IYCMI: 5 Steps to Map Out Your Employee Giving Campaign

On Tuesday, Aug. 30 we kicked off the 2022 workplace giving season with an interactive 5 Steps to Map Out Your Employee Giving Campaign webinar for campaign leaders, managers and team members. In case you missed it, keep reading for a recap of the information shared and to get started launching and effectively navigating your best campaign season ever!

Step 1: Begin with the end in mind

Our team has a saying: Successful campaigns don’t just happen. Start by envisioning the type of impact or success you and your organization want to achieve at the conclusion of your workplace giving campaign. This could be in terms of a dollar goal, a percentage of participation, a certain number of charities supported, or whatever campaign results you and your team envision. That desired result will help dictate your plan and will be the driving force motivating your actions, events and activities. 

To help get you started, here are some factors to consider as you envision and plan:

• What were last year’s results? Were you, your leadership and organization happy with the results?
• Does your organization set fundraising goals? Maybe this is the perfect year for a stretch goal.
• How about establishing a meaningful, engaging theme?
• Do you have active campaign dates and have those dates been communicated to everyone at your organization?
• How will you kick off the campaign?
• What’s the best method for communicating with all employees? Some employees we’ve spoken with have shared they don’t hear much about their campaigns anymore. 
• How do you celebrate the end of the campaign season and thank everyone involved?

It may sound like a lot, but remember, successful campaigns don’t just happen.

Step 2: Don’t reinvent the wheel

If you’ve worked on employee giving campaigns before, you have your list of what you did last year and know how to replicate it. But there’s probably a few things you meant to get to that fell off your radar, or maybe you didn’t quite reach your goal with last year’s strategy. There’s no need to build new elements from scratch when we have all the resources that you need in our Employee Giving Hub.

There you’ll find:

Training Guides that will

• Help your coordinators get comfortable and confident approaching their colleagues and inviting them to give.
  • Aid you in engaging different generations in your workplace.
  • Show you how to create a diverse and inclusive campaign.
  • Include quizzes for PD hours (if needed).

Engagement tools that you can

• Pick and choose from event ideas, volunteer activities, games and more to build an engaging and exciting campaign.

Cause Kits that

• Offer you everything you need to present different causes to the donors so they can learn about charities and the work they do.

Marketing materials so you can easily

• Select photos, videos, dollar statements and moving stories to paint a picture for your employees.
  • Communicate impact with our charities’ materials.

Access the Employee Giving Hub here.

Step 3: Stay engaged and proactive

So, you’ve thought through your game plan and have the resources to get things started, but it’s important to think creatively about how you’re going to meet your goals and keep your employees engaged throughout the campaign. We can help you stay proactive by laying out different touchpoints you can use throughout the season. 

Let’s start with the big one – events! They are the number one way to connect your employees to your campaign; they are fun and engaging and give you the opportunity to share more about the campaign and how employees can make their pledge. 

Employee giving campaigns are of course all about raising funds for important causes and charities – and events are a great chance to highlight that need, but they’re also about community building. As many of us are well into virtual or hybrid work life, office culture has changed. We have to invest more effort to build connections between employees and events have a high pay off for that. 

There are an endless number of ways to host events effectively – our team has seen deep, meaningful updates from charities responding in places like Ukraine and Afghanistan, but we’ve also seen fun contests like throwing pies in the face of senior leaders and trivia nights. Depending on you and your organization, you can choose the ones that feel right for you.

The next step to staying engaged and proactive is to think about the marketing of your campaign. People need to hear a message seven times before they will take action. So you really need to reach people across different channels and be creative with your messaging to ensure that your employees are taking that next step to pledging. Utilize emails, blog posts, intranet sites, social media, flyers, Teams/Slack or any other channel available to reach your employees. 

In these communications you’ll want to:

• Tell stories about cause areas. Emotional storytelling will motivate people to give generously. Utilize infographics or dollar buy statements to show impact, and share personal and charity stories – videos are especially great for this! 
• Communicate urgency.Getting urgency across in your message is essential. People are switching from phones, to tablets, to computers around 27 times in an hour.  Your message needs to stand out and communicate the need. 
• Keep it simple.Avoid overcomplicating your message and stick to the high points. Thanks to texting and instant messages, people are used to short, quick, and efficient ways of communicating. Getto the point simply and directly.
• Say thank you.People value having their contributions recognized publicly.  Note their good deeds, THANK THEM and engage with them often. If they become passionate about a cause, they’ll have the ability to influence their peers.

We also suggest using Cause of the Week or Month promotions, a “Cause Wall” (which can be done in person at your organization or virtually on your internal website) and observance day celebrations. We see a lot of success with these promotions as it gives you fun frameworks to promote different charities and give employees ideas for what causes to learn more about and consider pledging to. Our Employee Giving Hub contains all the items you need to implement these promotions.

Step 4: Know the players on your team

Regardless of whether you signed up for this role or were volun-told to manage your employee giving campaign, remember that you are not alone!

In fact, consider us a part of your team. Global Impact is here to support you and assist your campaign efforts. Stay connected with us by sharing updates, successes and highlights of your campaign season – we would love to feature your campaign on our social media channels. Also reach out to us to problem-solve some of your frustrations or those unanticipated detours that tend to come along the way.

Additionally, within your organization there are plenty of places to go for support and ideas. Many campaigns organize formal campaign volunteers (known as key workers or ambassadors). These are folks you can tap to help you promote the campaign, plan events, design emails and track down last-minute donors.

We also like to think of colleagues as champion campaign supporters – or informal volunteers. Who are the fun, energetic party planners just looking for an opportunity to host an event? Is there a young person on your team who always talks about boosting your organization’s social media presence? These are the people you can go to for help on specific projects that you might not have the capacity to take on but would like to accomplish during your campaign.

Leadership support is another crucial component to a successful campaign. It helps set the tone and encourage giving. People like to see that leadership is invested and participating in the campaign themselves.

Finally, think of the charitable organizations in your campaign as a resource. They rely on the unrestricted, year-round funding that your campaigns bring in, so they are more than happy to help! Global Impact can streamline the process for you and connect you with the charities that have great resources, event ideas and more.

Step 5: Enjoy the journey

This is a great time to breathe, relax and enjoy the journey. We cannot emphasize enough the importance your role is in the success of your organization’s employee giving campaign. Planning and preparation are necessary, but your energy, enthusiasm, determination and commitment to causes are instrumental in effectively executing your plan and inspiring others to join you in giving.

This role in organizing your employee giving campaign may be in addition to an already heavy workload, so on behalf of our charities, we thank you for your efforts. Know that you are making a difference in this world and every dollar you raise has the potential to change someone’s life.

Whether this is your first year organizing your employee giving campaign or you’ve served for many years, this is truly a worthwhile effort and a unique opportunity. There’s an unexplainable joy in giving. So, your final step is to have fun as you share this opportunity with everyone at your organization and invite them to join you in a spirit of giving. You’ve got this! And you’ve got us.

Call 800-836-4620 or email us to set up your campaign strategy session. Remember we are here to support you and are cheering you on! Watch the full webinar recording here.