What will the workplace giving season look like this year, and how can you make it the best it can be? On Thursday Aug. 26, Global Impact’s corporate partners and employee engagement professionals from across the U.S. gathered for a webinar to answer this question.

In “Tools for Leading a Successful Employee Giving Campaign,” we equipped our partners with the resources they need to make this year a success. Here’s what you need to know from the webinar:

Recap of 2020 learnings and successes
We kicked off the session by looking back at five trends from the 2020 employee giving season – and how those trends will shape this year’s campaigns.

Overview of Global Impact’s Employee Giving Hub
The Hub was created for employee engagement professionals, campaign volunteers and all others involved in “inspiring greater giving.” It contains a wide variety of resources including volunteer opportunities, campaign trainings and digital marketing tools. In looking at the most used resources in the Hub, we see that companies are very interested in engaging remote employees and how to connect them (virtually) to the causes they care about. The top resources are: virtual employee engagement opportunities, the training on planning strategic virtual events and our list of virtual event ideas.

Introducing new resources for 2021
We are excited to share some new resources that will help you engage employees in this year’s campaign. Cause Kits provide users with a new way to engage donors around a cause, like women & girls or clean water. There are 11 causes to explore, ensuring everyone’s interests are captured! Speaking of the cause areas, we have two new causes this year: social justice and the environment. Our Charity Alliance partners have worked on these issues for decades, and in response to 2020 donor trends we decided to make them officially part of Global Impact’s work. Also new for 2021 are resources to help your employee resource groups and additional emergency response information for when disasters strike. We hope you will check out all of these new items!

Explanation of campaign trainings
Did you know that Global Impact offers complimentary training sessions to all campaign partners? (If you aren’t yet a partner, reach out to discuss.) We have years of experience delivering trainings to campaign leadership and volunteers. Some of our top trainings include:

  • Planning strategic virtual events
  • Making the ask
  • Motivating the next generations to give
  • The personalities of giving
  • Engagement 101

New for 2021, we have a training for “creating a diverse and inclusive campaign.” This covers the benefits of building a diverse and inclusive giving campaign for your employees. Participants learn how to engage new perspectives and diversify campaign staff, create stronger connections with your employees and ensure that campaigns represent diverse interests, charities and causes.

Companies can also leverage Global Impact’s recorded trainings and sample quizzes to create a campaign curriculum that employees can easily follow and track within their broader development plan.

Our campaign partners love using these trainings:

“Global Impact has been a great resource to our Robinson Cares Committees! By leading informational trainings, our committees were inspired to think creatively about how to drive greater engagement through their workplace volunteer and giving activities.” – Rachel Schwalbach, C.H. Robinson

Presentation from guest charities
We were joined by two guest speakers from Global Impact’s Charity Alliance: Sarah Lowy from Americares and Madden Manion from CARE.

Americares shared an overview of their work as a health-focused relief and development organization that saves lives and improves health for people affected by poverty or disaster. They spotlighted their work in Haiti and how they are responding to the recent earthquake by rushing to deliver first aid supplies and deploying additional staff to support the relief efforts. Support Americares and other leading charities working on the ground: Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund. View all Americares Crisis Alerts.

CARE gave an overview of their organization that works in nearly 100 countries. Their mission is to lift women and girls out of poverty. During the Afghanistan crisis, they want to continue helping women and girls access education. It is their goal to support 600,000 women and girls through health and nutrition services, education, and protection from gender-based violence. Support CARE and other leading charities helping the Afghan people: Afghanistan Refugee Crisis Fund. Take a look at the toolkits Madden shared, and advocate for Afghanistan with CARE Action.

Preview of upcoming opportunities

  • Cause of the month: Our Cause of the Month program uses social media, the Give Global Blog and other digital channels to promote a select group of charities leading efforts in the featured cause areas.
  • Women and Girls event: As part of our Women and Girls theme In October, we will be hosting a special virtual event featuring some of our Charity Alliance members. More details about this event will be coming soon, so stay tuned!
  • Corporate Impact Conversations: In partnership with the corporate community, Global Impact co-facilitates small group, peer-to-peer discussions with colleagues on trending topics in the philanthropic sector. The purpose of this group is to offer a safe and supportive community to connect, share best practices and discuss challenges. It is also an opportunity to offer suggestions around topics that impact philanthropy and employee engagement. Our next session will be hosted in October on the topic employee giving.
  • Specific charity events: Global Impact regularly features events put on by our charity partners through our social media channels and in our monthly newsletter.
    • Children International Documentary Film Screening: Experience the empowerment of children and the transformation of lives. Join Children International for a screening of their captivating story about the children of the Colombia Wind Orchestra. You will witness firsthand how music transforms the lives of these young people.

We hope you enjoyed “Tools for Leading a Successful Employee Giving Campaign!” If you missed the webinar, register to view a recording. Reach out to our team to discuss how we can help you achieve your CSR goals.