Picture this: Your company strategized a corporate giving program after hearing all the amazing benefits of a corporate social responsibility program. You researched causes, found local nonprofits and spread around the information on how to participate in the program. The air around the project was positive, both from the employees and implementation team. By all accounts, the program should be a success with a great deal of participation. Yet, by the conclusion of the program, numbers and donations were lackluster.
This exact situation might be your biggest fear in implementing a CSR program of your own or, worst case, this scenario sounds oddly familiar. Whichever it may be, employee participation is probably a concern. Lose the anxiety. Use these 5 tips to encourage your employees to give back with your company giving program.
1. Focus on the Mission.
One Gallup survey found 81% of people cite an organization’s mission as a major factor in their decision to donate, which shouldn’t be all that surprising. People don’t donate to charities, they donate to causes. Even if employees love your company, culture, values and all, they won’t necessarily support your philanthropy. To answer this need, consider a matching program in which employees choose the organization they would like to donate to and your company matches that donation.
2. Make it Convenient.
Obviously, a corporate giving program surrounds the workplace. That’s very much the point, but it does pose challenges. For one, productive employees are usually pretty busy during their workday. That means that if the company giving program requires too many hoops to participate in, then most employees just won’t have the bandwidth.
Simply having a collection jar on every floor or designating department managers as the point of contact can make a difference in a few donors and entire teams of employees giving. If possible, bring the giving process onto a digital platform. A “one-stop-shop” CSR software will make it so that no matter what direction your company takes, employees won’t have to leave their desk to participate.
3. Support an Emotional Tie.
A majority of individuals want to identify with the mission of an organization before donating to it, but the same Gallup survey found 57% of people donate to make a difference while 54% donate because they believe it to be the right thing to do. When we see problems but cannot offer solutions, the helplessness is what drives donations, especially for things that aren’t easily solved.
Perhaps choosing the right direction for your corporate giving program is something a little more spontaneous. For example, local or national disasters are not easily predicted, but require just as much attention as long-standing issues. Prepare your internal implementation or management team for these types of short notice giving programs, so they can get them off the ground quickly. The timeliness of a disaster inspires participation, but the greatest gift of the program will be knowing that your organization is playing an active part in helping to bounce back and rebuild.
4. Communicate and Exhilarate.
How to best communicate a corporate giving program to employees is always a huge challenge. The most amazing program that interests every employee could very well receive no support simply because the team didn’t know how to participate or, worse, that the program existed. Of course, simply stating details won’t engage all employees in CSR. It’s important that you strike a chord and excite your team. Aside from aesthetics, consider telling stories of those who have been helped in the past. If your company received a thank you note from a previous project, share it.
To maximize CSR engagement, your company will need to choose more than one avenue of communication. For example, consider sharing the CSR program in the monthly newsletter, but also sending a quick email out at lunchtime about how to donate. Tack on creative reminders to the company intranet at the end of the day. Your organization has a unique approach to internal communication, which means your management team will know what will best resonate with employees within your company.
5. Research and Reflect
When a project within your program is complete, reflect on it. In our busy world of balancing business with community involvement, it’s easy to create a process and continue to follow it without giving much thought to how it actually works. Implementing a successful CSR program takes input from your employees.
Create a way to easily solicit feedback from your people. Schedule an actual round table meeting about what is to come and how programs of the past have worked, or develop an employee survey. Maybe a meeting of the managers will be enough to find out what will motivate employee participation. When employees feel as though they have a hand in the development of your CSR, they are closer to the project and feel more engaged.
When companies create corporate giving programs, executive hearts are in the right place. We want employees to feel valued while helping the community to thrive.
What tactics have you performed to inspire corporate giving? Chat with us@CyberGrants
About Liz Bardetti:
coSeasoned advertising and marketing professional with 15+ years experience, including work for Gatorade, McDonald’s, Welch’s and most recently, CyberGrants. CyberGrants is the preferred CSR software provider to the best philanthropic corporations around the globe. Our clients represent 40% of the Fortune 100 and nearly one-third of all corporate giving. In the last twelve months alone, CyberGrants helped 250 customers give $5.8 billion plus more than 50 million volunteer hours to over 400,000 non-profit organizations.
