What if we told you there was a way to boost fundraising efforts while increasing employee engagement and productivity?
You can do exactly that with a solid corporate philanthropy program.
Corporate giving is a significant chunk of many fundraising strategies and can show that your company cares about community issues or causes. And your business is not alone: Corporate giving in 2019 increased to $21.09 billion—a 13.4% increase from 2018.
It’s almost become an expectation of employees for businesses to create some type of opportunity to participate in giving programs. These programs can be simple, internal options for employee giving or be part of a larger corporate social responsibility campaign that’s part of your company culture.
There are a number of ways to facilitate employee giving through programming, volunteering, and social incentives. The best part is that GiveWP has all the tools you need to help create these programs and make it easy for employees to contribute to fundraising efforts.
Why Corporate Philanthropy Matters
Corporate and employee giving efforts are a proven way to boost morale, engagement, and even create greater competitive advantage.
“Companies do not function in isolation from the society around them… In fact, their ability to compete depends heavily on the circumstances of the locations where they operate. … The more a social improvement relates to a company’s business, the more it leads to economic benefits as well.”
Harvard Business Review
Take Patagonia, for example. The outdoor retail giant is known almost as much for supporting environmental causes as their products and gear. They back those causes and organizations with action and donations:
“From supporting youth fighting against oil drilling to suing the president, we take action on the most pressing environmental issues facing our world.”
Corporate philanthropy has benefits that extend beyond charitable giving (which can be the easiest to see and quantify). Other benefits include:
- Increased sales from customers with the same giving philosophy.
- Customer loyalty can be linked to companies that do good, with consumer willingness to pay a little more from brands that back important causes.
- Better recruiting and employee retention for companies with a culture that people connect with.
- Extended network for your business through corporate giving, volunteering, and philanthropic networking.
- Great public relations material for companies that show links and engagement with their communities.
- Improve brand awareness with buzz surrounding corporate giving efforts.
- Potential tax benefits when a company donates to a charitable organization.
To maximize your ability to participate in corporate philanthropy, it is important to get employees involved and bought into the cause(s) you support and help them engage and participate in the mission.
Remember, corporate giving programs should be flexible enough to allow employees to participate financially or with time, and participation incentives can help boost overall engagement.
“Philanthropy can often be the most cost-effective way for a company to improve its competitive context, enabling companies to leverage the efforts and infrastructure of nonprofits and other institutions.”
How to Set Up Employee Giving Programs with GiveWP
Employee giving programs aren’t as difficult to manage as you might think. GiveWP is a free WordPress donation plugin that provides a full-featured donation platform within your existing website.
Starting an employee giving program begins with setting up a general donation form.
The GiveWP donation form tool allows you to set donation goals, and customize everything from gift options to how the form looks and connect to your payment processor of choice. Then you can publish and display the donation form using a shortcode (or Gutenberg block) anywhere on your website.
To maximize employee giving programs, put the form on internal web pages that serve as reference points for your team. Consider using a goal tracker with the form in the sidebar so that your employee giving program is always top of mind.
In addition to cash giving, employee giving programs can also extend to volunteering or donated items.
A group at Roanoke College in Virginia formed Maroons Make Masks in 2020 and used GiveWP to track how many masks were made and donated to charitable organizations. It was all done with a little bit of customization to the GiveWP donation form and did not require PHP or coding skills.
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5 Employee Giving Program Ideas
Finding the right type of giving program for your team can be tough. It needs to benefit a group or organization that means something to your employees and offers methods that they can actually contribute to.
If you can, brainstorm potential charitable partnerships to get employee buy-in before launching a program. You want to pick a cause that people believe in and give them the opportunity to feel like they can make a difference.
Example of employee giving program ideas include:
- Scholarship fund
- Fundraising campaign for a community organization
- Volunteer days with local nonprofits
- Company matches that allow employees to give to any organization they choose with a bonus match from the company
- Small giving efforts such as tip jars (physical or online) to reward good work between employees
Another broad way to implement an employee giving program with matching donations from your company is to register with Double the Donation. This allows your employees to give to any organization that has Double the Donation and select your business as a matching partner.
Give Your Employees Incentives to Get Involved
Incentives are often the element that propel employee giving programs to the next level. From group or team challenges to social pressure or public recognition, showcasing giving efforts can inspire more people to get involved.
When it comes to employee giving programs, a mix of fun, competition, and social pressure can be an incentive to participate. You can create leaderboards, goal tracking, or countdowns to show progress, and it never hurts to throw prizes into the mix for meeting specific milestones.
GiveWP tools already include many of the elements you need to show these things to your team to encourage employee giving and participation.
These are a few things that we’ve seen have measurable success with companies using Give WP:
- Set up a form grid as a way for employees to vote on the incentive options and create an even deeper buy-in for giving programs.
- Use goal bars and countdown timers to create a sense of urgency to keep campaigns moving forward.
- Use the Donor Wall to give employees public recognition and share messages about specific gifts.
- Use Tributes to “tag a coworker” and provide recognition or turn giving into a game among team members.
Get Started with Corporate Giving Programs Now
Whether you are looking to revive an existing corporate giving program or start fresh with a new employee giving incentive, GiveWP has everything you need to get started now.
If you need more help or want to dive deeper into GiveWP tools and features, schedule a demo to see how it works for yourself.
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