Friday, April 19, 2013

Making it Easy for Staff to Participate in Employee Giving

By Sebastian Troup


When you make your company's workplace giving campaigns easy for employees to participate in, their engagement will increase dramatically. Here are some basic strategies you can use to make it easier for your employees to give:

Payroll deductions can be a handy way to provide employees with an opportunity to give. This has several benefits, not the least of which is that money is being given to a worthy cause. Because money is taken out of the pre-tax income of your employee's paycheck, it is tracked and shows up on tax forms. This means that employees don't need to keep receipts to document this donation for their taxes. Sometimes, making a big financial donation is a difficult thing to ask of employees, but they might be enthusiastic about taking a small amount out of each paycheck to support a charity.

One thing that really generates enthusiasm for charitable giving is an employer matching program. This simply means that the company matches charitable donations from employers dollar for dollar. When employees know that the management has decided to match funds, it sends a message that the company is dedicated to helping others on every level. This is easy to track if employees donate via payroll deduction, but certainly is fairly simple to track if an employee has made a donation outside of payroll.

Another way to make it easy for employees to give is to offer them an online source where donations can be given and tracked. This could be done in several ways, such as incorporating a page on your company's internal website where employees can donate. You also could place a donation page on the public website, which not only can showcase how much your employees have raised, but also encourage others to join in. These days, creating a safe, secure online donation site is an easy process, and your employees also will find online donations far easier than filling out paperwork and sending a check somewhere.

Spread the word via email and use social media to your advantage, as well. Send out a monthly email, relating information about the corporate charitable plan and provide concrete updates that show how employees are truly helping important causes. You should also be sure to post updates on Reddit, Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter about all of your charitable endeavors. Include links so that social media users can learn more about the programs you support.

Chances are, not every employee in your organization sits in front of a computer all day. If your company relies exclusively on electronic means to engage with staff for employee giving, you may miss out on valuable contributions from a significant part of your workforce. Getting some face time with these employees to present their opportunities for workplace giving is a great way to get around this challenge. Sometimes you'll need to have these employees fill out donation cards for someone else to enter into your electronic system, but this extra step is well worth the effort.

One component of charitable giving that employers sometimes forget is to simply thank the employees for supporting a cause. It doesn't really matter if they are supporting the company-wide charitable efforts or contributing to another charity near and dear to their hearts. What matters is the spirit of giving which should definitely by lauded by employers.




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