It’s easy to list the many fantastic benefits of employee giving campaigns: giving back to others, building connections with colleagues, meeting corporate social responsibility goals and creating a better work environment, just to name a few. They also provide staff an opportunity to develop new professional skill sets, like leadership development, tailoring messaging to different audiences or planning engaging events. Campaign coordinators and volunteers have the opportunity to formally develop these skills when they participate in trainings hosted by their organization or partners like Global Impact.

The value-add of employee giving campaigns cannot be understated, and they’re even more important now as COVID-19 has forced many offices to go virtual. Campaigns around the world have recognized this and are adapting and moving to online platforms to accommodate our new normal while continuing to advance social impact.

Though necessary, making this switch may seem overwhelming. That’s why we launched our new Virtual Employee Giving Hub – a centralized collection of resources, tools, templates and more to help shift your campaign to a virtual environment and meet your campaign goals.

As part of the hub, we’re offering five turnkey campaign training seminars and a number of other related and vital resources. These trainings are always available for on-demand viewing and can be scheduled into your campaign preparation as needed.

Global Impact can also offer customized trainings to fit your campaign’s unique needs and schedule. For instance, we can host live virtual sessions that engage the audience and help them work through the trainings together. If there’s something specific that your campaign needs help troubleshooting or developing, Global Impact is here to help.

By offering campaign trainings, you can easily prepare volunteers with the concrete skills and professional development tools to step into the role of a campaign volunteer position. In addition, it helps your teams – both new and returning volunteers – connect and strengthen relationships for working together throughout your campaign.

Global Impact’s Virtual Employee Giving Hub features the following training videos:

  • Engagement 101 – for volunteers and coordinators wanting to increase employee engagement, ensure that they are using fundraising best practices and build out a strategic campaign. Remember, your volunteers are not fundraising or engagement specialists. This session explains the benefits of employee giving campaigns and basic fundraising principles to help bridge that knowledge gap and ensure a successful campaign.
  • Making the Ask – for new volunteers who are asking colleagues to give for the first time and for all volunteers looking for guidance as they ask colleagues to give during this year’s unique campaign season. Asking for money can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t need to be. This session addresses those fears and offers an easy-to-use framework for asking colleagues to give.
  • Planning Strategic Virtual Events – for coordinators needing to shift their campaign events to a virtual environment while keeping them engaging and impactful. The virtual event space is new to all of us. Here we share best practices and case studies of successfully executed virtual events.
  • Personalities of Giving – for the coordinators and volunteers that want to target their campaign communications so that all of their colleagues feel inspired to give. This training supports building a more robust communications plan to ensure that you reach all employees with powerful and inspiring messaging.
  • Motivating the Younger Generations to Give – for volunteers whose organizations have a lot of young staff and are hoping to engage them in this year’s campaign, maybe for the first time. This training offers resources to engage different generations in the workplace.

We also offer a set of quizzes to support your employees’ record of completion that can be used as part of a broader training or professional development program. These quizzes are available on our virtual hub or can be uploaded to your learning platform. Are you an employee engagement expert or repeat campaign volunteer? Test your professional skills prior to the trainings and see how you do!

Here are things to keep in mind when scheduling trainings:

  • Determine the best format – Hosting live versus recorded sessions depends on your company culture. Global Impact’s recorded sessions are under 25 minutes long and can be uploaded to your intranet or other platforms that host specific campaign volunteer details. With live sessions, set aside at least 45 minutes to allow for discussion, activities and possible goal setting.
  • Engage campaign leadership – Leadership acknowledgement and support of campaign volunteers can lead to increased engagement in your campaign because employees know their efforts won’t go unrecognized and feel confident making campaign responsibilities a priority.
  • Consider timing – Depending on your needs, determine the best time of day to host these trainings and look into whether they can be incorporated into other existing standing meetings to ensure easy participation.
  • Add coaching calls – Use coaching calls as an add-on to your trainings for a more in-depth discussion of your campaign.

Take a moment to reflect on the skills and experiences that could help you grow in your career. Chances are, there’s something in one of these trainings that can be useful to you! Whether your organization is looking to bolster your employee’s professional development programming or you are a campaign coordinator hoping to run a successful employee engagement opportunity this year, we encourage you to utilize these offerings at any time during your campaign.

Our campaign training materials don’t stop at these videos and quizzes – be sure to check out our Virtual Employee Giving Hub for resources like campaign planning worksheets, virtual event ideas, employee engagement opportunities and much more!