Author: Jana Taylor

7 Common Challenges of Current Employee Giving and Volunteering Programs

Happily for society, giving back is more important now than ever; a corollary is that people have greater expectations of companies to help them give back, both as consumers and as employees.  A growing number of companies, aware of the link between workplace giving and employee engagement, have a heightened interest in employee giving and volunteering programs. 

Mounting research shows that employees want to work for companies that care, that social responsibility is a consideration in employees’ decisions to join, stay with or leave companies, and that there is a link between social responsibility and engaged, productive employees.  This is especially important for certain segments – like Millennials and Moms. Nearly 70% of Americans say causes factor into where to work; for Moms that increases to 79% and for Millennials to 87% (2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study). So if part of your people strategy is geared toward any of these segments, this is pretty important stuff!

Despite this increased demand, the employee element of corporate giving often lags in attention and innovation behind the focus given to the community and consumer-facing aspects of corporate philanthropy.  In this article, we look at seven common challenges with current workplace giving and volunteering programs. 

1. “We’re All in this Together” – Wait, are We?  Lack of Alignment between Corporate Giving and Employee Giving

Let’s start with the goal of workplace giving programs (from a corporate perspective).  Let’s face facts: it’s not purely altruistic.  It’s also about employee engagement, extending your brand, and resonating positively with employees and the community at large. 

Here’s a common scenario:  on the one hand, the company has a corporate philanthropy or community investment strategy that clearly outlines its goals and the focus areas or pillars of causes that are important as a company (e.g.: Health, Environment, Kids, etc.); on the other hand, the workplace giving program for employees is a distinct program that doesn’t include the focus areas or pillars  (i.e.:  the workplace giving program doesn’t communicate what the corporate focus areas/CI pillars are, nor does it provide ways and reasons for employees to easily support the corporate focus areas/CI pillars).  In some cases, the workplace giving program is a third-party campaign, so workplace giving is not delivered under the company’s brand.  A lack of alignment between corporate giving and employee giving means companies are missing an opportunity to connect with their employees and build giving and strategic CSR into their corporate culture.  Not to mention bringing corporate giving into the community through your employees – because your employees are your brand!

So companies need to design their workplace giving programs to tightly align with their corporate and strategic CSR/CI goals.  You don’t need to select the “killer cause” to achieve this: your organization can create portfolios of causes that align with your philanthropic or community investment pillars, regional strategies and goals.  Promote them to employees with featured campaigns, blog posts and real-time matching offers. 

2. We’re Stuck! - Stagnant Employee Participation Rates

People care more than ever about supporting causes and have greater expectations of companies to help them do this.  Yet, many companies note that employee participation rates for their workplace giving programs are stuck at about 20% and even if they are slightly higher they rarely improve year-over-year. 

The participation rate is an easy measure, but a potentially misleading one.  Moving the needle on employee engagement is only possible if employees find value in the initiatives. 

Clearly, if participation rates are low, there’s a problem (since engagement is part of the goal).  And why might this be?  Maybe it’s because it’s not dead easy or convenient to give or volunteer through existing programs because of a clunky or cumbersome tool; maybe it’s because your program is “set and forget” and not interactive or year-round; maybe it’s because companies don’t actively engage and motivate employees to participate, and have endorsement and buy-in from the executive; maybe it’s because some technology solutions used in corporate workplace giving programs have user interfaces that were built in the 1990s (hello, are these compelling to employees used to Facebook and LinkedIn?). 

Whatever the cause (pardon the pun), there is no reason to be satisfied with low participation rates.

Having said that, if participation rates are reasonably high and they’re a function of arm-twisting and pressure, the engagement element will of course be absent.  Whether it’s poor communication or lack of senior leadership support, a workable solution must address how one generates sincere, passionate participation across a broad demographic of users.

3. Flexible Choices (for Employers & Employees): They’re Missing!

A lot of times companies ask us: what is the “killer cause”?  And we think we know that answer.  It’s not some magical big brand charity that cuts across every demographic; it’s much simpler than that.  The killer cause is the cause or causes that matters to each employee.  Giving is a very personal decision; existing programs tend to give to established large charities selected by upper management.  Let’s be frank: what is the likelihood that your employees are going to get misty-eyed about donating to the CEO’s favorite charity as opposed to one that resonates with them personally?

Since greater employee participation is a key goal of workplace giving programs, and considering that employees have greater expectations of companies to help them give back to causes that are important to them, expanded choice programs help companies address these increased expectations.  And they also help companies increase the business and social impacts from their workplace giving programs. 97% of companies with expanded choice workplace giving programs stated that it increases employee participation and 66% reported that it increases employee morale. (Source: LBG Associates, Workplace Giving Works, Make it Work for You, 2010)

The element of choice is not only key for users; the company should want flexibility as well.  With the right tool, companies can create their own branded portfolios of causes under pillars, by geography, by division, whatever., and these same causes can be the focus of both customer and employee-facing programs.  The more flexible and nimble the delivery model and technology, the more strategic (and effective) the program can be… 

4. The Curse of the “Giving Season”… Make it Year ‘Round!

Existing giving campaigns/programs tend to be seasonal, often limited to one annual Fall campaign, but engagement is an ongoing, year-round goal.  Employees are passionate about causes that matter to them all year long, not just in November.  So for the other three seasons, companies are missing out on an important way to engage their employees and extend their brand in a meaningful way. 

Developing a culture of giving back requires workplace giving programs that engage people year round.  Creating a platform that can accommodate annual campaigns but provides easy-to-administer ongoing opportunities to give back is critical. (Besides, what’s with this “giving season” thing; does anyone think that charities only need money only once-a-year?).

A related challenge is the lack of responsiveness in most workplace giving programs. Many workplace giving programs currently in place are unable to quickly address giving needs that arise in a dynamic environment, whether those needs stem from disaster relief requirements, local or employee giving needs.  

5. Existing Matching Programs Can Be Optimized

We all know that matching increases participation (in the order of 20%!), but in most corporate programs matching - if it exists at all - is treated as a discrete act, separate from the act of giving or volunteering and often with an extremely cumbersome application process.  (Many programs require employees to submit their donation tax receipts or signed confirmation letters to be approved for corporate matching/grants after the fact, which not only decreases the impact/goodwill intended to flow from matching, it adds additional steps to the process that increase the likelihood that employees won’t actually participate.)

Organizations may be understandably reluctant to enable empowered, real time matching offers because of the administrative burden that so often accompanies them. It need not be so. 

Matching is a key way companies can encourage employees to give to causes that matter corporately – since matching increases participation, companies can use matching strategically to incent employees to give to causes (specific charities, groups of charities, themes or types of causes) that the company has decided are important to support. 

6. Manual Is Not Magnificent

Most existing workplace giving models have one or more manual components that make it difficult from a resource management perspective to self-administer any kind of program that is likely to succeed – especially if you don’t have an army of community investment personnel.  (And don’t talk to me about your technology solution: an online pledge form does not automate workplace giving.  It’s time to move beyond once a year “set and forget” digital pledge forms!)  

Manual processes mean time-lags, paper forms (either all the way or somewhere along the line), huge resource costs, inflexible programs and a general PITA.  And outsourcing a (fully or partially) manual workplace giving program may alleviate the administrative burden – but it will be costly!  Wouldn’t that money be better spent on promotion and social programs?  Further, in a world where people live much of their lives online (either at their computer or, increasingly, their mobile devices), where most people bank online, buy online and even socialize online, employees are less likely to take part in a manual or clunky online process; one where the paperwork pain factor taxes their motivation to give. 

Even if you have or pay for the required army of folks, manual processes are costly, error-prone, and make it difficult to accommodate flexibility or choice in execution.  The good news is, when it comes to new, automated approaches to workplace giving, technology is your friend: there are new approaches that can automate entire programs, greatly reducing your administrative requirements (and costs, which brings us to the final “sin”!)

7. It’s the Money, Honey: Current Programs are Too Costly

Fairly consistently, we’re hearing that current workplace giving programs and technology solutions are too expensive, whether it’s a home-grown solution or third party provider.   Custom built solutions designed to address some of the above issues are cost-prohibitive for all but the largest organizations (and even then, they struggle to stay current – where are the mobile interfaces?!).  All required functionality is built into the front end, and most back-end processing is still largely manual – whether outsourced or done in-house.  This makes it difficult for companies in the mid-market to afford to implement a solution, and difficult to achieve the efficiencies on volume that should drive costs down. 

But efficiencies and cost aside, engagement through workplace giving shouldn’t be available only to individuals working for large companies.  As we said earlier, it need not be so.

About the Author:­­­­­­­­­­­

Jana Taylor is the VP Marketing for Benevity Social Ventures, Inc., a software company helps businesses better manage their social good programs, including community investment and employee giving & volunteering programs.  Jana has a passion for social change and a belief that businesses can engage their customers and employees to give back and deliver both concrete business benefits as well as ignite grassroots giving to make a positive change in the world.