated to your project or you can coordinate separately with your manager to reschedule your Wellness Weekend for a separate time. If your Sprint overlaps with any planned time off you are still expected to ensure you are fulfilling the 10 day commitment to your Sprint project.
No. Global Good will track employee participation through registration to project completion on the MovingWorlds platform. However, volunteer time outside the Volunteer Sprint DOES require you to register your volunteer time in Benevity.
If you are a hybrid employee your 10 Volunteer Sprint business days count towards your 30 in-office day requirement. You will need to track each individual day into the self-reporting in-person attendance tracker after the completion of your Volunteer Sprint. Instructions on this will be sent once you return back to F5 after the completion of your Volunteer Sprint.
While we absolutely love your enthusiasm and eagerness to provide MORE impact for nonprofits in need we are limiting F5ers to participating in a Volunteer Sprint after 2 years from the date in which you completed your initial Sprint to ensure there is opportunities for F5ers who have not had a chance to participate to do so.
A total of 75 employee volunteers is our target in 2025.
All regular full time and part-time employees in good standing – no matter the location, tenure, role, level or experience – are eligible to apply. If your application is selected, the number #1 criteria is a commitment to complete your Volunteer Sprint project virtually within the timing of your selected wave.
No. In fact, if you have never volunteered before, we would welcome your application! We want to offer our non-profit partners a diverse mix of F5 employee experience, and that includes volunteering experience.
No.
No. We expect employee volunteers to work
directly with their managers and teams to plan
ahead on the timing of when you will commit to
complete the Volunteer Sprint in 2025. Similar
in some ways to taking two weeks of Personal
Time Off (PTO), the employee and the manager
should work together in advance to reprioritize,
balance &/or postpone workloads in advance
of a Volunteer Sprint.
What we also ask employee volunteers and
managers to keep top of mind is that F5 has made
a commitment to our non-profit partners to
support and complete their projects. So, when an
employee volunteer commits to a project, we will
do everything we can to complete it.
During their Volunteer Sprint, we expect
employees to:
During their Volunteer Sprint, F5 employees
should NOT:
When in doubt, please reach out to
globalgood@f5.com
with any questions or concerns.
We sincerely hope that does not happen, but we
understand there may be extenuating
circumstances.
When there are work obligations competing with
the Volunteer Sprint, we expect employees and
their managers to reprioritize projects together
(similar to planning for PTO) to accommodate the
Sprint and meet our commitments to our
non-profit partners. If there are significant
customer or operational issues that cannot be
shifted, please reach out to
globalgood@f5.com
and the team will work together with employees,
managers and nonprofit partners to determine an
alternative volunteer or project.
If there are exceptional personal reasons that
necessitate a cancellation of your Volunteer
Sprint, please 1.) let your selected nonprofit
partner know directly and 2.) reach out to
globalgood@f5.com
so the team can help the nonprofit partner find
an alternative volunteer.
No. The Volunteer Sprint is paid time off from F5.
No.
Yes. There is a mandatory, but brief, survey to complete at the end of each employees’ Volunteer Sprint with your organization to ensure a) employees and non-profits needs were met during the project and b) learn what we can improve in the program for 2025. You may also be asked if you would be willing to share your experience with the Volunteer Sprint in broad internal or external communications by F5 Global Good or MovingWorlds.
All F5 employees will volunteer virtually for their projects. However, we will also make sure time zones and language are not barriers to your project’s completion with our nonprofit partners.
No, currently all Volunteer Sprint projects are designed by the nonprofits to be completed virtually. If you are located close to your matched nonprofit or one of their staff you are welcome to coordinate meeting or working on your project in-person however, that is not expected. We intend to seek out in-person projects in the future.
As a multinational enterprise technology
company, F5 employees can offer a diverse mix of
skills to non-profits. The list below represents
the kinds of skills support non-profits have
requested so far, but we expect F5ers will bring
many other types of expertise not even accounted
for here!
Accounting, Advertising, Brand, Business
Strategy, Communications, Data Analysis,
Database Management, Engineering, Event
Planning, Finance, Fundraising, HR, IT, Legal,
Leadership or Management, Manufacturing,
Marketing, Monitoring & Evaluation,
Multimedia, Operations, Product Design, Product
Management, Sales, Social Media, Software
Development, Training, User Research, Vendor
Management, Videography, Web Design, Web
Development, Translation Services.
If you bring other skills that you think may be
especially relevant to non-profits, please be
sure to indicate those areas of expertise in
your application.
Please think holistically about all the
different skills and expertise you could bring
to a nonprofit – not just what you are currently
responsible for at F5.
We believe Volunteer Sprints offer some form of
personal and professional development to all
employee volunteers, but we also encourage
employees to think of ways in which a Volunteer
Sprint could expand your skillset too. You may
want to focus on identifying projects with
non-profits that would act as a stretch
assignment for you.
F5 has invited all nonprofit organizations that have received a STEM Education, Tech for Good, Community Impact, or Black Education Empowerment Initiative grant since 2020 to participate and suggest projects for F5 volunteers.
Nonprofits will register their project(s) and F5 employee volunteers will register their skills on the MovingWorlds platform. Employee volunteers should proactively search out projects that match their skill set and contact non-profits directly to see if they are a match. MovingWorlds staff will also help step in and match projects and volunteers, if there are signs non-profits or employees are not connecting or locating matching projects.
You have a choice! Employee volunteers will register on the MovingWorlds platform to discover projects and connect with non-profits directly. The employee and nonprofit will mutually agree to complete the Sprint together before your wave begins. MovingWorlds will assist by providing project match suggestions where your skills are matched to the needs of the nonprofit organizations but those are simply suggestions and you are not expected to match with those projects should you not want to.
We hope you will explore the projects with our existing STEM Education, Tech for Good, Community Impact, or Black Education Empowerment Initiative grantees on the MovingWorlds platform first - they really could use your help. However, if there are no other available nonprofit projects that suit your skills or interests, other projects that MovingWorlds has already vetted will also be displayed on the platform for you to choose from.
We will make every effort to find a nonprofit project that fits with your skills and interest. If none of our partner nonprofits’ projects are relevant to your skills, MovingWorlds will introduce F5ers to suitable nonprofits (that are not currently F5 Global Good partners) participating in other volunteer programs on their platform.
F5 and MovingWorlds will require onboarding training to be completed by every employee before their Volunteer Sprint begins. The topics covered will include how to use the MovingWorlds platform to discover projects and connect with nonprofits, as well as best practices to help ensure employees and non-profits alike have a great experience during their Volunteer Sprint.
Please reach out to globalgood@f5.com immediately so the team can help you resolve the project issue or find an alternative nonprofit partner.
Changes in Volunteer Sprint timing or projects will be allowed if there are extenuating personal or professional circumstances (see below) that absolutely require it.
Extenuating professional circumstances would
include unforeseen customer or enterprise-wide
operational issues, such as a CVE response,
IT/service outage, or M&A activity; a
violation of our Code of Conduct and Ethics by
the nonprofit or you; or a change in your
performance meaning you are no longer in good
standing at F5. Extenuating personal
circumstances would include unforeseen events,
such as ill health or bereavement leave.
Extenuating professional circumstances would not
include team-level priorities, such as changes
in project deadlines, event attendance or
roles/responsibilities. Extenuating personal
circumstances would not include individual
preferences, such as vacation schedules or a
change in personal interest in a nonprofit
project.
If there are exceptional professional reasons
that necessitate a change or a cancellation of
your Volunteer Sprint, you should reach out
to globalgood@f5.com and cc: your manager as soon as possible. The
Global Good team will then work together with
you, your manager and nonprofit partner to
determine an alternative volunteer or
project.
If there are exceptional personal reasons that
necessitate a cancellation of your direct
report’s Volunteer Sprint, you need to reach out
to globalgood@f5.com as soon as possible so the team can help the
nonprofit partner find an alternative volunteer.
What we ask that you and your manager to keep
top of mind is that F5 has made a commitment to
our nonprofit partners, who have far fewer
resources than we do, to support and complete
their Volunteer Sprint projects.
When you
commit to a project, we want to do everything we
can to complete it and not disrupt the careful
planning, time and considerable efforts of our
nonprofit partners.
MovingWorlds is a vendor that the Global Good team selected to help manage and scale the Volunteer Sprint program. MovingWorlds has 13 years of experience managing similar programs with employees from companies like Microsoft, SAP and Unilever and nonprofits and social businesses around the world.
MovingWorlds has a SaaS platform to connect nonprofits around the world with highly skilled professionals (including corporate employees from F5) to work on capacity-building projects, provide targeted learning modules and resources, and connections with peers.
Yes. We are allocating the same rate we use for volunteer time matching at $15USD/hour. For every F5 employee that volunteers 80 hours to a Volunteer
Sprint project, F5 will donate $1200USD to the participating non-profit. This donation will be disbursed to the nonprofit you complete your Sprint with the following quarter from when you complete your project.
By all means! You can learn more about how to donate to nonprofits on Benevity. Global Good’s guidelines for matching your donations to nonprofits are also available here.
No.
All regular full-time and part-time employees have 8 hours of VTO per calendar year and may split up the 8 hours of VTO in any increment they choose, with any number of nonprofit organizations they choose. More information on VTO guidelines are available here.
No, Global Good will track your hours and disburse the funding to the nonprofits. There will be no action required on your end for this.