Giving Research & Insights: Key Insights & Actions
Research into workplace giving allows us to gain a more holistic understanding of emerging workforce trends and community expectations and an appreciation of the corporation’s role in philanthropy. Our studies explore why individuals give at work and insights that can inform business and charitable organisational approaches to engaging donors in the workplace.
Key Insights 2024
- Failing To Involve the Workforce Is a Failing Strategy
- Workplace Giving Brings Company DNA Back to Life
- Use The KISS Principle – Offer Simplicity in Giving
- ESG? It’s Time to Focus on the S
- Volunteering: Dollar Match, Not Matchmaking
Key Actions for Insight #1 ‘Failing to Involve the Workforce Is a Failing Strategy’
60% of workplaces have workplace giving programs, 80% of people already give directly to charities, and 1.5% of workers are giving through their workplace. The missed opportunity to increase the dollar amount through regular giving and adding corporate matching is significant.
The key actions for workplace giving stakeholders are:
- Corporates to ensure an engaging program is in place and tell your employees about it
- Charities to communicate with their general donor base about the opportunity to have their existing donation doubled through regular workplace giving
- Employees to ask for workplace giving and matching from their employer.
Key Actions for Insight #2 ‘Workplace Giving Brings Company DNA Back to Life’
Given the top reason for low uptake in workplace giving programs is lack of awareness, Workplace Giving Australia recommended a point of choice approach to ensure all employees are aware and understand the benefits so they can make a collective difference to causes they care about.
Key actions to set up a ‘point of choice’ in a workplace giving program:
- During employee onboarding, include a mandatory question that must be answered before moving on to complete the induction process
- Use your existing HR/People and Culture platforms to facilitate the point of choice
- Reinforce this with a people element: include in an early conversation that can help answer any questions about the program and increase trust.
Key Actions for Insight #3 ‘Use the KISS Principle – Offer Simplicity in Giving’
Both corporates and charities need to understand that there is a unique relationship that charities have with donors in workplace giving programs and it is not necessarily the traditional route of communication.
There is a perceived ‘barrier’ with the employer becoming the main point of contact with the beneficiaries of the program, and donors need ways to interact and connect with their charities to attract and retain the engagement within the program.
Key actions to offer simplicity in giving:
- Simple and straightforward sign-up process
- Create an engagement and impact communication plan within corporate and charity partnerships for your workplace giving program
- Set up a ‘marketplace’ or day where charities can meet your people to connect and share their impact stories.
Key Actions for Insight #4 ‘ESG? It’s Time to Focus on the S’
- Review current ESG strategies and understand where the emphasis is sitting
- Create a stakeholder group that involves ‘S’ departments – People & Culture, Marketing, Branding and other relevant departments, to ensure that people become the centre of decision making
- Present findings to Boards or decision-making committees and bring all parties along this critical journey.
Key Actions for Insight #5 ‘Volunteering: Dollar Matching, Not Matchmaking’
Volunteering requirements for corporates and volunteering needs for charities are not always aligned. It is important to understand the motivation or outcome and the initial impulse to seek volunteering opportunities.
Key actions to ensure your volunteering activity provides better outcomes for all stakeholders:
- Consider what volunteering means to your organisation and what the motivations are
- Are there alternative ways to provide engagement with charitable causes or beneficiaries of your program to encourage uptake in giving?
- Enable a matching program for individuals’ efforts in eligible volunteering activities.