The list of matching gift companies is endless—and not exclusive to one region, business size, or corporate sector. Instead, employers all over the world opt to match their employees’ charitable donations. Doing so results in elevated corporate philanthropy, team-wide engagement, and even positive brand image.
So what makes one company’s program stand out over another? There are a lot of factors that go into a top matching gift company, including donation (low) minimums and (high) maximums, open eligibility, seamless donor experiences, and more.
One that stands out in all areas is legal services company Innovative Discovery. And we’ll tell you why!
Ready to get started? Dive in and see what makes Innovative Discovery’s matching gift program top-tier.
Fun Fact: By working with a CLMA-certified matching gift platform, Innovative Discovery has become a Certified Leader in Matching Automation. That means it’s recognized for its dedication to providing the best possible experience for its employees participating in the program.
What to Know About Innovative Discovery
Founded in 2005 in Arlington, Virginia, Innovative Discovery is a strategic consulting firm and legal services provider to a wide range of corporations and groups. The company partners with government agencies, construction and manufacturing businesses, energy and utility companies, financial services, healthcare and life sciences providers, and more.
Innovative Discovery employees—a combination of technologists, lawyers, and cybersecurity experts—work as strategic consultants to provide authoritative guidance throughout the litigation processes and information lifecycles. Specifically, the consulting group aims to offer unique insights into cybersecurity, data breaches, digital forensics, and high-stakes litigations to set their clients up for maximal success.
This corporation also places a significant emphasis on giving back to the communities in which they operate, including offering community service, nonprofit sponsorships, and more. Plus, they support nonprofit organizations of all shapes and sizes through their generous matching program.
Current Matching Gift Program Guidelines
Innovative Discovery employees have the opportunity to double their charitable giving impact by participating in the company’s matching initiative. Personal gifts made by Innovative Discovery team members of between $25 and $2,500 are eligible to be matched at a 1:1 rate.
Even better, nearly all nonprofits qualify for the program. This includes K-12 and higher education institutions, arts and cultural institutions, environmental nonprofits, and other registered 501(c)(3) organizations.
And the company makes it as easy as possible for employees to take part, driving participation and overall program usage with auto-submission, a new solution from Double the Donation.
Here’s a quick overview of the Innovative Discovery corporate matching gift program eligibility requirements:
Matching gift ratio – 1:1 (or dollar for dollar)
Qualifying employees – Current full-time and part-time Innovative Discovery team members qualify to request corporate matching donations.
Eligible nonprofit recipients – Most nonprofit mission types qualify for Innovative Discovery matching, which includes:
Educational institutions (K-12 included)
Health and human services
Arts and cultural organizations
Civic and community groups
Environmental nonprofits
And most other 501 (c)(3) organizations
Submission process – Employees may complete their match request directly following their initial donation on the organization’s giving form using auto-submission or navigate to Selflessly’s online matching gift portal to fill out a brief application.
Standing Out With Matching Gift Auto-Submission Through Selflessly and Double the Donation
The #1 thing that makes Innovative Discovery’s matching gift program so innovative is its participation in newly developed matching gift auto-submission. By partnering with Double the Donation and corporate giving platform Selflessly, ID is streamlining the process for employees getting involved.
Enabling the solution, which recently came out of beta, significantly reduces the time and effort involved in completing a matching gift request. And it can all be done directly from a nonprofit’s website—driving more ID employees to participate. With increased program participation, more funding goes to the nonprofit causes their employees care about. Not to mention, the company itself receives elevated benefits from its corporate giving offerings. It’s a win-win-win—and it’s easier than ever before!
Here’s how the matching process works for Innovative Discovery team members using auto-submission:
An ID employee makes a donation directly on their favorite nonprofit’s website and enters their company name—Innovative Discovery—in a donation form field.
On the confirmation screen, the employee enters their corporate email address. They then check a box and authorize Double the Donation to submit the match request on their behalf.
Innovative Discovery facilitates its matching gifts and other corporate giving initiatives by leveraging a CSR management software company, Selflessly. Selflessly is framed as an “all-in-one giving platform for CSR,” offering both corporate giving and volunteerism features.
Through this software solution, companies like Innovative Discovery are able to:
Elevate corporate giving and employee matching with ease;
Simplify corporate volunteering and organize team and individual volunteer opportunities;
Increase employee engagement by participating in social good;
Make the most of purposeful reporting and impact assessments.
Recently, Selflessly was also one of the first providers to participate in the beta program for auto-submission functionality with Double the Donation, making corporate matching gifts easier than ever before.
Other Innovative Giving Initiatives
Innovative Discovery’s website shares that “the primary focus of ID’s corporate philanthropic efforts are nonprofit organizations valued by our employees.” This idea is reflected in the company’s matching gift program as well as additional team-wide efforts for various charitable causes.
This includes:
ID Civic Day — Innovative Discovery’s Civic Day offers an annual opportunity for team members to engage in their communities. Beyond typical PTO, the company offers an additional paid day off work for employees to volunteer with community service projects.
Employee volunteer grants — ID states that the company supports team member philanthropy through matching donations and investments of their time with corporate volunteer grants. When employees volunteer with various causes, the company pays out grants to the organizations to which they dedicate their time and efforts.
Steps for Autism team challenge — Every April, Innovative Discovery employees take part in a workplace giving campaign on behalf of the Autism Society. During World Autism Month, team members compete by department to see who can get the most steps. At the end of the month, ID makes a donation to the Autism Society on behalf of the winning group.
Sponsorship for Climbing Blind: Tibet Expedition — In 2004, Innovative Discovery aided groundbreaking Climbing Blind’s Tibet Expedition. The company sponsored the event by building essential technical infrastructure. With their newly developed interactive website and intuitive web content management system, Climbing Blind had access to the tools they needed to connect climbers with their growing online community.
Innovative Discovery leadership has made it a point time and time again to invest in giving back to their communities. We’re excited to see what they roll out next!
Wrapping Up
Companies like Innovative Discovery are paving the way for more businesses—and the nonprofits, donors, and communities they support—to benefit from groundbreaking matching gift programs with ease. As more and more corporations roll out innovative auto-submission functionality by leveraging partnerships between corporate giving and matching gift-specific technology, the results will continue growing to new heights.
Ready to learn more about standout matching gift companies and practices? Explore other Double the Donation resources here:
Matching Gift Auto-Submission + CSR Platforms | What to Know. Auto-submission functionality enables companies like Innovative Discovery to streamline the experience for employees and ultimately get more out of their giving programs. And the nonprofits involved benefit as well! Learn more with this comprehensive guide.
Selflessly Launches Auto-Submit Match Requests. Companies can bring their philanthropic programming to the next level thanks to the integration between Selflessly and Double the Donation. Find out how auto-submission helps improve programs and how your company can benefit here.
How to Start a Matching Gift Program [For Companies]. Are you a corporate executive looking to launch an employee matching gift program at your company? This step-by-step walkthrough provides unique insights into how your team can develop the most impactful initiative possible.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/DTD_Company-Spotlight-Article-Selflessly-Innovative-Discovery_Feature-1.png6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2023-11-10 15:48:382024-08-02 21:24:56Company Spotlight: Maximizing Matching Gift Innovation with Innovative Discovery
A thoughtful and robust fundraising strategy is key to any nonprofit’s success. As a nonprofit professional, you’re probably always on the lookout for new ideas and strategies to spice up your organization’s fundraising efforts. That’s where challenge gifts come in—when done correctly, this fundraising idea can supercharge your mission with increased gifts.
In this guide, we’ll go over the basics of challenge gifts and empower you to leverage them by covering the following topics:
To maximize the fundraising impact of your challenge gifts, consider investing in fundraising software that will streamline your fundraising processes and efforts. Matching gift software, in particular, will greatly increase the effectiveness of donations made during your challenge gift campaign.
What is a challenge gift?
A challenge gift is a donation that is contingent on another goal, usually another donation. Usually, the donor will commit to donating a certain amount to a nonprofit if the organization or its other donors fulfill a certain goal or take an action within a certain amount of time. Only then is the donation made.
Common challenge gift goals include:
Total money raised. This goal is fairly self-explanatory—essentially, the donor’s gift hinges on the nonprofit reaching a fundraising goal. For example, a major donor might commit to donating $20,000 if the nonprofit raises $40,000 worth of other donations during their next fundraising campaign.
Total number of donors. Instead of committing a donation based on the amount raised, some donors choose instead to base it on the total number of donors that give during a set amount of time. The goal for this type of challenge gift is to help the nonprofit recruit more donors. Some challenge donors may specify that they only count first-time donors, while others will count donations made by any donors.
Matching gifts. For a matching donation challenge, a major donor or sponsor will commit to matching gifts made by other donors. For instance, a major donor may match gifts at a 1:1 ratio up to $30,000. That means that if you raise $30,000 from other donors, then you’ll receive $60,000 in total. However, if you raise less than the match amount, such as $10,000, then you’ll only receive the match up to that amount, or $20,000 total.
Challenge gifts are a great way for a major donor to inspire and encourage other donors to give, resulting in greater fundraising success for the nonprofit. When handled properly, these challenges can be used to secure future support and improve the sustainability of your organization.
What are the benefits of challenge gifts?
At this point, you may be thinking: Aren’t challenge gifts just donations with strings attached? Why would I want those instead of straightforward donations?
Although you might feel that way, challenge gifts bring your nonprofit a variety of game-changing benefits. Some of these include:
Increase fundraising impact. The most obvious benefit of challenge gifts is that they incentivize supporters to give. Your supporters are invested in your nonprofit’s success, which makes it more likely that they’ll donate so that you can secure challenge gift funds.
Attract new donors. If the challenge gift is contingent on acquiring a certain number of donors, it will be especially useful in attracting new donors. Plus, challenge gifts inspire a sense of urgency, providing a compelling reason for potential supporters to engage through donations.
Engage board members. Board members who are passionately invested in your nonprofit’s cause may inspire and engage their fellow board members by making a challenge gift for them. For example, a board member might say that they will give an extra $30,000 if the board as a whole gives $200,000 by a certain date.
Strengthen existing relationships. The urgency from the time-sensitive nature of challenge gifts will also help you secure donations from previous donors. Alongside a great stewardship plan, challenge gifts can greatly contribute to engaging previous donors and increase retention rates.
Form corporate partnerships. Although challenge gift donors don’t have to be businesses, if they are, it presents an opportunity for you to form partnerships with companies that are invested in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Having such a partnership may lead to future support through initiatives such as volunteer grants.
Secure long-term support. Aside from short-term support for immediate fundraising campaigns, certain challenge gifts can also help your nonprofit secure long-term funding. For example, a challenge donor may create a bequest challenge for $50,000. Every time someone submits a signed statement that they have put your nonprofit in their estate plan, the donor will release $2,000 from the challenge gift total.
When it comes to boosting your fundraising and securing support, challenge gifts are a valuable opportunity for nonprofits to reliably meet their goals. While the donor dictates the terms of the challenge, the concept itself has a lot of flexibility, as it accommodates multiple types of challenges.
What are the drawbacks of challenge gifts?
We’ve already touched on the main drawback of challenge gifts—the inability to fulfill the challenge, and therefore the loss of the challenge gift funds. The most common restrictions on a challenge gift include:
Goal amount. Whether it’s the number of donors or the donation amount, each challenge gift comes with a goal amount that the nonprofit must reach. Without reaching this objective, part or all of the challenge gift might be forfeited.
Time. That challenge gifts are time-sensitive creates a great sense of urgency that propels supporters to give. However, that same benefit is also a restriction—your nonprofit only has a set amount of time to reach your goals. This duration can vary greatly, based on the challenge the donor has set.
Donation requirements. These refer to any extra requirements that the challenge donor places on gifts that count toward the challenge gift goal. We’ve discussed that the challenge donor might choose to restrict the type of donor that can participate in the challenge, but they can also restrict the type of donation that qualifies. For example, they might specify that the challenge only applies to direct donations and specify that purchases made at a fundraising auction don’t qualify.
Although challenge gifts have their drawbacks, with proper planning and consideration, you can mitigate their disadvantages. While they might put your nonprofit’s fundraising and donor acquisition strategies to the test, the result will be well worth it—a large amount of funds that you can leverage to support your beneficiaries.
Acquiring Support for Challenge Gifts: 5 Tips
To help you make the most of any challenge gifts your nonprofit receives, we’ll go over five tips for acquiring support to fulfill your challenges. Let’s dive in!
1. Create a challenge gift proposal.
While some donors may make a challenge gift unprompted, it’s more likely that your nonprofit will need to specifically seek out challenge donors, much like you seek out sponsorships. To do so, you’ll want to draft a challenge gift proposal to pitch to potential donors.
As you create your proposal, be sure to:
Introduce your nonprofit. Provide a general overview of your nonprofit’s mission, beneficiaries, and the purpose of the challenge gift that you’re requesting.
Give any relevant context. If there’s any relevant information that would help contextualize your proposal, add it. For example, if your nonprofit works with individuals experiencing homelessness and the weather is much colder than usual in winter, you may say that you’re fundraising for warm winter clothing.
Outline your goals. Whether your goal is to obtain funds, new donors, or bequests, outline it in your proposal. Be specific—for instance, you may say that you want to raise $100,000, attract 500 new donors, or obtain 300 bequests.
Determine the challenge details. Lay out the general details of your challenge so your potential challenge donor knows exactly what is expected of them. Let’s say you want to raise $100,000. In your proposal, detail that you want to do this through a matching donation challenge, where your challenge donor matches $50,000 worth of donations at a 1:1 ratio to help you meet your overall goal of $100,000.
Detail the benefits. Aside from describing what you need from your challenge donor, let them know what they’ll be getting from your partnership as well. For instance, if you partner with a company, include their logo and branding on your promotional materials. That way, they can access potential customers amongst your nonprofit’s supporters.
Keep in mind that your challenge gift proposal should look different depending on which potential donor you’re trying to connect with. Just as you would segment your regular donors based on their interests and preferences, make sure to tailor your proposal based on the donor’s gift capacity and previous engagement with your nonprofit.
2. Strategically connect with challenge gift donors.
There are different types of potential donors that you can connect with to pitch challenge gifts to. When first starting, we recommend reaching out to similar types of potential donors to get a better feel of interacting with them and minimize the number of proposals you need to customize.
In general, most challenge gift donors fall into one of the following groups:
Local businesses. When connecting with local businesses, focus on the benefits that you bring to the local community and how that will bring greater success for the business. For instance, your nonprofit’s environmental focus might enhance a business’ neighborhood and bring in more customers.
Large corporations. Large corporations will likely have more money to donate as a challenge gift to your cause but require more effort when forming a partnership. Keep your pitch focused on the benefits that they receive from the partnership. This could look like a shoutout from your nonprofit or a mutually beneficial CSR partnership.
Major donors. Especially if they’ve previously made donations to your nonprofit, major donors are invested in your mission and strongly want you to succeed. For these pitches, you can discuss more in-depth the benefits that your nonprofit will receive while emphasizing how their previous support impacted your success.
Foundations and grantmakers. For this group of potential challenge donors, you’ll likely go through a rigorous application process to be considered. However, foundations and grantmakers exist to provide support to nonprofits, so you can focus your application on what your nonprofit gains.
Celebrities and influencers. Celebrities and influencers receive a large boost in reputation for being associated with charitable causes such as your own. Plus, their influence will greatly increase the visibility of your challenge. Be sure to take both of these factors into consideration as you craft your appeal to this group of potential donors.
To help you narrow down the potential donors you should connect with, focus on those who have already indicated a philanthropic interest in some way. For example, businesses with existing corporate citizenship or CSR initiatives that align with your cause will be more open to aiding your nonprofit.
3. Thoroughly promote your challenge gifts.
Ensure that your challenge gifts drive the impact you desire by thoughtfully promoting them to all of your nonprofit’s supporters. Use the following marketing channels to do so:
Your website
Direct mail
Email
Text or SMS
Social media
Send communications before and during the challenge to drum up excitement and secure support. Provide all relevant details to supporters so they know how they can help. For example, if your goal is to acquire 100 first-time donors, ask your supporters to reach out to their friends and family to appeal for first-time donations. Provide templates for social media posts and emails that they can use to make their appeals easier.
Additionally, be sure to focus your messaging on urgency and speed. Emphasize the approaching deadline and don’t be afraid to send multiple messages during the challenge as reminders. To make this process more efficient, consider using a marketing tool to streamline your promotional efforts.
4. Maximize your gift impact.
When properly planned and marketed, one of the great benefits of challenge gifts is a boost in the number of donations made during the challenge. Maximize the impact of gifts by diving into matching gifts.
If you’re new to matching gifts, they are a form of corporate philanthropy where employers match their employees’ donations to nonprofits. Although most match at a 1:1 ratio, particularly generous companies may match at a higher ratio, such as 2:1 or even 3:1.
This is how it works:
An employee donates to a nonprofit.
The employee submits a donation match request to their employer.
The employer reviews the request.
The employer approves the match and donates the matching funds to the nonprofit.
As around $4-7 billion of matching gift funds is estimated to go unclaimed every year, it’s clear that one of the biggest obstacles to obtaining matching gift funds is awareness.
During a donation challenge period, you’ll be sending out many communications to supporters to urge them to donate. Maximize the impact of those donations by also reminding supporters to look into their employers’ matching gift programs. With a small amount of effort from them, they’ll be able to greatly increase the funds that you raise. Plus, it won’t require them to gift more of their money!
5. Celebrate achievements and goals.
When the period set by your challenge gift has ended, be sure to celebrate all achievements and goals met with your supporters. Recognize all the donors that have given during this time and thank them for participating in the challenge. Even if you didn’t meet your goals, saying a simple thank you goes a long way toward facilitating long-lasting and fruitful relationships.
If you did meet your goals, then consider hosting a celebration! This can take the form of a donor appreciation event, where you invite all those who gave to come and have fun. Or, if your donors are spread all over the country or the globe, send gifts to them instead. These don’t have to break your budget, as they can be small trinkets or merchandise branded to your nonprofit.
The most important thing here is to let your donors know that your success would not be possible without them. Show your genuine gratitude so that donors are incentivized to continue supporting your mission.
Additional Resources
Challenge gifts are an incredible opportunity for your nonprofit to buckle down and meet its goals. They also incentivize increased giving from your supporters through gamification, making them a worthwhile gift to receive.
If you’re interested in learning more about nonprofit fundraising opportunities, check out the following resources:
How to Unlock Corporate Sponsorships: Get More Support. While not all challenge gift donors are corporations, there’s a possibility that you’ll need a business sponsorship to acquire these gifts. In this guide, you’ll discover how to unlock corporate sponsorships.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Challenge-Gifts_Feature.png8801680Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2023-11-10 13:46:562023-11-16 18:23:33What are Challenge Gifts? A Guide to High-Speed Fundraising
Expectations of the modern company have changed. To many people, a successful, noteworthy company is not just one that earns profits or offers enticing employee benefits. To win the support of employees, consumers, and other stakeholders, you must also stand as an advocate for social change. That’s where corporate volunteering comes in.
77% of consumers are more motivated to purchase from companies with CSR initiatives. By facilitating corporate volunteering, your company can power social good while engaging your employees in meaningful, rewarding activities. Whether you already have an established philanthropy program, or you’re just looking to launch one, you’ll need to build a repertoire of compelling volunteer ideas to inspire employees to participate.
We’ve compiled over 25 inspiring in-person and virtual ideas, along with tips on making the most of each corporate volunteer experience, in the following sections:
Chances are, many of your employees enter their roles expecting more than just responsibilities and a paycheck. Through corporate volunteering, you can help them find a larger purpose in their roles and encourage them to stay with your company for the long term.
Corporate Volunteer Activities: FAQs
Before we explore corporate volunteer ideas to engage your employees, let’s answer some frequently asked questions to get you started on the right foot.
What is corporate volunteering?
Corporate volunteering, or employee volunteering, refers to the time and skills that a company’s employees dedicate to charitable causes as part of their combined corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts.
Since the estimated national value of every volunteer hour is $31.80, corporate volunteering allows companies to make a substantial difference in supporting nonprofit missions worldwide and leave a lasting impact on society.
What are the benefits of corporate volunteering?
While it’s clear that volunteering brings significant benefits to nonprofits, it can be very rewarding to your company as well. By incorporating corporate volunteering ideas into your philanthropic initiatives, you can:
Promote team-building. A winning company culture relies on team-building. By assembling employees for a corporate volunteer event, you’ll help them develop collaboration and communication skills that they can then apply to their roles.
Boost employee retention. It’s one thing to have your employees show up for work every day. It’s another to have them fully invested in their roles and your company’s overall success. Corporate volunteering enables you to better engage your employees by creating a sense of community and purpose among them. This makes them more likely to stick around year after year.
Increase talent acquisition. According to a survey conducted by Paul Polman, 76% of U.S. employees want to work for a company that is trying to have a positive impact on the world. If your company makes it clear, through its corporate volunteering efforts, that it’s committed to the common good, then you’ll attract many more socially conscious job seekers to your roles.
Elevate your reputation. Ultimately, corporate volunteering demonstrates that your company is interested in more than making profits. This can go a long way toward building trust and cultivating support within your community.
While other corporate giving initiatives, such as community grants, can lead to similar benefits, corporate volunteering is one of the most popular and effective ways to directly engage employees in your social impact.
15 In-Person Corporate Volunteering Ideas
In-person corporate volunteer activities allow your employees to get directly involved in their local neighborhoods. Consider the following ideas to start engaging employees and strengthening connections with your community:
1. Organize a community cleanup.
Keep America Beautiful estimates that there are nearly 50 billion pieces of litter along U.S. roadways and waterways. Gather your employees to clean up a local park, beach, or other public space in your local area. This will not only create a more beautiful place for everyone to appreciate, but it will also reduce pollution and protect wildlife in the area.
Furthermore, this corporate volunteering idea can inspire local residents to pay more attention to their carbon footprint and how they can take better care of the community in which they live.
2. Spend a day at an animal shelter.
Enlist your employees to help out at an animal shelter for a win-win corporate volunteer activity. They’ll improve the lives of animals in need of homes, and at the same time, experience a boost to their mental health. Studies indicate that spending time with dogs can raise oxytocin and dopamine levels in people, which promote happiness and reduce anxiety.
There are a variety of volunteer roles that your corporate employees can fill at an animal shelter, such as walking dogs, taking pictures of adoptable animals, and cleaning up the shelter.
3. Build homes for people in need.
If your employees spend much of their time sitting in front of a desk, this corporate volunteering idea provides a wonderful opportunity for them to get active for a worthy cause. To organize this activity, you’ll typically partner with a nonprofit, such as Habitat for Humanity, that can oversee your employees’ efforts and guide them through the construction process.
Bank of America is one standout company that champions affordable housing, with a 30+ year partnership with Habitat for Humanity. Their employees spend about 35,000 a year supporting the nonprofit’s initiatives and making a difference in the lives of people facing housing insecurity.
4. Visit a senior center.
There are numerous roles that corporate volunteers can fill at a senior center. Depending on your employees’ skills and interests, they can:
Speak with and provide companionship to residents.
Lead arts and crafts activities.
Help with administrative tasks.
Assist with meal preparation.
Beyond lending a hand with daily activities, your employees can even plan and host a holiday party or another type of special event to brighten up residents’ lives.
5. Partner with a homeless shelter.
Last year, homelessness in the United States reached record highs. Support your local homeless shelter and assist an increasingly vulnerable population by:
Preparing and serving meals.
Helping children with their homework.
Sorting donated clothes and other goods.
Leading life skills workshops, such as resume writing.
Planning a corporate volunteer event at a homeless shelter is an opportunity for your employees to make a direct impact on the lives of other people in their community. They can not only help raise awareness about homelessness, but also build meaningful relationships with people in need of compassion and support.
6. Help out at a food bank.
Visiting a food bank is a popular volunteering activity for companies and individuals alike. Employees can work together to sort food at the facility, and then transport and distribute these supplies to support hunger relief in the community.
Disney is another company that has a particularly impactful corporate volunteering program. Employee participants in Disney’s VoluntEARS program often team up with food backs to address the needs of thousands of food-insecure community members. Beyond that, they get involved in initiatives ranging from making blankets to recording bedtime stories for children living in rural areas.
7. Support a school improvement project.
Engage your employees in enhancing the education of local students by participating in a school improvement project. These projects might involve:
Renovating classrooms.
Making improvements for accessibility.
Beautifying the school through landscaping and gardening.
Expanding and updating a school library.
This corporate volunteering idea is a stellar way to invest in the future generations of your community. To get started, reach out to local schools and identify those in need of support. With a thoughtful approach, your company can build lasting partnerships and set up more corporate volunteering opportunities in the future.
8. Donate blood.
According to the American Red Cross, someone in the United States needs blood and/or platelets every two seconds. Your company can either host its own blood donation drive or encourage employees to attend one that another organization is holding in the local area.
Before the event itself, be sure to provide educational materials to employees to highlight the importance of donating blood and include basic details on how the process works. This ensures that more employees feel comfortable participating when the day rolls around.
9. Run a donation drive.
Beyond donating blood, your employees can arrange and run a donation drive for a range of essential supplies and resources. For instance, your company could collect:
Clothing
Food
Books
School supplies
Pet supplies
In addition to encouraging employees to give their new and gently used items, you can invite everyone in your community to get involved. This can help your company cultivate new relationships with potential customers and job seekers while furthering your CSR goals.
10. Start or maintain a community garden.
Establishing or maintaining a community garden allows your company to leave a lasting impact on its community. If there isn’t currently one in your local area, consider renting out a vacant lot and creating a plan for how the garden will benefit everyone in the neighborhood.
If there is an existing community garden nearby, assemble a team of corporate volunteers to help with weeding, planting, and harvesting.
11. Plant trees as a team.
80% of consumers are more likely to buy from and 84% of employees are more likely to work for a company that stands up for the environment. Demonstrate your company’s commitment to the environment and engage your employees in a team-building exercise with tree planting.
One of the easiest ways to organize a tree-planting activity is to partner with a nonprofit or local conservation group dedicated to the environment and reforestation. They’ll have the expertise to guide your employees on how and where to plant saplings.
12. Offer a mentorship program.
Consider launching a mentorship program to facilitate connections between your employees and community members. Employees can volunteer their time to support mentees in areas such as:
Resume writing
Job interviews
Career advancement
Your company can choose to offer a virtual mentorship program as well. This would enable more people outside of your local area to participate, including remote employees.
13. Participate in a literacy program.
Literacy programs are essential resources that empower people of all ages to improve their communication skills and set a foundation for their future success. There are numerous ways your employees can support a literacy program, from serving as a reading buddy to creating educational resources for participants. Or, your company can even create its own.
Costco has its own Volunteer Reading Program that allows employees to support students in schools, community centers, and after-school programs. The company engages over 2,600 volunteers and even provides all the reading materials for the program.
14. Prepare and distribute care packages.
Throughout the year, or following a specific incident such as a natural disaster, your employees can assemble and distribute care packages to people in need. These can include anything from hygiene supplies to first aid kits.
Last year, for example, Delta volunteers delivered grocery boxes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and care packages for service members during USO Fleet Week events.
15. Host a sports clinic.
By hosting a sports clinic, your company can encourage both its employees and community members to engage in physical activity to promote well-being. The process is simple:
Choose a specific sport or activity based on employee or community interests.
Find a suitable location for the clinic.
Promote the event in your community.
Enlist employee volunteers to run the clinic.
With this corporate volunteering idea, your company can demonstrate its dedication to health and wellness in society.
11 Engaging Virtual Corporate Volunteer Ideas
For companies with remote or hybrid employees, putting together in-person corporate volunteer events may not be as practical or effective. Plus, some employees may want to participate in social change beyond just their local communities. In these cases, consider incorporating some of the following virtual corporate volunteer activities into your program:
1. Tutor students online.
About one-third of school leaders indicate that they don’t have the capacity to provide frequent, one-on-one tutoring to all students who need it, and nearly 20% report that they can’t even provide regular tutoring. By engaging your employees in online tutoring, your company can alleviate staff and resource shortages at educational institutions.
With video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, your corporate volunteers can offer one-on-one tutoring sessions with students. In doing so, they’ll be able to support academic excellence and make a tangible difference in the lives of individual students.
2. Provide translation services.
This virtual corporate volunteering idea is ideal for multilingual employees. Many nonprofits serve diverse populations, which means they may interact with people who prefer communicating in another language. In fact, nearly 66 million people, or around 21.6% of the U.S. population, speak a language other than English in their homes.
To help nonprofits make their services more accessible to everyone, your employees can translate documents, website content, and more.
3. Teach language classes.
Encourage your company’s multilingual employees to teach language classes as part of your corporate volunteering activities. They can conduct these classes over Zoom and facilitate practice discussions among online participants.
To make it easy for your employees to get involved, consider creating language learning materials that they can use in their classes. This way, they can dedicate their time to teaching without having to worry about creating a comprehensive curriculum or worksheets.
4. Plan skills-based workshops.
Your employees are a diverse group of individuals with their own interests, skills, and hobbies. Empower them to share their expertise by hosting workshops for people who are interested in learning a new skill. As a form of skills-based volunteerism, these workshops could focus on topics such as:
Business management
Art
Cooking
Leadership
Financial Literacy
If these workshops are related to employees’ roles, they can have the added benefit of reinforcing their skills and knowledge to boost their performance in the workplace.
5. Create content for nonprofits.
To secure enough support for their missions, nonprofits need to produce content to spread awareness and solicit donations. Your employees can assist nonprofits with their marketing efforts in various ways. For instance, they can:
Write blog articles.
Craft social media posts.
Produce short videos.
This corporate volunteering idea leaves employees with a finished product that they can look back on with pride.
6. Pitch in with graphic design.
If your employees have an eye for graphic design, consider having them offer their services to nonprofits. There are many areas where having well-designed images and graphics can come in handy, including:
Whether a nonprofit is looking to redesign its logo or revamp its website, having graphic design services can go a long way toward reaching and engaging new supporters.
7. Help with social media management.
According to Nonprofit Tech for Good, 87% of nonprofits regularly use social media for digital marketing and fundraising. However, with so much activity on social media, it can be a challenge for them to stand out among all the noise. Enlist your social media-savvy employees to help nonprofits by:
Creating eye-catching social media content.
Scheduling posts to maximize engagement.
Interacting with followers.
Doing so will free up more time and energy for nonprofits to focus on other mission-critical activities, such as delivering services to their beneficiaries.
8. Assist with grant writing.
Nonprofits need to seek funding from a variety of sources to continue fulfilling their missions. Many foundations and corporations offer grants to cover program or project expenses—however, a nonprofit must submit a compelling application before they can access those funds.
Since effective grant writing takes time and effort, this is an excellent opportunity for your company to pitch in, especially if you have employees with strong writing and communication backgrounds. They can research grantmakers, help write proposals, and proofread everything before submission.
9. Coordinate remote volunteers.
A nonprofit organization may have plenty of volunteers willing to dedicate their time and skills. Without proper volunteer management, however, they won’t be able to make the most of the resources at their disposal.
Recruit your employees to take over some key remote volunteer coordination responsibilities by onboarding, communicating with, and organizing volunteers in other areas of the world. This creates impactful, satisfying experiences that encourage volunteers to continue supporting a nonprofit time after time.
10. Offer coding support.
If your employees have coding experience, bring them together to offer coding assistance to nonprofits. They can lend a hand with:
Cybersecurity best practices
Web development
General IT support
Staff training
Additionally, consider opening up support beyond nonprofits and planning workshops for those interested in developing their programming skills.
11. Host virtual fundraising events.
Encourage your employees to take the lead in fundraising for nonprofits by hosting online fundraising events. Doing so allows them to tap into their personal networks and cultivate new supporters for a nonprofit’s mission. Get creative as you determine which types of fundraisers will appeal most to your employees and be sure to poll them on which organization or cause should receive the funds raised.
For instance, you could plan a virtual walk- or run-a-thon that employees can participate in by using their treadmills at home. Additionally, consider hosting silent auctions, raffles, and other contests such as a trivia night.
How to Put Your Corporate Volunteering Ideas into Action
Now that your company has some engaging corporate volunteer ideas up its sleeve, it’s time to start planning an experience that employees will be excited to take part in. Follow these steps to set your next event up for success:
Gather employee feedback. Survey your employees in advance to determine which types of corporate volunteer events, activities, and nonprofit causes resonate most with them. Use these insights to guide your planning.
Spread the word about upcoming opportunities. Ensure that your employees are aware of upcoming opportunities, so they can make room in their schedules to participate.
Communicate about nonprofit causes. One effective way to engage more employees in corporate volunteering is to share more information about the nonprofit causes that they’ll have an impact on. This may inspire them to sign up for your next event and make a difference in the community.
Consider offering incentives. For employees who are on the fence about participating, add an extra incentive such as paid volunteer time off (VTO) or a free lunch after volunteering to encourage them to get involved.
If you haven’t already, consider investing in workplace giving software to make planning and participating in corporate volunteer activities easier for everyone. A high-quality solution will streamline processes such as promoting volunteer opportunities and tracking employee hours.
Maintaining Momentum After a Corporate Volunteer Activity
For your corporate volunteer program to be successful in the long term, it’s important to understand that each event is not a one-and-done activity. Consider these tips to maintain momentum and keep your employees engaged after volunteering:
Practice recognition
Show employees that you value their participation by recognizing them for volunteering. There are several effective ways to do so, including:
Social media shoutouts
eCards
Branded merchandise
Furthermore, invite employees to give feedback on their experiences to demonstrate your commitment to providing them with more enticing volunteer opportunities in the future.
Share impact
Don’t leave your employees wondering whether their volunteer efforts actually left a meaningful impact on the world. According to VolunteerMatch, 66% of volunteers are motivated by making a difference in their community. Use multiple channels to celebrate the results of each volunteer event, including:
Website
Email newsletter
Social media
Doing so will both maintain employee engagement within your company and boost your reputation among customers and other stakeholders in the community.
Promote other corporate giving opportunities
Beyond taking part in your corporate volunteer activities, there are many ways employees can contribute to your philanthropic goals. For instance, consider offering volunteer grants to nonprofits after employees volunteer a certain number of hours with them.
Matching gifts are another popular program among many businesses, offered by 65% of Fortune 500 companies. Whether your company already has one in place or is considering starting one of these programs, check to see whether your corporate giving software integrates with the latest matching gift tools. Innovative features such as auto-submission, for example, make it easier than ever for employees to submit matching gift requests.
Wrapping Up: Enhancing Your Company’s Social Impact
As with any company initiative, remember to adopt an improvement mindset from the get-go. Identify and track relevant metrics to unearth insights for improving your corporate volunteer program over time. This ensures that you engage more employees and power more impact year after year.
To learn more about corporate philanthropy and employee engagement best practices, take a look at these additional resources:
In the world of nonprofit fundraising, few strategies have stood the test of time as effectively as the phonathon. While technology has transformed the fundraising landscape, the power of a well-placed phone call can still work wonders.
Phonathons may seem like a relic of the past, but they remain a tried-and-true resource for all sorts of nonprofits and higher education institutions to engage donors and raise money. While the benefits of a phonathon campaign are straightforward, running a successful campaign isn’t easy. A lot of hard work goes into powering these campaigns, but they can generate incredible results for your cause — especially when you know how to identify donors eligible for matching gifts from their employers.
So, how do you optimize your phonathons and drive even greater results with matching gifts? We’ve compiled a number of tips and tricks to effectively communicate with your donors about matching gifts and raise more in phonathon revenue overall. By the end of this guide, you’ll be a phonathon pro and ready to start dialing!
Want to find out how to optimize your organization’s upcoming phonathon to raise more? Let’s cover the basics before diving into tips that will transform your next campaign.
The Fundamentals of Phonathons
Making the most of any type of campaign requires you to understand the basics of how they work. Let’s make sure you have the background knowledge you need before crafting your phonathon plans.
What is a phonathon?
A phonathon is a fundraising campaign in which organizations call supporters to solicit donations and engage with them. During a phonathon, trained staff or volunteers make outbound calls to donors to encourage contributions, share mission updates, and strengthen relationships via personalized conversations.
Often hosted by nonprofits and educational institutions, phonathons are a valuable tool for connecting with supporters, increasing donor retention, and boosting fundraising revenue. Successful phonathons require effective training, well-prepared scripts, and donor management systems to track and manage interactions.
What role do matching gifts play in phonathons?
Corporate matching gifts have the power to double (or sometimes even triple) the contributions your donors make. Through these CSR programs, companies offer to match their employees’ donations to charitable organizations. However, they often implement eligibility criteria alongside minimum and maximum donation amounts they’re willing to match.
By adding matching gifts to your phonathon strategy, your campaign will see even greater success. If you can capitalize on that potential during your phonathon, you’ll see a massive increase in raised funds. In fact, our matching gift research found that 84% of donors are more likely to donate if a match is offered. Meanwhile, 1 in 3 donors actually indicate they’d give a larger gift if matching is applied to their donation.
If you play your cards right, you can raise a lot more during your phonathon with corporate giving. You’ll just need to let donors know how to check their eligibility and submit a match request to their employers. After all, who wouldn’t want to double their contributions without reaching back into their own wallet?
1. Focus on the larger mission.
The most successful fundraising campaigns are focused on more than raising a certain dollar amount. If you can help donors understand why your cause is a worthy one, then you are far more likely to succeed. By highlighting the larger purpose of the campaign, you can motivate both donors and callers to feel good about what they’re doing!
To illustrate our point, take a look at two possible phonathon script introductions:
Phonathon Script Introduction #1:“I’m calling on behalf of University X to raise money for our annual phonathon campaign. Would you consider making a donation of $100 to the university’s endowment fund?”
Phonathon Script Introduction #2: “I’m calling on behalf of University X to raise money for our annual phonathon campaign. Would you consider making a donation of $100 to the university’s endowment fund? Every dollar you donate will go to scholarships for students in financial need!”
See the difference? In both cases, the caller is asking for the same dollar amount. But in our second example, the donor understands how their donation will be helping someone in need.
2. Create a standardized script for your phonathon.
For many of your callers, this will be their first phonathon campaign. The idea of getting on the phone with prospective donors or school alumni to ask for donations can be extremely intimidating.
Creating a detailed and interactive script can help ease the nerves of new callers when requesting contributions and standardize the giving experience. Here are the key components to any phonathon script:
Introduction: Answer the most basic questions: Who are you? What is your relationship to the organization running the campaign? Why are you calling?
Statement of purpose: Why is your organization asking for donations? What will the contributions be used for?
First ask: Make the initial request for a donation. What is the suggested donation amount? If the donor has made a donation previously, how much should the caller suggest they donate this year?
Gift confirmation: Success! How do we close the deal? How do we accommodate different payment methods?
Answers to common objections: Not everyone wants to donate. How do we respond to common objectives such as a lack of interest, recent issues with the organization, or other giving priorities?
Non-pledge close: For those calls that don’t end in success, it’s important to help close the conversation gracefully to maintain the relationship with the donor.
A great script is arguably the most important component of a successful phonathon, as it’s a resource that every caller will use. Spend significant time working with your organization’s communication director to put this resource together.
3. Include matching gifts in your phonathon’s scripts.
With over 26 million individuals working for companies with matching gift programs, many of your phonathon donors are bound to be eligible for a corporate match. Your callers should always ask donors if their employer offers a matching gift program.
Here’s how (it’s as easy as A-B-C!):
A: Ask every time. Few donors are thinking about (or are even aware of) matching gifts. In fact, 78% of those 26 million match-eligible individuals don’t know whether their companies offer these programs. Introduce the concept to see if they have any information about their employers’ corporate giving opportunities off-hand.
B: Be persistent. Donors sometimes default to, “I don’t think so,” when asked if their company will match their donation. Have callers ask for their employer’s name and then quickly research that specific company using our database.
C: Come prepared. If a donor has submitted a matching gift in the past, come to the call prepared with the company’s matching gift information. Make the process simple and easy for your donors.
Being well-versed in matching gifts and anticipating donors’ questions can go a long way in driving more matches to completion! You’ll be impressed by how much you raise in matching gifts during your phonathon.
An Example of This Strategy in Action
Let’s walk through an example of how to properly incorporate matching gifts into your script. A normal phonathon call will consist of the following steps:
The caller introduces themself and the organization that’s fundraising.
The caller asks the potential donor if they are willing to donate.
The potential donor says yes/no.
If the answer is no, the caller politely thanks the prospect for their time and ends the call.
If the answer is yes, the caller begins the donation process with the new donor and helps guide them through the experience.
Once the donation is secured, have your caller make the matching gift ask. Use a template similar to this:
Many companies actually match donations made by their employees to schools and other nonprofits. Do you know if you or your spouse works for a company that offers a matching gift program? I’m happy to do a quick check to see if your company will double or possibly triple your donation.
Scripts take the guesswork and pressure out of calls. Plus, if you standardize your request process, you’re in a better position to evaluate and adjust it according to the results.
4. Practice for your phonathon with mock calls.
Having a team of well-trained callers is the secret to any successful phonathon campaign.
Prepare callers by organizing mock calls. During this time, they’ll read through the provided script and respond to a variety of different “donor personas.” See how they respond when a donor has questions about the campaign, voices objections, or wants to complete their transaction. Include some matching gift-related questions to ensure volunteers are prepared, too.
Proper preparation will help callers feel more at ease when it comes time to dial a real donor’s phone number. Plus, it can help get some of the roadblocks and uncertainties out of the way early!
5. Schedule calls when donors are home.
One of the most common challenges for phonathon callers is simply reaching donors in the first place.
To improve the chances that your donors pick up the phone, consider calling during the hours when they are most likely to be home and available. These are some of our recommended times to do so:
Monday – Thursday, 6-9 p.m. If you call within this time window, most donors will be home from work. Yet, it’s early enough that you reduce the risk of waking anyone up. After all, cranky donors rarely give donations.
Sunday, 4-9 p.m. At this time on a Sunday, most donors will be finished with their weekend errands and are likely available for a conversation.
Make sure that you’re planning to reach donors when they’re ready and able to chat for the greatest fundraising success.
6. Set nightly/weekly fundraising goals for your phonathon.
Setting goals greatly increases your chances of fundraising success. Encourage your callers to set nightly or weekly donation goals to instill a sense of accomplishment when they reach and exceed their objectives.
Then, there are plenty of opportunities to use these metrics to improve your fundraising results. We suggest that you:
Identify any knowledge gaps and situations where additional training is needed.
Communicate the concrete donation impact of your callers’ fundraising goals.
Setting detailed objectives helps your organization keep track of how many donations you bring in within a certain timeframe. You can even leverage some friendly competition among callers this way!
7. Use phonathon management software.
Consider purchasing phonathon software from a well-established vendor, such as industry leader Wilson-Bennett Technology’s DonorConnect. This type of tool can save you time, money, and many of the technical headaches that would ordinarily get in the way of a successful campaign.
Common tasks that phonathon software handles include:
Managing and updating your donor database.
Automating pledge verification via email.
Tracking call results.
Issuing reports on campaign progress.
By automating these time-consuming tactical steps, you can spend your time managing callers, increasing donations, and engaging in deeper relationships with supporters.
8. Train phonathon callers on matching gifts.
Using matching gifts to boost phonathon funds starts and ends with your callers. These individuals are the voice of your campaign, working hard to help you fulfill your mission. They need to be prepared to explain matching gifts and answer any questions a prospect may have.
While you may understand the value of capturing employer data and pursuing a matching gift from your donors, your caller and digital engagement teams may not. Make sure the people who will engage in those real-time conversations understand the what, why, and how of matching gifts.
Invest in a matching gift database to make researching donors’ eligibility a breeze. Then, consider these four components of effective matching gift phonathon training:
Materials: Document how callers should ask about matching gifts and the process by which they should share company rules, guidelines, and instructions.
Speakers: Who at your organization is responsible for matching gifts? Invite this team member to speak with your callers.
Practice: Have your callers pair up and do trial runs on a few matching gift companies. Provide feedback as needed.
Coaching: Like with anything, there’s always room for improvement. Listen for matching gift asks during calls and provide guidance to improve techniques.
Ensuring your team is on the same page about matching gift goals will make the ask that much easier when the opportunity arises. Check out this video for ideas to integrate matching gifts into your phonathons and everyday fundraising efforts:
You’ll need to teach them about the latest technology, such as matching gift auto-submission, too. This feature cuts out a few steps in the request process when donors fill out your online donation form. They’ll click a checkbox to opt into auto-submission. If their employer uses CSR software that integrates with our tools, our software will automatically fill out their match request to their employer.
Overall, being a caller for a phonathon is no easy task. But with proper training, you’ll situate your callers in the best possible position to make matching gift asks.
9. Implement screening and segmentation.
Make the most of your callers’ (and your donors!) time by pre-screening and segmenting your calling list beforehand in terms of matching gift prospects.
Think of it this way: would you rather call 10 people and have one person respond positively, or call five and have three people respond positively? By segmenting your contacts prior to reaching out, you ensure that each call is a valuable use of your team’s time and resources.
For matching-gift-related segmentation, you’ll enact a three-point process:
Pre-screen your file for matching gift eligibility. It is likely that a sizable percentage of your existing prospects are matching gift-eligible. Know who they are in advance by researching local matching gift businesses and determining donors’ eligibility.
Segment your calling list accordingly. Assign your best callers to high-value match-eligible prospects. Not only are those candidates’ donations likely to get matched, but they are likely to have higher average donation amounts. If they don’t respond the first time, this group might even be worth a second call!
Increasing matching gift eligibility awareness is only going to help your campaign. Give your callers the information they need to have the biggest impact.
Of course, call volume is always going to be crucial for successful phonathons. But if your organization can be even 10% more deliberate about who you’re calling, you can significantly increase your call conversion rate.
10. Prepare for donor questions.
Some donors will be hesitant to give, especially if they’ve never contributed to your organization before. If they have questions about your mission, your particular fundraising need, or anything else that might be holding them back, you’ll want to have the answers prepped and ready.
Additionally, your donors might have questions about matching gift opportunities. Be sure your callers are able to provide basic information on company gift-matching by answering questions such as these:
What is a matching gift?
How do I figure out if my company will match my gift?
What’s the submission process, and how does auto-submission work?
Making sure that everyone is on the same page with regard to these questions ensures that your callers give supporters the most thorough, accurate information and drive as many donations as possible.
11. Equip callers with matching gift resources.
Do your callers have the information they need to help donors? You can’t expect them to memorize the program guidelines for all the thousands of companies that offer matching gifts—so where can they find that information to pass along?
That’s where your matching gift company database comes in! This type of tool allows users to conduct a quick search of an employer’s name and receive detailed guideline information in seconds. Equip callers with access to this comprehensive database to uncover the following:
Employee eligibility
Types of qualifying nonprofits
Match ratios
Match minimums and maximums
Forms and guidelines
Submission deadlines and instructions
Providing callers with ample information will help them quickly and easily answer common questions from donors. Once a donor has expressed interest in requesting a matching gift, you want your caller to be able to help in any way they can. Don’t miss out on a matching gift due to a technical or otherwise avoidable issue!
12. Follow up with match-eligible donors.
If a donor has expressed interest in matching gifts on the phone, your organization should follow up afterward to increase the likelihood of turning that interest into action.
Immediately after the conversation, send an email with matching gift request instructions for the individual’s employer. You’ll also want to include matching gift reminders across various donor communications, including:
Pledge acknowledgments: When confirming a donor completed their pledge, encourage them to check their eligibility, or if you know they’re eligible, direct them to their employer’s form.
End-of-year reminders: Many companies set deadlines for match requests at the end of the calendar year. Remind donors to submit their requests before time runs out!
Telling donors their gift is eligible for a match is only one component of boosting matching gifts. It’s far more valuable if you pair that information with actionable next steps.
We also recommend embedding matching gift information into your website. Give your alumni and supporters a trusted place to find their matching gift information and next steps on an easy-to-find webpage, so they can take action after speaking with your ambassadors. This helps interested supporters discover gift matching and double their own donations!
13. Track and incentivize successful conversations.
Are your callers held accountable and rewarded for their overall fundraising and matching gift performance? One of the best ways to ensure that callers know how important matching gifts are to your phonathon is by implementing incentives.
Giving your callers something to work towards will only help your fundraising efforts. Then, once they reach and surpass their goal, provide them with a small token of appreciation, such as a t-shirt, hat, mug, or even public recognition!
Tracking and incentivizing fundraising results also gives you a positive metric for tracking caller proficiency and efficiency. This enables you to define where your phonathon is doing well and where it has room for improvement. Once you’ve isolated those areas, you’ll be in a great position to adjust your efforts as needed.
14. Keep an eye on trends in employer information.
As you start to collect employer information from your alumni and supporters, you may notice trends in company data. Be sure to ask questions like these:
Do a lot of your donors work for the same companies?
Is there a concentrated area of match-eligible donors you could target for your next campaign?
These are all characteristics you can determine with greater accuracy the more donors you collect employer data from. While these are nice-to-know facts for general fundraising initiatives, they can also have a more significant impact on your greater matching gifts strategy.
Therefore, make sure you’re considering matching gifts when analyzing those trends for future initiatives. You never know when that information could come in handy for future events, digital outreach, or even a future phonathon!
15. Integrate your fundraising and matching gift tools.
Phonathons and other digital engagement events can be huge operations, and a lot can get lost in the shuffle if you don’t have the right tools. Luckily, providing a scalable system for your fundraising ambassadors and callers is an easy and effective way to organize your donor data. With matching gifts added to the mix, you’ll want an automated system to take care of all the nitty-gritty details for you.
Phonathon Software Integration
We recommend using a phonathon system to manage all your digital engagement needs—particularly one that integrates with powerful gift-matching tools! Donor Connect by Wilson-Bennett Technology and 360MatchPro by Double the Donation offer an integrated solution that allows callers to retrieve and communicate valuable matching gift information when speaking to donors in real time.
It takes virtually no effort from your team to set up the integration, and you’ll be able to start using it right away in your next digital engagement event. Automate the best practices listed above by incorporating the autocomplete search tool within Donor Connect scripts, automated email outreach, and regularly updated donor data.
Matching Gift Auto-Submission Integrations
A big part of driving greater matching gift revenue is simplifying the process for donors and their employers. That’s where matching gift auto-submission comes in handy.
Many companies leverage CSR software to manage employee giving programs. When these companies use platforms that integrate with our tools, this is how streamlined the match request process is:
A donor gives using your organization’s online donation page.
They enter their corporate email address and click a checkbox to opt into auto-submission.
If eligible, our tools will automatically complete their match request.
It’s that simple! Otherwise, they’d need to fill out the form themselves. Leading CSR software like Givinga, Millie, POINT, and Selflessly enable auto-submission, so be aware of donors who work for companies that use these platforms. From here, make sure your phonathon volunteers know the basics of how this software works, too!
Bonus! Fundraising advice from phonathon experts
Hear from the phonathon fundraising experts at Wilson-Bennett Technology: a phonathon management services and software company serving nonprofits since 1998.
Todd Smith
Founder and CEO – Wilson-Bennett
Ensure training is ongoing throughout the campaign and each caller receives assistance, along with reminders, before calling begins each session.
We always encourage callers to excel while teaching methods to overcome negative comments.
During training, be sure to explain campaign policies and procedures, ensuring callers make the highest quality call on behalf of your institution.
Rob Schlitts
Former President – Wilson-Bennett
“Play chess with your phonathon.”
Matching the right prospects up with the right caller makes for a great connection, conversation, and ultimately a gift. Your alumni and student callers will both enjoy the ability to connect with prospects who share similar traits and experiences.
A well-trained student caller will always be the engine of a successful phonathon.
Wrapping Up
In an age of social media, texting, and online transactions, the human element of fundraising can get lost in the shuffle. Thankfully, phonathons offer a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between technology and personal connection.
Many organizations recognize that traditional phonathons remain a smart fundraising strategy. However, most don’t think about the potential of incorporating matching gift promotions into those invaluable donor conversations.
By following these tried-and-true phonathon fundraising tips, you can set up your team—and your mission—for long-term success. Looks like it’s time to get calling!
For more information, be sure to check out our other educational fundraising resources below:
What Is Phone Number Appending? How the Process Works. Make sure you arm your volunteers with accurate phone numbers. Learn how data appending can help verify existing numbers and find missing ones for supporters, so you can maximize your phonathon results.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Phonathons_Feature.png3751000Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2023-11-07 18:19:532024-01-25 19:29:59The Ultimate Phonathon Playbook for Nonprofits: 16 Pro Tips
Picture this: you’re the owner of a mid-size technology company that employs around 100 staff members. You’ve been brainstorming ways to boost employee morale and show your target customers that you run a value-driven business making its mark on the world.
You stumble across the idea of corporate philanthropy and, more specifically, employee giving. Quickly, you realize that this one concept can help you meet your previously stated goals—and the tax break would be an added bonus!
You decide to take the plunge and invest in developing a workplace giving initiative that will simultaneously benefit your company, your employees, and a wide range of charitable organizations.
But how can you ensure your staff will actually want to participate? By offering them an employee giving experience that prioritizes their wants and needs and is as simple a process as possible!
In this guide, we’ll dive into these valuable tips for employers like yourself looking to make the most of their workplace giving programs.
Ready to get started with our first step? Let’s begin!
1. Inform employees of available workplace giving opportunities.
Before you can expect employees to participate in your workplace giving initiatives, you’ll need to ensure your staff is made aware of these programs in the first place. Prior to that, you’ll need to determine which types of giving programs you’ll be offering:
Here are a few of the most common examples:
Matching gifts: Your company matches employee donations to qualifying nonprofits, often dollar for dollar.
Custom matching gifts: Your company selects a particular nonprofit and commits to matching employee donations to that cause.
Volunteer grants: Your company provides nonprofits where employees regularly volunteer with monetary grants.
Employee stipends: Your company allocates a dollar amount to each employee annually, which they donate to the nonprofit of their choice.
Regardless of the combination of giving programs you choose, informing your staff about the new offerings and how to get involved is of utmost importance.
According to matching gift research, 78% of individuals eligible for corporate giving programs are completely unaware. As a result, they’re not able to make the most of these philanthropic initiatives.
We recommend providing informational materials that outline your corporate giving programs to all existing staff to get started. For example, you might hold a meeting, send a company-wide email, share a pamphlet, and add an explainer to your employee handbook. Then, be sure your staff knows where to go to seek additional details on the program!
Going forward, you’ll want to educate all new team members about workplace giving opportunities as well.
2. Provide employees with ample ways to give.
There are tons of ways that individual donors can support nonprofit causes. So when you create your workplace giving program, your offerings must be inclusive of all types of employee giving.
Top donation channels might include (but are not limited to):
Nonprofit websites
Online giving tools
Peer-to-peer campaigns
Text-to-give
Direct mail
Recurring gifts
Phonathons
Paycheck deductions
Event pledges
Workplace giving or CSR platforms
The opportunities are endless—and each staff member at your business might have a different favorite way to give.
According to the same matching gift studies above, “96% of employees at companies with matching gift programs have a strong or very strong preference for their company to match donations made directly to a nonprofit (such as through the nonprofit’s website, peer-to-peer fundraising platform, or mail) rather than only matching donations through a workplace giving software platforms. The more options an employee has to give and to get their gift matched, the more likely they are to utilize available company matching opportunities.”
This means that, in order to provide a positive employee giving experience for everyone, be sure to keep your giving (and matching) channels open.
3. Make it simple for employees to determine eligibility guidelines.
As you work to ensure your company is well-informed about the existence of your employee giving programs, it’s equally critical that your programs’ eligibility guidelines are readily apparent as well. But what are these so-called guidelines?
Let’s take matching gifts (i.e., one of the most-used forms of workplace giving) as an example. In order for employees to participate in your company gift-matching initiative, you’ll need to provide your staff with the following information:
Donation minimums and maximums: This is the range within which you’ll match employee donations (e.g., $50-1,000).
Match ratios: This determines the rate at which you match employee donations. This is typically dollar for dollar (1:1) but can go up to 2:1 or 3:1 as well.
Qualifying types of nonprofits: You might choose a particular type of mission (e.g., environmental organizations) or exclude categories of recipients (such as houses of worship).
Qualifying types of employees: Most companies match gifts made by all full-time employees, while others may open the programs up to part-time workers, retirees, and even employee spouses
Submission deadlines: Your submission deadline is the date by which employees must submit a matching gift request to your company in order to be eligible to receive a match. This may be a certain number of months or align with your calendar or fiscal year.
Because these criteria are necessary for employees to determine their eligibility for a company match, it’s important that you communicate this information effectively. Ensure your guidelines are provided in any previously mentioned explainer materials and even on your business’ website. Even interested employees won’t likely be willing to search high and low for this information. If it is hard to find, you’re likely creating an unnecessary obstacle to program success.
Here’s an example of what these criteria can look like:
Plus, as a general rule, keeping your guidelines as open as possible will provide an optimal employee giving experience for your staff. For example, when you set low minimums, high maximums, and generous deadlines, more individuals’ gifts will qualify for your programming. The more employees who qualify, the more will participate. And you know that higher your levels of participation, the more advantages brought to your company.
4. Ensure your company is listed in corporate giving databases.
One of the easiest ways employees can uncover your aforementioned program guidelines is by accessing a corporate giving database. This is essentially a compilation of information on thousands of businesses and their available corporate giving programs.
For organizations that leverage Double the Donation’s embeddable search widget, donors are typically prompted within the donation experience to enter their employer information in search of matching gift eligibility.
If your employees follow this process, you don’t want them to search your company name, only to be met with “no results found.” This can cause discouragement in the process, even if they know how to locate your program guidelines elsewhere. Plus, many well-intentioned donors simply forget to follow up after losing their initial giving inertia.
So what can you do to avoid this scenario? Make sure your business is listed in corporate giving databases, complete with your programs’ eligibility criteria and links to submission forms.
Luckily, Double the Donation accepts submissions for new companies to add to their most comprehensive database, making it as easy as possible for your business to increase its program reach. As a result, you provide the simplest, most optimal employee giving experience while actively supporting their favorite charities.
And if you go the custom program route with a nonprofit partner that uses Double the Donation’s matching gift database, the organization can ensure the program is added correctly using the platform’s one-off match program management feature!
*While 360MatchPro offers custom matching gift program management functionality, this feature is designed specifically for fundraisers looking to manage custom matching gift initiatives—360MatchPro does not work directly with corporations. If you’re a company interested in creating a matching gift program, contact us, and we’ll share information about our corporate vendor partners.
That way, your nonprofit-specific program will populate in that organization’s company search tool but won’t appear as an option for other nonprofit causes in order to avoid confusion.
5. Incentivize participation in employee giving programs.
By now, your employees should be aware of your employee giving initiatives in place and understand how they can participate. But what if your staff requires a little extra push to get involved with your philanthropic efforts?
That’s where strategic incentivization comes in!
If you want to encourage individuals to partake in new employee giving experiences, consider motivating the team with giving goals—either in terms of percentage of overall participation or in total fundraising goals.
Once your team reaches the predetermined objectives, you might treat the company to rewards like these:
Catered lunches
Additional PTO
Casual dress days
In-house masseuse services
Gift card rewards
Professional development opportunities
Company apparel and/or swag
Be sure to remind your employees that the ultimate benefit of a well-run workplace giving program revolves around providing mission-based organizations the funds they need to change the world. But some extra motivation never hurts, either!
6. Simplify requests with auto-submission functionality.
Want to increase employee participation in (and satisfaction with) your workplace giving programs? Make it as easy as possible to get involved. And it’s never been easier than with auto-submission!
Here’s what you need to know:
The Historic Submission Process
Once an employee determines that they qualify for a workplace giving program—such as matching gifts—they’ve traditionally been required to complete a request process put in place by the company they work for. Typically, the individual will be asked to provide basic information about their donation (e.g., amount, method of giving, date the gift was made, etc.) and the organization to which they contributed (such as its mission, mailing address, tax ID number, and more).
New Auto-Submission Functionality
Matching gift auto-submission functionality recently came out of beta. Now some programs can offer the new functionality, which substantially streamlines the process for donors and increases the likelihood that matches will be submitted. Instead of asking for all of the above-listed information, companies taking part in auto-submission simply request the individual’s corporate email address. The software ecosystem will take it from there to process, approve, and disburse funding for the match.
Leveraging Auto-Submission Providers
If you’re interested in getting started with auto-submission capabilities, the easiest way is to partner with a CSR management platform that already offers the functionality through a seamless integration with Double the Donation’s innovative technology. These currently include the following providers:
If you already work with a CSR platform that doesn’t yet offer this functionality, consider reaching out to your provider to advocate for the technology. After all, auto-submission is available with no added cost—it’s free for both the matching gift company and the software vendor they use—so you can offer the ultimate employee giving experience to your team.
Keep in mind—the more employees who take part in your company’s matching program, the better the results you can expect to see in terms of team member engagement, brand reputation, and more. And auto-submission abilities set your team up for continued success on all accounts!
There’s little to no purpose in investing in an employee giving program if nobody at your workplace will participate. To drive participation, you need to look at your employee giving experience from a staff member’s perspective and determine whether it’s a positive one.
So provide ample opportunities and avenues for giving, make available programs known, simplify the processes involved, and incentivize participation. This can make a world of difference—to your workforce, your community, and even your company’s bottom line.
Interested in learning more about employee giving? Check out our other educational resources:
Increase Employee Engagement with Corporate Giving. High levels of employee engagement mean increased retention and productivity. Corporate giving opportunities can play a part in boosting engagement, so find out how with this article.
Corporate Social Responsibility: The Definitive Guide. Employee giving and other philanthropic efforts play a big role in CSR. Uncover what else you need to know to be a socially responsible business in this resource.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DTD_How-to-Offer-the-Ultimate-Employee-Giving-Experience_Feature.png275725Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2023-11-01 21:59:212024-08-16 15:42:38How to Offer the Ultimate Employee Giving Experience
Employee engagement has become an increasingly important part of organizational success. After all, businesses with engaged employees are 23% more profitable than companies whose employees are not engaged.
However, if you’re just starting to prioritize employee engagement, it can be difficult to determine where to begin. It can be helpful to take a look at what other companies are doing to engage their employees to gain actionable insights into how your organization can handle your new priority.
To show you how you can center employee engagement in your organization, we’ll cover the following topics in this guide:
Before we dive into the companies leading by example with their employee engagement programs, you need to understand what exactly employee engagement is and why it’s important. Let’s get started!
What is employee engagement?
Simply put, employee engagement refers to the level of emotional and mental connection an employee has to their team, general workplace, and employer. This translates to the employee’s commitment to the organization and dedication to achieving its goals. There are four different levels of employee engagement:
Highly engaged. Highly engaged employees have very favorable opinions of their team, workplace, and employer as a whole. They’re extremely committed to their organization and willing to go above and beyond to help achieve its goals. Plus, they’re likely to motivate other employees around them with their positive attitude.
Engaged. These employees like their work but might feel less satisfied about certain aspects of the organization. While they’re still committed to their organization’s success, they’re less likely to go above and beyond their call of duty than highly engaged employees.
Unengaged. Unengaged employees feel unattached to their team, workplace, and employer. They’re not committed to their organization and not dedicated to helping achieve its goals. While they’re not unhappy with their work, they aren’t happy either. These employees usually fulfill the bare minimum of their responsibilities and little more. They’ll put time into their work but not their energy or passion.
Disengaged. These employees are actively unhappy with their work and may even be resentful that their employer isn’t meeting their needs. This discontent may result in them acting out on their unhappiness, underperforming in their responsibilities, and even undermining the work of their more engaged coworkers.
As you begin evaluating the general engagement levels at your organization, keep in mind that engagement does not equal enthusiasm. It’s easy to look at a happy employee and assume that they’re engaged with their work. However, employee engagement is tied to your organization. Ask yourself: Is this employee connected to their work alongside being a happy person?
What are the benefits of employee engagement?
We’ve lightly touched on a few benefits of employee engagement. The main one is profitability—employees who are determined to help your organization meet its goals are more likely to do their best to increase your cash flow.
Aside from profitability, here are a few other benefits for companies with engaged employees:
Increased productivity. Businesses with highly engaged employees are 18% more productive than those with unengaged employees. These employees believe that the work they’re doing is important and therefore are more likely to work harder.
Reduced absenteeism. According to Gallup’s employee engagement survey, companies that scored in the lower quartile of engagement were also 81% more likely to experience employee absenteeism. If your employees aren’t showing up for work, it will make it much more difficult for your organization to be successful.
Higher retention rates. If your employees are engaged with their work, their team, and your organization, they’re less likely to seek other employment opportunities. Higher retention rates reduce employee turnover, lowering costs related to re-hiring, onboarding, and training.
Improved recruitment. Happy employees will likely speak about your company in a positive light and be more open about their satisfaction with their work. Your organization’s reputation as an employer will improve through word-of-mouth, which will help you attract top talent and improve the quality of potential employees you recruit.
Positive workplace culture. Overall, the more engaged your employees are, the more positive they’ll be in the workplace. These individuals are excited to work and will raise the spirits of their coworkers, leading to a more positive workplace culture.
Employee engagement is important for all organizations, even those that work in the nonprofit sphere. Plus, it’s especially important for companies that have remote or hybrid employees, as those individuals are more likely to feel emotionally disconnected from their employer due to physical distance.
By prioritizing employee engagement, you’ll be able to leverage these benefits to your organization’s advantage. It’s a win-win—your company will see greater success and your employees will be happier to contribute to that.
The Top 8 Employee Engagement Companies
Now that you know more about what employee engagement is and how it’s helpful for your organization, let’s take a look at the top employee engagement companies that are leading by example.
1. Checkr
Checkr’s employee engagement program emphasizes corporate giving and philanthropy, fostering a culture of generosity and social responsibility among its workforce. This initiative encourages employees to participate in various charitable activities, including matching gift programs, volunteer opportunities, and fundraising events.
By implementing a generous matching gift initiative, Checkr amplifies the impact of its employees’ donations, doubling their contributions to eligible nonprofits. This not only supports the causes employees care about but also enhances their engagement and satisfaction within the company.
Plus, Checkr is recognized as a Certified Leader in Matching Automation (CLMA), which represents its dedication to philanthropy with a streamlined engagement process and more. This makes it easier than ever for its staff to get involved!
2. Adobe
If you’ve worked with or created visual media before, you’re undoubtedly familiar with Adobe. This company offers a product suite for photographers, videographers, graphic designers, and more. Founded on the idea of creating innovative products that change the world, Adobe also prioritizes employee engagement alongside offering technology that empowers people to create.
Here are a few ways the company handles employee engagement:
Work and life integration. Adobe promotes work-life balance by offering a company winter and summer break. Plus, it offers a wellness fund for each employee up to $600 and sabbaticals starting at four weeks off after five years of working at the company.
Learning fund and reimbursement. This company supports employees on their learning journey by offering funds and reimbursements for educational material. It provides a learning fund of up to $1,000 every year and educational reimbursement of up to $10,000 a year.
Frequent employee engagement dialogue. Aside from these benefits, Adobe discusses how leadership can better improve the workplace. It keeps employee engagement dialogue going year-round by conducting regular surveys to understand their workers’ everyday experiences.
Additionally, Adobe has a special focus on helping employees from underrepresented groups gain visibility and grow in their careers. To that end, it provides programs that help employees build leadership skills and connect with other employees across the company.
3. Cisco
Cisco provides innovative cloud-based networking and security solutions to businesses. Its mission is to power an inclusive future for all with technology that connects the world.
Additionally, Cisco believes in creating a workplace where employees can find more than just a job. Ranked by Fortune as one of the best companies to work for, Cisco uses the following strategies to center employee engagement:
Company-wide shut downs. Throughout the year, Cisco will occasionally choose to shut down to let employees recharge. Plus, there’s a company-wide shut down at the end of the year, giving employees time off to spend with families over the holidays.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR). Cisco follows through on its mission of powering an inclusive future for all by giving back to the global community through CSR. It features a reporting hub and is environmentally and socially conscious throughout its entire supply chain, engaging its employees with these practices.
Employee recognition. High performers are motivated to stay connected and work hard with Cisco’s employee recognition initiative. This initiative singles out exceptional employees who deserve kudos for their achievements from colleagues and peer organizations outside the company.
Cisco recognizes that it’s important for workforce leaders to understand employee needs and provide an ideal work experience without sacrificing performance. And its efforts are working, as they are one of PEOPLE magazine’s top companies that care.
4. ExxonMobil
This oil and gas company pioneers new research and technologies dedicated to reducing emissions while creating more efficient fuels. It’s also committed to engaging its employees in meaningful ways—and it’s paying off. In a survey conducted by resume.io, ExxonMobil ranked 15th in employee retention in the United States with a median employee tenure of seven years.
A few of the ways this company focuses on employee engagement include:
Training opportunities. ExxonMobil is committed to enabling its employees to reach their full potential. It invests in talent by delivering educational training courses to employees so that they can develop new skills and initiates a leadership program alongside career advocacy and mentoring programs. Plus, it performs more than 10,000 internal job rotations to support development plans.
Emphasizing thriving. To ensure that employees are thriving in the workplace, ExxonMobile releases company-wide surveys to strengthen its culture framework. Additionally, it supports flexibility, health, and long-term security through its PTO policies, wellness programs, financial planning initiatives, and more.
Centering inclusivity and diversity. ExxonMobil strives to create an inclusive and diverse work environment starting from the top down. Since 2016, women and U.S. minority representation has improved by over 50%, and its employees come from over 160 nationalities. It also fosters inclusive behaviors through annual skills assessments and their culture framework.
This company’s employee engagement strategies have resulted in visible benefits. For example, it was awarded the top most attractive U.S. energy company for engineering students for 10 consecutive years and the second most attractive company globally. It also has strong global acceptance rates from potential employees, about 10-15% higher than other large companies.
Plus, ExxonMobil boasts corporate giving initiatives that keep its employees engaged with philanthropy. If you’d like to learn more about their programs, click on the button below!
5. Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is a healthcare organization that operates hospitals and medical offices and provides health insurance. Aside from caring for the well-being of employees at other organizations, it also focuses on engaging its own employees.
Here are three reasons why Kaiser Permanente is an example of a great employee engagement company:
Investing in employee well-being. Aside from investing in wellness research, this company has implemented various wellness initiatives, including healthy eating and resilience training programs. It offers employees various health insurance packages in addition to plenty of holidays, sick leave, and time off to recharge.
Giving back to the community. Corporate citizenship is one of Kaiser Permanente’s core values and it’s reflected in its employee engagement programs. In addition to weekly community outreach programs, employees have access to quarterly outreach programs to give back outside of the office environment.
Support for veteran employees. Kaiser Permanente is recognized as a top Military-Friendly Employer, offering military transition programs to prepare junior military officers for successful leadership roles within the organization. It actively tries to provide better employment opportunities for veterans and their spouses.
As a health-related company, Kaiser Permanente leadership understands the importance of creating a positive and healthy workplace environment to engage its employees.
6. Microsoft
This technology corporation doesn’t measure employee engagement—it measures employee thriving. It defines thriving as “to be energized and empowered to do meaningful work.” As one of its core aspirations, employee thriving is meant to help employees find their sense of purpose within the company.
A few ways Microsoft focuses on employee engagement and thriving include:
Prioritizing communication. Through its internal employee engagement program, AskHR, Microsoft prioritizes communication between human resources and employees to ensure that employee inquiries are properly addressed. Employees can use the AskHR app to submit a variety of requests that the HR team fulfills promptly. Additionally, Microsoft uses a pulse survey tool to review if employees are thriving and obtain feedback regularly.
Creating a growth culture. This company doesn’t just offer professional development opportunities; it promotes a growth culture and mindset. Rather than being “know-it-alls,” employees should be “learn-it-alls.” Microsoft supports employees seeking professional development by recognizing those who show a growth mindset.
Team-building and networking opportunities. Microsoft acknowledges that forming bonds with coworkers is part of a healthy, thriving workplace culture. It empowers its workers to do that by arranging team-building events to rally employees behind solid company values. For example, it bolsters its commitment to CSR through community volunteering activities.
From Microsoft’s perspective, thriving is different from work-life balance—the former is about being motivated to do meaningful work, and the latter involves an employee’s personal life, too. While it’s possible for an individual to thrive but lack work-life balance or vice versa, Microsoft is dedicated to creating a positive experience in both aspects for its employees.
7. NVIDIA
Multinational tech company NVIDIA designs top-of-the-line graphics processing units, cutting-edge computer chips, and effective employee engagement programs. This organization is dedicated to creating an empowering environment where employees have the support and inspiration to take on the world’s greatest challenges together.
Here are a few elements of their employee engagement strategy:
Physical and mental health. NVIDIA prioritizes physical and mental health by providing a variety of health plans for its employees. It offers a choice between five different medical plans, allowing employees to select the plan that works best for them. It also provides dental and vision plans, flexible spending accounts, and health savings accounts. Plus, it has resources for virtual care, so workers feel empowered to seek the care they need.
Programs for parents. This company has one of the nation’s best parental policies. It includes 22 weeks of fully paid parental leave, unlimited reimbursements for adoption and surrogacy expenses, and plans that cover in vitro fertilization and egg freezing. Additionally, for employees with older children, NVIDIA partners with Collegewise to offer complimentary college preparation resources.
Support for life changes. NVIDIA leadership understands that extenuating circumstances can impact an employee’s ability to work and engagement with their work. From marriage and divorce to moving to losing a loved one, this company offers resources and programs to help employees navigate their life changes.
Although NVIDIA lives in the technology industry, it understands that its employees are not robots or data points and deserve compassion and empathy. It’s committed to supporting its team members holistically, not just as employees, but as humans.
8. Spotify
Spotify is one of the world’s largest music streaming service providers, with over 550 million active users. It offers over 100 million songs and five million podcasts to listeners. Aside from that, it’s also one of the leading employee engagement companies.
A few ways that Spotify keeps its employees motivated and engaged in their work are:
Embracing self-leadership. Spotify leadership encourages all employees to drive their own development. This practice empowers employees to take ownership of their career trajectories and seek out what they need to grow.
Inspiring innovation. Innovation is one of Spotify’s core values, and it acknowledges that to innovate, you must disrupt the status quo. It encourages its employees to find new ways to be disruptive by making it safe to fail. This value creates a culture where employees are not afraid of being bold or taking risks and making mistakes.
Centering sincerity and collaboration. Sincerity and collaboration are two other core values at Spotify. This company puts these values into practice by leading with transparency, engaging with open minds, and delivering honest feedback. Employees recognize that they are all one big team, which means that they share ideas and best practices across business units and despite traditional hierarchies.
When it comes to its employees, Spotify’s approach is that they are all a band—dependent on each other to create the best audio experience. This employee engagement company focuses on creating an environment where employees are energized and excited to inspire those around them and drive innovation.
Additional Resources
Business magnate Richard Branson once said that businesses should “train people well enough so they can leave [and] treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” And these companies do—in some shape or form, they’ve mastered the art of employee engagement to create a great environment where employees are happy and even proud to work. As you begin forming or improving your organization’s employee engagement initiatives, consider taking a leaf out of their book to create a great experience for your team members.
If you’d like to learn more about employee engagement, consider the following resources:
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Employee-Engagement-Companies_Feature.jpg7401680Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2023-11-01 14:11:252024-09-30 20:55:26Top 8 Employee Engagement Companies Leading By Example
With a whopping 85% of employees actively disengaged at the workplace, implementing intentional engagement programs is crucial for ensuring your company’s success. By implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs into your company culture you can access benefits on multiple sides—workforce productivity, community impact, and customer satisfaction.
One of the top workplace giving program ideas is matching gifts. Starting a matching gift program boosts engagement by allowing you to invest in your employees’ passions. However, if you’re new to CSR or don’t know where to start with matching gifts, it can be difficult to know where to start. Don’t worry—this guide will provide you with everything you need to cultivate a more engaged and effective workforce by covering these topics:
Without further ado, let’s explore the valuable relationship between matching gift programs and employee engagement.
Matching Gift FAQs
Whether you’re a newcomer or a seasoned pro, you likely have some questions about the vast world of matching gifts. Let’s get you the answers you need before we move into our engagement strategies.
What are the key terms to know regarding matching gifts?
If you’re new to matching gifts, there are a lot of important terms that you might not be aware of. Here are some definitions to keep in mind:
A matching gift program is a corporate giving initiative that enables employees to get their donation to a nonprofit matched by their employer.
A match ratio is a company’s ratio of how much of an employee’s donation they’ll match. For example, most companies match $1 for each dollar contributed by the employee, but some even pledge $2 for each dollar given by the employee.
Matching gift program eligibility requirements are a company’s rules for which employees can leverage matching gifts and to what extent. For instance, some companies allow retirees and part-time employees to submit matching gift requests, where others only allow full-time employees to participate.
A maximum and minimum match amount are the upper and lower limits of an eligible matching gift. Most companies set the minimum amount around $25 and the maximum at several hundred dollars per year.
A CSR platform is a software solution that companies leverage to manage their matching gift programs. The best CSR platforms can integrate with matching gift processing software solutions like Double the Donation, which has auto-submission capabilities.
All of these terms (and a few more) will eventually be fully fleshed out in your corporate giving policy. If you’d like to more clarity on how other organizations define them, research companies that donate to nonprofits to get a more informed perspective on how you can tailor these ideas to your employee engagement goals.
What are the primary benefits of matching gift programs?
Matching gift programs offer a plethora of advantages for both companies and nonprofits alike. Besides feeling fulfilled after committing a good deed, companies who embrace matching gifts can boost:
Customer loyalty. Customers increasingly favor supporting companies who give back to their communities. In fact, corporate social responsibility can give your company an edge over competitors—70% of consumers want to know that the brands they support are socially responsible.
Brand reputation. With increased customer loyalty comes a stronger brand reputation. Not only will giving back to nonprofits boost customer retention but it can improve acquisition as well.
Employee productivity and loyalty. Employees want to feel supported in their professional and personal passions by their employer, and it shows in their job performance and loyalty. Matching gifts provide a perfect opportunity to invest in each employees’ interests, make a widespread impact on the community, and cultivate a more dedicated workforce.
Talent acquisition efforts. The same principles that boost employee productivity through corporate giving apply to talent acquisition. You can leverage your matching gift offerings to attract and acquire the talented applicants that your competitors want.
Tax breaks. Depending on where your company is based, you can get tax reductions from the IRS for your matching gift contributions.
Community relationships. A matching gift can open the door for your company to form valuable relationships with organizations in your community, especially with nonprofits. For instance, if you notice a high volume of donations going to one nonprofit, you might decide to officially sponsor them and reap even more benefits of corporate social responsibility.
That said, you can’t harness these benefits without putting a sincere effort towards making philanthropy a core value of your company. That means actively promoting your program to employees and iterating on it.
What can affect employee engagement with matching gift programs?
Numerous factors can impact a company’s employee matching gift engagement, such as:
Employee awareness. According to Double the Donation’s guide to matching gift statistics, 78% of donors are unaware if their company offers a matching gift program, and 1 in 3 donors indicate that they’d give more if a match was available. The more employees know about your program, the better participation metrics you’ll see.
Ease of submission. The easier it is to submit a matching gift request, the more employees will participate in your program. Leverage a platform that integrates with an auto-submission provider to keep the process straightforward.
Program guidelines. The stipulations that determine who can participate in the matching gift program and how they can get involved influences the participation rate.
Leadership support. Employees look to leadership to embody company culture and values. If there’s a lack of support or acknowledgment of matching gifts, employees might feel discouraged from participating.
Flexibility in gift types. Some employees might prefer giving all at once, but others might prefer to donate smaller gifts over time. Accommodating multiple giving preferences allows you to interest more employees in getting their gifts matched. After all, our corporate philanthropy trends research found that 39% of surveyed employees wish their companies would allow greater flexibility in when and how they can participate in workplace giving.
Quality of feedback mechanisms. Adapting your matching gift program over time is crucial for keeping it effective as your company changes. Leveraging comprehensive and accessible feedback mechanisms is how you can tailor your programs to be more suited to your employees’ preferences.
To gauge what influences your own company’s matching gift participation rate, survey your employees and ask what aspects are beneficial and where improvements can be made. These answers usually directly correlate with your program’s effectiveness and appeal to your employee community.
Tips for Maximizing Employee Engagement through Matching Gift Programs
Now that your initial questions are answered, you might be wondering how to launch your own matching gift program. Before we go over the details, let’s review the big-picture ways that you can increase engagement.
Create a culture of giving and volunteerism. Whether you ask potential hires about their interest in social responsibility or offer paid time off for company volunteering, you should integrate giving back into your regular schedule. You’ll attract passionate advocates to join your team and cultivate a community that values your CSR efforts, making implementing a matching gift program simple.
Leverage technology and software solutions. As mentioned above, using employee-facing CSR platforms streamlines program management and participation. For instance, using a CSR platform that integrates with an auto-submission platform can cut at least half of the steps in a matching gift submission process.
Sharing the program’s impact with participants. As donors, your employees are entitled to information about your corporate giving activities and progress. Ensure you report on your matching gift program’s metrics, such as the number of participants and the total amount donated by the company, so your employees stay informed about your progress.
Your company needs to do more than simply start a matching gift program to get employees excited about getting involved. Implementing these large-scale atmospheric and program shifts will make it easier for your matching gift program to make a lasting impact.
How to Start an Employee Matching Gift Program
These simple steps can help you start your matching gift program on the right foot:
Develop a corporate giving policy
Before you lay out your specific matching gift policies, you should create a framework for your overall approach to corporate social responsibility and giving. Ensure you cover the following aspects in your policy:
Goals of your program
Bundle options, such as making a higher match ratio available when the employee have volunteered a certain amount
Match ratio
Minimum and maximum match amounts
Eligibility requirements
Types of gifts accepted
Affinity causes that you contribute more to
Tax deductibility information
Submission deadlines
Contact information for the program administrator
Feedback devices
Record all of these stipulations in a visible location, such as the employee handbook or in your employee-facing CSR platform, so your staff has the most essential information at their fingertips. If you make changes to your policy, communicate them to your entire team to keep your program running smoothly.
Pick a CSR platform
If you haven’t already settled on a CSR platform that supports matching gifts, now is the time to research your options and pick the best fit. Keep these important considerations in mind while you choose your platform:
Supports matching gifts and any other corporate giving initiatives you decide to take on
Robust reporting capabilities
Once you’ve narrowed down your prospective providers based on these criteria, schedule demos, consultations, and any other meetings to help you make your decision. Also, remember to include all relevant parties in your research and trial processes, such as your software experts, company leadership, and CSR program chairs, so you get a diverse array of perspectives on the available options.
Communicate the program’s impact to employees
As previously mentioned, one of the biggest barriers to employee participation in matching gift programs is a lack of awareness. To achieve maximum visibility, you should:
Create a matching gifts information page. Many companies have shared drives or Intranet pages where employees can share internal information. Create an internal information hub for your matching gift program where you can post updates and answer questions.
Leverage multiple channels. Whether you’re spreading the word about your program via email or in person at your all-hands meeting, pick company-wide channels to inform your employees about your program.
Host recognition and appreciation events. Leveraging peer feedback is a great way to get employees interested in your new program. Ask employees who have had their gifts matched before to speak to the program’s effectiveness in spreading social good. You could also ask nonprofit representatives from causes related to your company’s focus to speak about how matched donations impact their missions.
Similar to your external marketing efforts, your program will only be as popular as your communications are effective. Use marketing tools such as powerful calls to action and branded images to make your communications stand out.
Celebrate successes and recognize employee participation
Once the matching gift requests start rolling in, you should take the time to thank those who made the program successful—your employees. Showing your heartfelt gratitude can help employees feel more engaged and inspired to renew their involvement going forward. Share your thanks by:
Sending appreciation eCards. Make your thank-you message more memorable than a passing comment in the hallway by leveraging custom employee appreciation eCards. Take it a step further by giving peers the ability to recognize each other for their charitable activity so everyone has a chance to support each other.
Awarding prizes to participants. Creating a competitive, yet fun gamified atmosphere with prizes on the line helps employees get more absorbed in your program and allows you to show your thanks. For instance, let’s say you’re running a matching gift day coinciding with Giving Tuesday. Consider offering all participants a small prize as a thank-you gift and award the top five donors with more valuable gifts.
Creating a yearly award. You might already have a yearly awards ceremony where high performers are recognized for their contributions to the company. You could add an award for “biggest community contributor” or “advocate of the year” to show thanks to the most influential participants.
A little recognition can go a long way in securing long-term support for your matching gift program. As long as your sincerity comes through, your employees will feel the love and keep giving!
Wrapping Up + Additional Resources
Now that you know how and why matching gift programs can influence your employee engagement, it’s time to launch your own efforts! By keeping your employees at the center of your strategy and leveraging the right technology, you can achieve remarkable results for your company, both internally and externally.
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What causes your employees to clock into work every day? The obvious answer is their compensation. But what causes them to strive to do their best work, go the extra mile to complete projects, and expand their skills to create more value at your business?
The answer is engagement! Today’s savvy business owners are more than aware of the difference strong motivation can have on every aspect of their company, from lowering accidents and mistakes to improving customer relationships.
With the importance of keeping motivation high, you might assume employee engagement is a priority for most businesses. However, approximately 85% of employees report being unengaged or actively disengaged at work. That’s a big problem for businesses that don’t want to see increased absenteeism, higher turnover, and lower-quality work.
Fortunately, there is a solution if your employees are part of that 85%. Several employee engagement strategies are easy to implement and manage long-term. We’ll explore those tips in this article, but first, let’s define employee engagement.
What is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement refers to how employees feel about and behave at their work. Ultimately, engagement is a scale that goes from engaged to unengaged to disengaged.
Engaged employees are committed to their work and see it as important. These employees often feel a sense of ownership over their assignments and constantly strive to do better and improve. They feel like they’re an important part of their workplace and want to see the businesses they work for succeed.
Unengaged employees are middle-of-the-road in the scale. They come to work and do their assignments, but ultimately they aren’t that invested in the quality of their work as long as they’re not actively getting in trouble. Before judging unengaged employees too harshly, remember if it’s possible for formerly engaged employees to become unengaged for a variety of factors, such as burnout, sudden life events, and frustrations at work.
Disengaged employees are an active detriment to their workplaces. These employees feel resentful of their place of work and may try to spread that discontentment. They might create a negative work atmosphere, sabotage projects, or simply not show up for work at all.
It is possible to turn the feelings of unengaged and disengaged employees around, but doing so requires taking a hard look at why employees become disengaged in the first place.
What are the Benefits of Employee Engagement?
Outside of preventing actively disengaged employees, is it worth the time and effort to turn unengaged employees into engaged ones? Research shows that yes, it is, and multiple studies have the numbers to back it up, finding that engaged employees:
Are less likely to seek new employment with businesses. Highly engaged employees result in 59% less turnover.
Are absent less frequently. Businesses with engaged employees report 50% less absenteeism.
Are more productive. Studies have found that highly engaged teams have 14% higher productivity.
To tap into these benefits, businesses need to look at their practices, identify any processes or systems that might be leading to disengagement, and start implementing practices that improve engagement. To inspire you to turn around any poor employee attitudes, here are nine of our favorite strategies:
9 Employee Engagement Strategies
1. Collect employee feedback.
Before launching a new product or service, your business collects audience data to understand what customers need and the type of solutions they’re looking for. After all, selling a product designed to fit customer needs is much easier than creating a product first and trying to convince customers it’s right for them second.
The same goes for your employee engagement strategies. Your team is much more likely to respond positively to programs they feel were created with their specific needs and feedback in mind.
Are there any routine processes that are frustrating?
What types of changes would you like to see implemented?
You can make these surveys anonymous to get more honest feedback or ensure each is linked to the specific employee to address concerns and gather more information as needed.
After your initial survey, regularly reach out to employees for more feedback to make sure you’re on the right track. Additionally, vary which employees you survey to collect a variety of feedback and also prevent over-surveying.
2. Create an appreciation strategy.
Even if it’s your job to do a particular task every day, it can be hard to complete quality work and continually strive to do your best if you never hear a thank you in return. Fortunately, implementing an appreciation strategy that takes a deliberate approach to showing employees gratitude is relatively easy.
For example, here are three recognition methods most businesses can get up and running in just a few days:
eCards. eCards are digital greeting cards that can be sent through emails or text messages. While handwritten cards are heartfelt, sending a fast electronic message of thanks is more practical for the workday and allows your employees to receive a meaningful thank-you message as soon as their work is noticed. To implement eCards, you will need to use an eCard platform and go over how to use it with your staff. From there, encourage employees to keep sending eCards whenever they want to congratulate their peers on a job well done.
Employee awards. Some people enjoy a little public recognition, which is why employee of the month awards and their ilk have been a staple of workplace appreciation strategies for decades. Set up informal awards to honor the values you want to see in your employees, such as an award for best mentor, commitment to inclusivity, and creative problem solver.
Perks. Tangible benefits don’t need to be expensive bonuses to motivate employees and make them feel appreciated. For example, you might give everyone in the office a thermos with the company logo or give special thanks to a few overachievers, such as extra vacation days or a gift card to a nice restaurant.
The best employee appreciation strategy depends on your staff. For instance, if your employees are already social and supportive of one another, employee awards are an opportunity for everyone to celebrate, whereas that might not be the case in environments where employees feel competitive with one another.
Use the surveys you conducted earlier on employee experience to learn how they feel about your current company culture and what changes they want to see when crafting your appreciation strategy.
3. Provide employee giving opportunities.
Giving back to your community feels good, and employees want to know they’re part of an organization that’s dedicated to making a positive difference in the world. While your business might have various corporate philanthropy initiatives like sponsoring nonprofits, try providing additional employee giving opportunities that allow your team to feel like active participants in giving back.
A few programs you might consider include:
Matching gifts. Matching gifts are a staple of employee giving programs that enable employees to give to the causes they want to and feel like their specific charitable interests are supported by their employer. In a matching gift program, you would agree to match donations your employees make to nonprofits. You can set restrictions for what types of causes and organizations you’ll support or provide employees with the freedom to distribute their gifts as they please.
Volunteer grants. Support your employees by offering to donate to the nonprofits where they volunteer. This could be a set amount per hour or a certain amount after they reach a certain number of hours, such as donating $100 after an employee volunteers 5 hours. You can also organize corporate volunteer opportunities that your business oversees and where your entire team is encouraged to participate.
Employee grant stipends. Take the financial burden of giving off employees altogether with grant stipends. Rather than donating their own money, employees can use grant funds provided by your business to give to the nonprofits they care about.
Automatic payroll deductions. Make donating a no-brainer by making it automatic. When first joining your company or at the start of a new fiscal year, allow employees to enroll in automatic payroll deductions. Most payroll deductions go to nonprofits the business picks out, so make sure you choose organizations your employees are invested in and have information readily available about these nonprofits’ missions and programs.
Office drives. Make giving a team activity with office drives. Office drives can be monetary in nature but are often more successful for collecting in-kind donations, like non-perishable food or new and lightly used clothes. Physically seeing items pile up can convince people to join in and create a sense of accomplishment for everyone involved.
Beyond these core opportunities, there are plenty of other workplace giving initiatives you can lead, like skilled volunteering or annual giving campaigns. It all depends on what inspires your employees.
When defining your corporate giving strategy, talk with your employees about the causes they care about and how they want to give back. If it seems like there are multiple winners, remember you don’t need to limit yourself to just one giving program. For example, you might offer both matching gifts and volunteer grants!
Whichever employee engagement programs you decide to launch, remember to choose a software solution with features that allow you to run your engagement activities as smoothly as possible.
4. Leverage software for support.
Keeping track of your employee engagement initiatives can become challenging as you grow your motivation program. By leveraging employee engagement software solutions, you can streamline your employee stewardship efforts, measure their attitude toward your organization, and adjust your strategy based on employee feedback.
Here are a few types of software that can help your organization better engage and retain employees:
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) software. CSR software is designed to help manage corporate responsibility initiatives—typically business-led efforts to support employee giving and charitability. This type of software includes matching gift platforms, volunteer grant management, corporate volunteerism software, and platforms for managing employee assistance programs.
Employee appreciation software. These tools help organizations express gratitude toward their employees for their hard work and dedication. These platforms include leadership-to-employee and peer-to-peer recognition platforms, like eCard software.
Employee experience software. This software category includes solutions for improving the overall quality of the employee experience. This typically includes any tools used to send surveys to employees to gather their feedback and summarize their input.
When determining the right software solution for your organization, first consider your employee engagement goals. Which aspects of employee engagement are priorities at your business? For example, if you’re looking to strengthen your recognition approach first and foremost, then appreciation software may be the right choice.
Make sure also to consider your budget and schedule demos for any solutions you’re interested in. Then, be sure to communicate clearly with employees about how you’ll be using the new platform and any tips they need to know to get involved in your initiatives.
5. Host culture events.
An office environment that employees are happy to go to and feel supported working in is nearly unbeatable when it comes to creating positive motivation. However, with 83% of employees preferring a hybrid work environment, building a cohesive work culture can be a challenge.
You shouldn’t necessarily turn away from a hybrid model. In fact, employees have shown to enjoy remote work and the flexibility to determine when they’ll come into the office. Instead, think about how you can engage employees even when they’re remote.
Office culture events are an easy way to mix up the workday, and they’re a highly flexible engagement strategy that can be adapted to all types of workplace models. Here’s how you can host culture events in each of these settings:
In-person only. When all of your employees come into the office every day, they likely already know each other and have made connections. In this work model, your goal is to provide a new context that encourages employees to socialize more openly than they would during their normal work routine. This might involve going outside the office to a nearby park or restaurant or hosting creative after-work events like a knitting tutorial or paint-along.
Hybrid. In a hybrid work model, you can use your culture events as incentives for employees to coordinate their work schedules to choose the same in-office days. For example, if you announce that you’ll order pizza for everyone on a specific day, you’ll likely see more employees show up that day.
Remote only. With remote-only work, you may have employees who regularly work together but don’t really know each other outside of email exchanges and work meetings. For remote employees, host virtual events that provide plenty of socialization opportunities and the ability to show off their personalities and interests. Trivia contests, virtual escape rooms, and movie-watch parties are all easy remote get-togethers to consider.
Rather than having just leadership organize culture events, this can be an easy responsibility to give to your employees. Provide a budget and other necessary guidelines (such as no alcohol) and let trusted employees plan events. This encourages employees to share their interests and frees up leadership’s time.
6. Offer opportunities for growth.
Employees who are serious about their work don’t want a job; they want a career. In other words, they want to grow their role, take on new responsibilities, and generally move up the ladder in their industry.
If employees know their hard work will pay off in the form of career advancement, they’re more likely to take their work seriously and be personally invested. You can provide growth opportunities at your business by:
Offering skill training. Give employees the time and opportunity to improve their skills. This might involve paying for courses they can take in their free time or providing additional training as part of their daily responsibilities.
Promoting internally. It can be tempting to bring in an outside expert when you have an opening, but research shows that companies with strong internal mobility retain employees nearly twice as long as their counterparts. When a manager, director, or specialized employee leaves your business, look inward first to see if anyone has the skills needed to perform the role or would be willing to step up their training to attain those skills.
Providing mentoring opportunities. One of the best ways to prepare your employees for moving into a new role is to have them shadow someone already in that position. Consider implementing a mentorship program that allows employees to get hands-on experience with the roles and responsibilities they want, while also having the safety net of a senior employee guiding them during the learning process.
To create a healthy work environment, encourage supervisors to have frank conversations with their directs about the future they want to have at your company. This can help you shape career paths, provide needed training, and spot retention risks.
This theory proposes that external motivations, such as compensation, can only impact motivation so much. While proper compensation is important and pay raises are appreciated, is an employee who receives a $25,000 bonus really that much more motivated than one who receives $20,000? Or, conversely, is docking an employee $5,000 from their expected bonus actually going to motivate them? Essentially, the theory reports that external motivators like rewards and punishments eventually hit a wall where their impact becomes negligible.
So if throwing money at the problem of disengaged employees doesn’t work, what does? According to the theory, the level of autonomy employees are granted highly impacts self-determination. In other words, providing employees with greater freedom in how, when, and where they approach their work increases their motivation to complete that work and do a good job.
Why? Essentially, autonomy causes employees to feel a greater sense of ownership over their work, and since they feel their work is a reflection on them, they want to make sure it’s their best work.
Consider how you can promote autonomy in your workplace. This might be encouraging greater employee input in how projects are tackled so they can pursue their own ideas, allowing employees to propose ideas and take leadership roles in new projects, or even letting employees decide which days they want to work in the office in a hybrid model.
8. Be transparent.
Trust is a key sign of a healthy workplace. Employees who believe in their employers, know what their company is doing, and understand why certain decisions are made are more likely to feel like they are a part of that company. However, many employees feel in the dark about what goes on with senior leadership as 80% of workers want to know more about how decisions are made at their organizations.
So how can you be more transparent, and is there such a thing as being too transparent? It’s definitely possible to overshare, and there certainly are times to keep information under wraps until you’re ready to announce it.
However, when you can provide the rationale for a decision, even if it’s not positive, do so. Be honest about your current priorities and what is considered when approving or shooting down ideas. On occasion, this might involve discussing sensitive subjects, such as finances.
While sometimes it may seem like it’s better to keep things secret and avoid panic, many employees can tell when something is being hidden from them and will make assumptions of their own. Facilitate two-way communication and be as transparent as possible to prevent anyone from jumping to conclusions.
9. Encourage a healthy work-life balance.
Highly engaged employees can become unengaged, and one common culprit for this is burnout. Burnout is an absolute killer when it comes to productivity, and while many employees appreciate a hybrid or remote work model, working from home does not make your team immune to burnout.
Why? Moving the office to home can blur the lines between the two, leading to an unhealthy work-life balance. While it’s great when employees go above and beyond, working too many hours when employees are supposed to have time off can lead to poorer quality work.
Encourage your employees to reassess their work-life balance and take a healthier approach by:
Creating a no-pressure PTO policy. This might sound obvious, but as a business, when you implement a PTO policy, be prepared for employees to actually take time off. Additionally, while it seems generous in theory, avoid unlimited PTO plans as multiple companies have found that such programs actually result in employees taking less time off due to social pressures. If employees do feel pressured not to take time off, consider why that is and do the hard work of implementing policies that will undo a workplace culture that leads to burnout.
Being clear about what is and isn’t expected during off hours. Some companies ask employees to answer phone calls, check their emails, and work on projects during their off hours. Do not be one of these companies unless you want your employees to get burned out and stop performing their best work.
Discussing how to make an in-home office productive. Provide your employees with tips about creating a work environment in their homes with clear boundaries between work time and off-time. Some people working from home for the first time may assume they’ll be able to juggle other responsibilities like childcare. However, advise against this to prevent workers from getting distracted, resulting in them taking too much time off during the day and having to reallocate work to what should be their off hours.
If you feel your business can’t comfortably operate without asking employees to work additional hours that disrupt their work-life balance, that’s a sign to take a hard look at your business model. Consider hiring new staff, implementing more efficient policies, or limiting the number of projects you take on.
This might seem like a poor business decision on the surface, but peeling back the layers reveals that it’s for the best. After all, if you’re assigning more work than your current employees can successfully complete, your relationships with customers may suffer.
Looking for even more employee engagement strategies? Check our full list of ideas!
10. Improve communication.
Unclear or lacking communication is one the easiest ways to frustrate employees, leading to disengagement. Plus, poor communication has other downsides, such as mistakes, wasted time, and confusion.
When surveying employees about their satisfaction at work, focus on the effectiveness of your communication by asking questions like:
How often do you communicate with your manager? Is this enough? Is this too much?
When you receive instructions, are they clear? How often do you need to ask follow-up questions?
Is it clear how and when to reach out to your manager with questions?
Is our communication platform meeting your needs?
Be wary of both under- and overcommunication. While some businesses pride themselves on overcommunication, poorly implemented policies can easily tip into micromanagement, which reduces employee autonomy and, subsequently, engagement.
A strong communication policy is especially important for retaining remote and hybrid employees since they’ll be operating independently a majority of the time.
11. Uphold company values.
Every company has stated values, such as teamwork, respect, and compassion. However, how often do you see a report in the news of a company with values like these doing the opposite? Due to this frequent phenomenon, many employees are skeptical about whether their employer actually believes in their corporate values.
Prove to your employees that you’re not all talk by upholding company values at every opportunity. A few ways you can accomplish this include:
Linking accomplishments to values. We’ve already discussed how employee appreciation strategies like eCards can boost engagement. Take those strategies to the next level by linking your appreciation to specific company values. Recognition methods like eCards make this easy since they provide a space to explain the value the employee demonstrated.
Getting leadership on board. If your leadership embodies your company values, the rest of your team will likely follow suit. Have leadership model the behaviors and values you want to see in the rest of your team, whether that means being transparent about the company’s current status, giving credit to individuals working behind the scenes, or staying late to work alongside your staff.
Engaging in corporate philanthropy. If your business has a CSR program, ensure it involves giving to charitable organizations that are aligned with your corporate values. For example, if your company values “sustainability,” you might donate to environment-related causes, while a business that promotes its commitment to community might offer a scholarship program.
Ensure your company values are clearly stated in your employee handbook, so your staff can check them any time they need to. However, if you’re properly infusing your values into your workplace, your employees should know them by heart in no time!
12. Set clear expectations.
If employees aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do or how their contributions are benefiting your company, they’re likely to become confused, frustrated, and disengaged. Prevent this by setting clear expectations from day one and ensuring employees know who to contact if they have questions.
At all-hands meetings, take time to explain how each team’s work fits into your business’s overall goals. This gives meaning to employees’ individual assignments and helps them understand what overall objectives they should be working for.
Additionally, remember that clear directions and employee autonomy can exist hand-in-hand. Provide clarity for what your business needs accomplished but, when appropriate, give employees opportunities to add their own contributions, get creative with how they complete their work, and suggest ways to improve on similar projects in the future.
13. Host team volunteer days.
Combine the power of volunteer grants and culture events by hosting team volunteer days. These are official events where your employees volunteer together as a team.
To host a volunteer day, follow these steps:
Research local nonprofits.Check with local nonprofits about volunteer opportunities that could accommodate your team. When researching nonprofits, look for organizations with missions that match your philanthropic goals and have volunteer roles where your team members could lend their unique skills.
Survey employees. After identifying a few prospective nonprofits, survey your team about which nonprofits they would like to volunteer at and when. You can also ask for suggestions for other nonprofits to discover organizations you might have missed in your initial research. If there’s interest in your survey, you might also arrange future team volunteer days to support more worthwhile causes.
Reach out to nonprofits. Do not just show up at a nonprofit with a team of volunteers. Instead, reach out at least a few weeks in advance to explain your team volunteer day, your employees’ skills, and how many people you expect to bring. This allows nonprofits to organize volunteer opportunities that can accommodate your entire team.
Finalize logistics. Confirm your team volunteer event day, how long you will be volunteering, how many employees are going, and where employees should meet up ahead of the event. Additionally, tell employees if lunch will be provided, communicate expected attire, and share any forms or waivers to complete ahead of time.
Host your volunteer days. It’s time for your employees to meet up and volunteer! Ask employees to check in at the start of the day so you have a record of who is volunteering. After the volunteer day, check in again to get employee feedback about the event.
Team volunteer days have several benefits. They give employees the opportunity to give back and serve as a team-building activity at the same time. Implementing team volunteer grants can also encourage employees to volunteer together.
14. Offer competitive benefits.
We’ve already discussed how external benefits can only motivate employees so much, but employees do require that initial motivation before they fully engage with your business. Ensure you provide competitive benefits to attract, retain, and engage employees in your industry.
For example, you might offer:
Competitive wages. Assess salaries and benefits in your industry when setting your own wages, as even highly motivated employees may become disengaged if they feel they are undervalued. Additionally, clearly communicate any changes to compensation so employees know why their benefits are changing and ask questions through the appropriate channels.
Time off. Time off recharges employees, meaning that when they’re back in the office, they’re ready to work hard and be fully engaged. In addition to regular paid time off, consider offering volunteer time off (VTO). VTO provides employees with time off specifically to volunteer, giving them the opportunity and motivation to lend a helping hand in their communities.
Insurance. Show an investment in your employees’ well-being by offering insurance coverage. Ensure this is an opt-in program so employees who want to pursue their own insurance options can do so and don’t feel they are losing benefits when compared to their colleagues who opt in.
The benefits that are adequate for your business depend on your industry, size of your organization, and local area. However, be conscious of employees’ feedback. While all employees would enjoy increased benefits, if employees regularly express the need for expanded benefits or seek other employment opportunities citing better compensation elsewhere, those are clear signs it’s time to reassess your policies.
15. Refine your onboarding process.
For our last tip, let’s go back to the beginning: your onboarding process. Initial employee training will set the tone of their tenure at your business, so ensure they start off on the right foot with a strong, organized, and focused onboarding process.
You can improve your onboarding process by:
Staying focused. Even for experienced professionals, there’s a lot to learn when joining a new company. Avoid overwhelming new employees by focusing the onboarding process on immediate necessities. Ensure employees get a handle on how to complete their regular responsibilities first and foremost. In some cases, consider a protracted onboarding process where employees learn the smaller ins and outs of your company—such as how to send an eCard, host a culture event, or participate in your volunteer program—after their initial work-focused onboarding.
Setting up mentorships. Employees’ managers should guide new employees through onboarding, but it’s also helpful to pair new hires with peers at the same level for additional support and easy question-asking. Ensure new team members have an opportunity to get to know their colleagues and even set up mentorships, where a specific co-worker becomes their go-to person for small questions about daily tasks.
Having resources ready. If new employees ever need to refresh their knowledge, ensure they can do so by having shareable training resources ready. This might include an employee handbook, software guide printouts, and sales call scripts.
Post-onboarding is an opportune time to survey employees to discover if your training processes are effective. Wait a few weeks after onboarding is finished to reach out. This gives employees time to settle into their roles and determine whether their training was useful but not too long that it’s no longer fresh in their minds.
Employee Engagement Strategies: Final Thoughts
From talking to customers and creating marketing materials to coding your website and designing your products, employees are what keeps your business running. The better you can engage them, the more motivated they’ll be to help make your business a success.
You can connect with your team in numerous ways, and these employee engagement strategies are just one place to start. To learn more about how you can motivate your team, explore these resources:
Why Workplace Giving Matters for Nonprofits + Companies. Interested in whether a workplace giving program is right for your business? Learn how these programs impact both the companies that offer them and the nonprofits that receive their contributions.
Top Corporate Giving Software to Drive Employee Engagement. Employee giving programs can quickly get complex, and software solutions can help you track donations, matches, and more. Start researching employee giving platforms with this guide.
However, 78% of donors are unaware of their company’s program specifics, which is why workplace giving platforms are crucial to your company’s CSR success. We’ve created this guide to explore everything you need to know about workplace giving platforms, including:
When it’s easy for employees to participate in workplace giving programs, your company will do more than help its community. Employee engagement levels, your CSR reputation, and nonprofit causes will reap the benefits of an organized and streamlined process for managing workplace giving. With that in mind, let’s get started!
What are workplace giving platforms?
Workplace giving is an employer-sponsored program through which employees can donate to charitable causes in various ways, including matching gifts, volunteer grants, and automatic payroll deductions.
Depending on the type of program your company offers, you’ll have to facilitate different donation methods. For example, if you choose to offer volunteer grants, you’ll have to track employees’ volunteer hours. That’s where workplace giving platforms come into play.
Workplace giving platforms are software solutions that streamline a company’s corporate philanthropy efforts by managing giving and volunteering.
Using workplace giving tools, companies can efficiently manage their philanthropy programs, keep their employees engaged through easy participation, and boost the impact of their CSR initiatives. Let’s take a closer look at the ways workplace giving platforms can maximize your company’s CSR success.
5 benefits of workplace giving platforms
The type of workplace giving platform you need depends on the program your company runs, but there are software options for nearly every type of program. Let’s take a look at how specific platforms can benefit your company’s programs.
1. Matching Gift Management
Matching gift programs are one of the most common offerings companies have in terms of workplace giving.
By essentially doubling the donations their employees make to eligible nonprofits (based on the company’s guidelines), companies benefit nonprofits and help their employees make a difference for the causes they care about. However, running a matching gift program takes a lot of organizational power, especially if your company has many participating employees and donations to track.
To make it easy for employees to participate, choose a workplace giving platform that allows you to:
Track employee donations. Keep track of all employee donations in one central location so you can manage all of your incoming data more easily.
Approve matching gift requests. Approve match requests automatically or with a single click based on minimum/maximum match amounts, eligibility requirements, and other guidelines your company has put in place.
Engage your employees in giving. Engage your employees in the causes they care about by using a workplace giving platform that’s easy to navigate, flexible, and shows your company cares about giving back.
Track your impact. Workplace giving platforms should offer robust, real-time reporting so you can keep track of the social good your company is doing.
Enlist matching gift auto-submission. Instead of requiring employees to complete a separate request process for matching gifts, some CSR platforms now offer innovative auto-submission functionality through a recently out-of-beta integration with Double the Donation’s tools. All it asks for is a corporate email address from the employee donor, and the software system processes the request from there!
The right workplace giving platform should help your company manage its matching gift program with ease, streamline your overall giving process, and encourage employee participation.
In addition to matching gift programs, corporate volunteerism is becoming a larger component of workplace giving. Volunteerism can take many forms, and as companies develop or expand their volunteer programs, the right workplace giving platform can keep them on track for success.
To dive deeper into the ways that corporate giving programs can manage volunteerism, we’re going to break it down into three categories: volunteer opportunities, volunteer tracking, and volunteer grants.
Volunteer Opportunities
The first hurdle your company may encounter when developing a corporate volunteering program is actually finding volunteer opportunities for your employees. Using a workplace giving platform that offers a database of both virtual and in-person volunteer opportunities can help you jump that hurdle easily and efficiently.
Workplace giving platforms vet the nonprofits in their databases, meaning your employees can rest assured that they’ll be working with reputable causes and organizations. Beyond sifting through nonprofit organizations for you, workplace giving platforms also help you create custom volunteer events for your employees, offering features such as:
Planned shifts
Event capacity planning
Registrations
It’s great to get employees involved in your volunteer program, but it’s especially important that volunteers get to have a say in the opportunities available to them. That’s why offering a database of volunteer events is essential. Many companies also offer paid time off for volunteering (known as VTO), which gives employees a direct incentive to participate and increases employee engagement levels.
Volunteer Tracking
Once your volunteer opportunities have been confirmed, workplace giving platforms go further and allow you to track all elements of your employees’ volunteer efforts. This includes:
Volunteer signups
Logged volunteer hours
Your overall impact
Employees can easily track their hours for any kind of volunteer event, while you can view all the wonderful work they’re doing from one central location.
Volunteer Grants
Another way to engage employees in corporate volunteerism is by offering volunteer grants, which are monetary grants awarded to nonprofits in response to employees’ volunteer hours with that organization.
Like with matching gift programs, workplace giving platforms help you monitor volunteer grant requests that come through. As employees track their hours and request grants, you can easily approve and process each request in the same central system—much like you would with matching gifts.
All of these components of volunteer programs are important. Whether you’re offering VTO, trying to make it easy for employees to find volunteer opportunities, or processing volunteer grant requests on a regular basis, workplace giving platforms take the extra legwork out of the equation.
3. Additional Workplace Giving Program Management
Of course, workplace giving is made up of more than just matching gifts and volunteer programs. There are tons of different programs that contribute to CSR, and choosing the right workplace giving solutions can help streamline all of them.
Workplace giving platforms can help you manage:
Automatic payroll deductions: Workplace giving platforms with payroll integrations and features allow employees to select a nonprofit from a large database of pre-vetted 501(c)(3) organizations. From there, they can choose to set up a recurring deduction through the platform for as long as they’d like.
Disaster relief: Workplace giving solutions often offer tools to quickly create new disaster relief campaigns. After all, the faster companies can launch a campaign, the faster they’ll be able to collect and disburse funds to nonprofits in need.
Grant management: Many companies and foundations provide annual grants to important causes and organizations around the world. Workplace giving platforms can help grantmaking organizations manage all aspects of the grantmaking process, including grant proposals, approvals, budgets, and goals.
Workplace giving platforms also help companies build a community within their teams by supporting causes that are important to them.
Use a workplace giving platform to set goals, select nonprofits, spotlight volunteer opportunities, and more. These tools allow you to create a sense of urgency and keep your employees engaged in nonprofit causes and events all year long.
4. Employee Engagement
Whether you’re running a grant program, launching an employee giving campaign, offering payroll deductions, or starting other types of workplace giving programs, choosing the right solution to meet your company’s needs will benefit more than just your team and your brand. It will also deeply engage your employees and strengthen your company’s workplace culture.
Here are a few ways your workplace giving platform can engage employees:
90% of employees are more motivated and loyal who work at companies with a strong sense of purpose. When you invest in software that standardizes the process for getting involved in workplace giving, your program will become a central part of the workplace culture. That way, employees will know your company is serious about making a difference.
87% of corporate leaders believe their employees expect them to support causes and issues that matter to them. Workplace giving platforms, like matching gift databases, can help employees determine their eligibility for certain programs and contribute to the nonprofits of their choice. This encourages employees to support the causes they care about—and lets them know your company is behind them all the way.
Nearly 70% of employees wouldn’t choose to work with a company that lacks a strong sense of purpose, and 60% would take a pay cut to work for a purpose-driven company. By leveraging workplace giving platforms, your company can effectively spread the word about its giving opportunities and standardize the process for getting involved.
It’s clear: Employees are more dedicated to companies that support charitable giving, and workplace giving platforms can help you show your support by simplifying the giving process! Check our list of employee engagement ideas to learn more.
5. Company Reputation
According to NonprofitsSource’s guide to workplace giving, an established giving program can enhance your reputation in the community. And just as your workplace giving platform plays an important role in your program, it also has a large impact on your brand reputation!
Use your solution to:
Demonstrate your commitment. Having a workplace giving program in place is one thing, but investing in software to promote and streamline the process demonstrates a deep level of commitment to charitable giving. When you invest in a dedicated workplace giving platform, employers and community members alike will know your company is committed to making a difference.
Measure your impact. Your workplace giving platform may offer tools for tracking and reporting the impact of your program through metrics like employee volunteer hours and dollars donated. Use these features to share the tangible impact your company makes
Partner with nonprofits. With the right tools, your company can pair its workplace giving platform with nonprofits’ solutions to maximize donations and raise awareness about your program. For example, if your platform integrates with Double the Donation, you can allow employees to automatically submit matching gift requests on a nonprofit’s website. This raises awareness of your program among nonprofits, which may lead to future partnerships and endorsements.
Workplace giving and improved company reputation are components of a cyclical strategy to increase the impact your company makes. Your efforts to give charitably will enhance your brand reputation, which will recruit more customers and supporters for your company. In turn, you’ll receive more resources to invest back into your workplace giving program, making a greater impact overall.
How to start using workplace giving platforms
1. Determine your needs
To start using workplace giving platforms, you’ll first need to decide which solution makes the most sense for your company. When researching platforms, consider the following:
The software’s capabilities: Make a comprehensive list of the tool’s features and determine which ones you’ll use the most. Which features do you need in a platform for your specific giving program?
The vendor’s reputation: Check reviews for the provider of the software. For further insight, you can ask other company leaders for their feedback on platforms they’ve tried.
Ease-of-use: Request a demo of the platform to familiarize yourself with how it’s used. That way, you can determine if you’re comfortable with the tool and how easy it will be for employees to access it, as well.
Don’t shy away from any questions you have for the software provider or during the demo. After conducting thorough research, choose a platform and get started!
2. Educate employees
Your employees are a key part of your workplace giving efforts—after all, their giving is often the first step in your company taking action to give charitably.
Create training materials to go over the platform (and your giving program) with employees. Teach them how to use the platform and how to make the most of your workplace giving programs.
Be sure to incorporate informative materials about workplace giving in new employee onboarding, as well. This ensures that every employee learns about workplace giving from the very beginning of their tenure with your company, maximizing the potential of their giving.
3. Promote your program
Leverage your company’s most frequently used communication channels to promote your workplace giving program, including social media, your website, email newsletters, and any other messaging platforms you use. This not only puts your program in front of employees but also garners the attention of nonprofits, which may partner with you after seeing your commitment to workplace giving.
Workplace giving trends
Interested in exploring new and upcoming trends surrounding workplace giving and the technology that empowers it? Staying on top of changes in the industry can help you ensure your team is equipped with the best tools possible.
Here’s what we’ve seen recently:
1. More mid-sized and small businesses are rolling out CSR programs.
Historically, workplace giving programs such as matching gifts, volunteer grants, and more have been primarily offered only by the largest businesses.
Now, these types of programs are becoming more accessible than ever for mid-sized and small businesses as well! Why? For one thing, the sector’s been seeing increasingly flexible pricing scales for workplace giving platforms, making streamlined management more attainable for companies of all shapes and sizes.
Not only that, but new corporate giving vendors are entering the game with a specific focus on targeting mid-level businesses. This takes a lot of the administrative burden away from company leadership itself, meaning more corporations are willing and eager to roll out the programming.
If you’d like to be inspired by some small and mid-sized businesses with big workplace giving programs, take a look at these examples of CLMA-certified companies:
We love seeing new companies establishing and growing their workplace giving—whether through matching gifts, volunteer grants, or other engaging initiatives for employees. In the end, it means more nonprofit funding, more workplace engagement, and more socially responsible businesses powering good in our communities. We’re excited to find out which companies are next!
2. Workplace giving platforms offer tighter integrations with nonprofits.
Corporate philanthropy programs essentially form partnerships between companies and nonprofits. Workplace giving programs take things a step further, empowering companies to directly support the organizations that their employees are already giving to.
Because a significant prerequisite to workplace giving success has to do with employees engaging with the nonprofits—and submitting their workplace giving requests with their employers—in the first place, it’s essential that companies focus on ensuring a seamless process for doing so.
Workplace giving platforms know this, and that’s why they’re aiming to make the process of using their software as quick and easy as possible for both their corporate clients and, particularly, for their clients’ end users: employees. A huge part of that involves developing tighter relationships with the nonprofits on the receiving end of the programs.
For example, though software providers are focused on selling their tools to corporations offering workplace giving programs, most have built out separate nonprofit management portals with which organizations can facilitate their end of the workplace giving process. Within these nonprofit-specific portals, organizations can easily go in and verify individual donations, volunteer hours, etc., in order to move the requests to the next step. And this end of the platform is typically free for nonprofit causes, helping to further build those relationships through streamlined and accessible technology.
Plus, offering tighter integrations with nonprofits helps make the employee and donor experience more optimal as well. When an organization has already established an account with the workplace giving platforms their supporters use, individuals can typically complete their request process more easily—for instance, having the ability to select from a search of pre-approved organizations rather than having to input all the information for the cause from scratch.
3. Vendors can now offer auto-submission, which fully streamlines match requests for donors.
In order to provide workplace giving technology that truly streamlines and simplifies matching gift programs for donors, nonprofits, companies, and employees, some providers have rolled out brand-new auto-submission functionality, which recently completed its beta testing.
Individuals can now submit their matching gift requests to their employers with a single click directly from the donation confirmation pages of the organizations they support. All they have to do is enter their corporate email address and check, “Yes, submit my matching gift request!”
This video explains how it works.
Now, this helps in a few key ways. For one, it enables organizations to capitalize on donors’ giving momentum right when they’re at their highest level of engagement with the cause: while giving. It minimizes the risk of them saying, “Oh, I’ll do that later,” and then never coming back to it.
Not to mention, it also significantly decreases the amount of time and effort required of a donor to complete the process. Whereas a donor may have previously been asked to provide information about themselves, their donations, and the organizations to which they give, now all they need is an email address. The software ecosystem handles the rest of the data behind the scenes!
This simplicity helps in a few key ways:
Nonprofits can drive more revenue. Organizations can capitalize on donors’ giving momentum when they’re at their highest level of engagement with the cause: while giving. It minimizes the risk of them saying, “Oh, I’ll do that later,” and then never coming back to it.
Donors can breeze through the request process. Auto-submission decreases the amount of time and effort required of a donor to complete the process. A donor may have previously been asked to provide a variety of information about themselves, their donations, and the organizations to which they give. With auto-submission, all they need is their work email address. The software ecosystem handles the rest of the data behind the scenes!
Companies can easily approve match requests. When automatically filled out, forms will have fewer (if any) errors compared to when filled out manually. That means less back and forth, so companies will experience a streamlined approval process.
At this time, auto-submission functionality is made available through workplace giving platforms that integrate with Double the Donation’s matching gift tools. Currently, this includes these corporate giving software providers:
Millie
Selflessly
POINT
And more!
That means that when an employee works for a company outsourcing their workplace program management to a CSR vendor like Millie, Selflessly, or POINT, they are already eligible to participate in auto-submission. That is, as long as the organizations they’re giving to also employ Double the Donation’s software.
But auto-submission remains a rapidly growing innovation; with the solution now out of beta, it will will soon incorporate many more corporate vendors (and their clients), companies (and their employees), and nonprofits (and their donors). And we can’t wait to watch all the matching gift requests being processed when they do!
Additional Resources on Workplace Giving Platforms
If you’re looking for more information about workplace giving and the platforms that can help you be successful, check out the additional resources below:
When it comes to engaging employees in your company’s workplace giving programs, finding tools that promote participation can be challenging. However, it’s well worth the effort since the easier it is for employees to take part in workplace giving, the more likely they are to do so—and the more nonprofits benefit as well.
To help your search, we’ve compiled a list of the top corporate giving software to drive employee engagement, create an organized giving process, help your company promote corporate philanthropy, and fine-tune your corporate giving strategy.
Use this list to find the best corporate giving software for your company and start boosting employee participation in your workplace giving programs. Plus, we’ll also explore top trends seen in modern corporate giving software platforms and how they impact companies, employees, nonprofits, and donors.
But first… what is the CLMA?
One term you might see as you set off in search of the perfect corporate giving software is the CLMA. This designation, which refers to Certified Leaders in Matching Automation, recognizes corporate giving software solutions that go above and beyond in ensuring a seamless and accessible matching gift experience for the programs it facilitates.
Keep an eye out for the following badge to locate CLMA-certified providers.
Millie
Overview of This Corporate Giving Software
Millie is one of the top corporate giving platforms, offering features that support corporate matching gifts, volunteer management, campaign management, and more.
Using Millie, your company can create volunteer events, search for volunteer opportunities, match employee donations according to your budget, and build campaigns around an event or cause.
Millie allows your company to create a social impact program that’s easy to use, flexible, and budget-friendly.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
Millie enables companies to give charitable dollars—funds specifically marked to be donations—to their employees and customers. Recognize outstanding employees and develop deeper relationships with customers and prospects by sending charitable gift cards that can be donated to nonprofit organizations.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
Yes! This corporate giving software can be integrated with Double the Donation, the industry’s leading matching gift tool with auto-submission functionality. Employees of companies that use Millie will be prompted to enter their corporate email addresses from the nonprofit gift confirmation page to automatically submit their matching gift requests, making it easier than ever for team members to participate in employee giving.
CLMA-Certified?
Yes! Millie is a Certified Leader in Matching Automation, meaning the platform is known to offer the most accessible, streamlined, and transparent matching gift experience in the industry.
Pricing
Millie charges monthly fees based on the number of employees you have.
POINT is a collaborative volunteer platform that provides local nonprofit leaders with the tech tools they need for free, while companies can use the platform to engage employees and boost their CSR programs.
Using the POINT app, companies can manage volunteerism, giving, and partnerships all in one platform that’s easy for employees to use.
When local nonprofits post volunteer opportunities, your company can easily reserve spots for team members or send the information to employees for them to sign up themselves. You can also easily send gifts through a donation tool, strengthen nonprofit partnerships, and leverage automatic reporting.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
When a company buys a subscription to POINT, a registered 501(c)(3) organization gets access to POINT’s platform for free. This allows nonprofits to easily find and manage volunteers, saving them time so they can focus their efforts elsewhere.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
Yes! POINT integrates with Double the Donation to enable auto-submission functionality. Corporate employees using POINT can enter their email addresses. Then, they’ll receive a list of organizations associated with their app profile which they can submit their match request to. From there, the request is processed automatically!
CLMA-Certified?
Yes! POINT is a Certified Leader in Matching Automation, meaning the platform is known to offer the most accessible, streamlined, and transparent matching gift experience in the industry.
Pricing
Pricing for POINT depends on the number of employees in your company. Visit their website to book a demo.
Selflessly is an all-in-one giving platform for corporate social responsibility designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses’ corporate philanthropy efforts.
This tool offers a range of solutions, including workplace giving, volunteering, gift matching, and reporting.
With Selflessly’s corporate giving software solution, businesses can better engage employees, improve their image with consumers, and support the philanthropic efforts they care about.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
Corporate gift matching is a key component of many companies’ giving efforts, making Selflessly’s donation matching tools one of its greatest assets. Plus, their partnership with Double the Donation’s 360MatchPro allows Selflessly to streamline the giving process for businesses and their employees continually!
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
Yes! Selflessly features innovative auto-submission technology made available through a seamless integration with 360MatchPro. All employees have to do is provide their corporate email address on the nonprofit’s donation confirmation screen, and the rest of the process will be completed automatically.
CLMA-Certified?
Yes! Selflessly is a Certified Leader in Matching Automation, meaning the platform is known to offer the most accessible, streamlined, and transparent matching gift experience in the industry.
Pricing
Selflessly’s dedicated team works with each customer to make sure pricing fits their needs. Visit their website to request a demo or custom pricing.
Uncommon Giving is a comprehensive corporate giving software solution that empowers businesses to manage and amplify their philanthropic efforts. Designed to streamline the process of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the platform enables companies to facilitate employee giving, manage charitable contributions, and track the impact of their donations.
With features like customizable giving options, automated payroll deductions, and detailed reporting, Uncommon Giving makes it easy for companies to integrate philanthropy into their workplace culture. Additionally, the platform fosters employee engagement by offering a wide array of giving opportunities, including matching gifts, volunteer grants, and fundraising initiatives, helping businesses align their charitable activities with their corporate values and goals.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
What makes Uncommon Giving stand out is its lightweight, intuitive solution for companies and their employees, making it easier than ever to get involved with company-sponsored philanthropy. With an easy-to-use mobile app, portable giving wallet, and powerful reporting tools, the platform streamlines the entire giving process, enhances employee engagement, and allows companies to effectively track and maximize the impact of their philanthropic efforts.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
Yes! Uncommon Giving integrates with Double the Donation’s industry-leading matching gift software to offer groundbreaking auto-submission functionality. This means employees using the tools can benefit from one-click matching gift submissions straight from their favorite charities’ giving forms.
CLMA-Certified?
Yes! Uncommon Giving has earned the CLMA designation for corporate giving software thanks to its dedication to providing seamless and accessible matching gift experiences for its users.
Pricing
Uncommon Giving has pricing that begins at $1,999/year. The platform encourages companies to get a demo to learn more and see the tools in action!
America’s Charities offers a variety of CSR tools for companies looking to grow their philanthropy programs.
Companies can choose from several software options, including three workplace giving technology solutions, special funds management (like employee assistance funds and disaster relief), and standalone services like charitable funds management and payment processing.
One of the most popular solutions, America’s Charities Engage, is an end-to-end giving and CSR solution that lets businesses manage grantmaking, donation matching, workplace giving, employee engagement, and volunteers.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
One size does not fit all, which is why America’s Charities offers a broad range of workplace giving-related services and software solutions. They have also had 40 years of experience in this field and have raised more than a half-billion dollars for tens of thousands of charities through various workplace giving programs.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
No, this platform does not yet offer matching gift auto-submission functionality.
CLMA-Certified?
No, this platform is not yet a certified leader in matching automation.
Benevity is one of the leading providers of corporate giving software, offering companies employee engagement tools.
Benevity’s platform helps companies find volunteer opportunities, set up and run volunteer grant programs, manage matching gifts, enable payroll donations, and more.
Using Benevity, your company can create a purpose-driven culture for employees, engage employees in current issues, and make participating in your social good programs easy with a mobile app.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
Benevity automates every part of your employee engagement program. This provider also offers integrations with Workday, VolunteerMatch, and Okta to provide employees with better, more convenient access.
Through the Benevity Causes portal, nonprofits gain access to corporate and individual donors and volunteers, leading to even more support from companies.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
No, this platform does not yet offer matching gift auto-submission functionality.
CLMA-Certified?
No, this platform is not yet a certified leader in matching automation.
Pricing
Contact Benevity to learn more about their services and pricing.
Bright Funds is a leading provider of corporate giving software as a service for workplace giving, volunteering, and grants management.
With a personalized, intuitive experience, Bright Funds makes it easy for your employees to do good.
Companies can set up their Bright Funds’s platform in less than a day with all the features they need to get their CSR program going. That includes matching gifts, volunteer events, custom campaigns, real-time reporting, and more. The fund model allows companies to create funds for disbursement to one or more nonprofits for maximum flexibility.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
With nearly a decade of experience, Bright Funds helps companies of all sizes multiply their impact through a comprehensive CSR platform. In addition to a seamless user experience, the platform supports global giving and helps companies save time with simple program administration, employee engagement tools, and managed donations disbursement.
Bright Funds’ integrations with other popular workplace management systems such as ADP, Okta, Workday, Zenefits, and VolunteerMatch provide a better experience while simplifying implementation.
Plus, the Bright Network is a free portal for nonprofits, allowing them to optimize workplace fundraising with digital tools such as electronic payments and donor reports.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
No, this platform does not yet offer matching gift auto-submission functionality.
CLMA-Certified?
No, this platform is not yet a certified leader in matching automation.
Pricing
Bright Funds supports companies of all sizes. Fees start at $2 per month per employee for companies under 300 employees and scale based on employee count. Contact Bright Funds for more details and register for a free 30-day trial.
CyberGrants, soon to be Bonterra, is another top corporate giving software solution that offers fully integrated tools for grants management, employee giving, volunteerism, disbursement, disaster relief, and more.
Using CyberGrants, you can create several innovative CSR programs from matching gifts and political action campaigns to charitable spending accounts.
Their real-time reporting, automated payroll, and rules-based approvals make it easy for companies to roll out social good programs and manage them efficiently.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
CyberGrants specializes in two areas: employee giving and grants management. That means if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for managing grant applications, disbursements, matching gifts, employee donations, and volunteer programs, CyberGrants is a great option.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
No, this platform does not yet offer matching gift auto-submission functionality.
CLMA-Certified?
No, this platform is not yet a certified leader in matching automation.
SmartSimple is a robust corporate giving solution that offers grant management, employee giving, matching gifts, volunteer management, volunteer grants, and more.
Using SmartSimple’s tools, you can streamline every step of your workplace giving programs, manage volunteering, administer your matching gift programs, and focus on in-kind giving.
Beyond their many corporate giving tools, SmartSimple offers detailed reports, dashboards, and maps using real-time data.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
Beyond its many robust corporate giving solutions, SmartSimple also offers a goals-tracking feature, which allows companies to track goals for each CSR and giving initiative. Define and measure your goals for all of your efforts. Then, share them with the rest of your company and its stakeholders to showcase your philanthropic impact.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
No, this platform does not yet offer matching gift auto-submission functionality.
CLMA-Certified?
No, this platform is not yet a certified leader in matching automation.
YourCause is a top corporate giving software solution for managing workplace giving, employee volunteering, grants, and more.
Boost participation and employee engagement using their CSRconnect solution, which allows companies to manage disaster relief, seasonal campaigns, year-round matching, peer-to-peer fundraising, and volunteer events.
In addition to tracking donations and hours, YourCause provides robust reporting features that allow teams to track data and recognize outstanding employee participants.
Why This Corporate Giving Software Stands Out
YourCause offers a free portal that allows verified nonprofit organizations to create and manage volunteer events, access donor information, and engage with companies and their employees. In turn, this can help your company form stronger relationships with nonprofits.
Offers Matching Gift Auto-Submission?
No, this platform does not yet offer matching gift auto-submission functionality.
CLMA-Certified?
No, this platform is not yet a certified leader in matching automation.
Pricing
Contact YourCause to request a demo and get more information about pricing.
Corporate Giving Software Trends | What We’re Seeing
Corporate giving software has become increasingly important in powering companies’ giving programs. In recent years, it’s evolved and come a long way in terms of user experience, accessibility, and functionality. And we’re still seeing and expecting big shifts as innovation continues.
Let’s walk through a few key trends that pertain to corporate giving software and how they impact the industry.
Increasing ease of use for companies, employees, and more
As corporate giving technology continues to develop, both the corporations and the nonprofit organizations they support can benefit exponentially. Meanwhile, continuously updated platforms make staying current with the latest advances in technology even easier.
Recently, corporate giving software providers have focused on elevating the UX for the backend users (i.e., the companies purchasing the tools) as well as the front-end users (i.e., corporate employees) to optimize program participation.
The best platforms are even becoming Certified Leaders in Matching Automation to further demonstrate their commitment to providing an optimal experience for employees and the nonprofits they support.
More programs and tools catering to small and mid-size businesses
Corporate giving has historically been primarily exclusive to the largest corporations. There are many reasons for this. Most prominently, the technology infrastructure used to manage CSR programs was designed with Fortune 500 and other mega companies in mind.
Now, however, more and more providers are prioritizing tools that are both accessible and affordable for smaller and mid-level companies as well. In turn, corporate giving participation has opened up to businesses of all shapes and sizes, enabling more employers to take part with ease.
Additional Corporate Giving Resources
If you’re looking to learn more about corporate giving, employee engagement, or the tools that can help you expand your CSR program, check out these resources below!
Increase Employee Engagement with Corporate Giving. Corporate giving is a surefire way to improve employee engagement. Learn how to discuss corporate giving with employees and launch a new workplace giving program.
Matching Gift Software Vendors: The Comprehensive List. Matching gift software matters for both companies and nonprofits. Nonprofits need platforms to facilitate the initial process, while companies should be mindful of CSR tools that integrate with matching gift software, making the match request process easier for employees.
Fun Fact: By working with a CLMA-certified matching gift platform, Innovative Discovery has become a Certified Leader in Matching Automation. That means it’s recognized for its dedication to providing the best possible experience for its employees participating in the program.
Fun Fact: By working with a CLMA-certified matching gift platform, Innovative Discovery has become a 
Matching gift ratio – 1:1 (or dollar for dollar)
Matching gift ratio – 1:1 (or dollar for dollar)
