They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to workplace giving, that’s certainly true! Humans are natural storytellers and seek storytelling when looking for an emotional connection to giving. The most compelling campaigns share high-quality photos, videos, and success stories with their employees to foster deep connections and demonstrate the positive impact that their gifts can make.
To build trust and credibility for your campaign and the charities in the campaign, find joyful stories that showcase the subjects in a positive, empowering light. With attention spans shrinking, it’s also important to choose stories that quickly grab a viewer’s attention and get to the heart of the impact made.
If you’re wondering what charity materials you should highlight in your workplace giving campaign, take a look at some of our favorite charity partner assets from the year. You may want to highlight these stories as you plan next year’s workplace giving campaign!
Feeling inspired? Reach out to us to gain access to these charity materials, partner with charities to share stories with your employees, and more.
Best of: Photos
We’ve loved this photo from UNICEF USA this year. It’s a simple photo but tells a great story: a donation to UNICEF USA brings food and joy to kids like Lakhan and his sister.
Charity: UNICEF USA
Description: Village: Kundaal. District: Udaipur. State: Rajasthan. Country: India. 4th February 2020. 4 years old Lakhan reacts as he plays with his sister at his house in Kundaal, Rajasthan.
Credit: © UNICEF/UNI335345/ Bhardwaj
This is a powerful, dynamic photo, perfect for showing urgency after a disaster. This is a great image to show your employees that their donation will go to urgent disaster relief efforts around the world.
Charity: Direct Relief
Description: Hurricane Dorian Relief
Credit: Direct Relief
This photo is a great visual representation of what it looks like to help empower others — in this case, an artisan achieving a happy, successful future.
Charity: CARE
Credit: CARE
Best of: Videos
From the music to the visuals, this video inspires me to take action for the next generation of girls. I feel fired up and inspired by the end!
Charity: Plan International
Description: A better world is coming. A fairer one. Where there’s no more child marriage. No more street harassment. No more staying quiet. No more.
This is a great deep dive into how exactly HIAS supports refugees around the world. It’s a bit of a longer video but showcases specifics as well as emotional stories so that employees can know exactly where their donation is going.
Charity: HIAS
Description: Every person has a right to safety, work, and education. When refugees, asylum seekers, and other displaced people find themselves in countries where they may not know the language — let alone how the legal system operates — HIAS’ legal team ensures that they know their rights, have access to protective services, and can navigate the complicated legal systems that lead to safety and security.
This video provides a great example of how a problem was solved and a community empowered, thanks to support from Action Against Hunger. This is a great option for donors that want to know about successful, innovative solutions from charities.
Charity: Action Against Hunger
Description: Action Against Hunger has introduced the Smart Water Tap project in Isiolo, Kenya, that has reduced conflict and gender-based violence in the area. By visiting an electronic kiosk and using a key fob, everyone in the community can access clean, safe water.
Best of: Charity Stories
Financial empowerment through access to credit
Charity: FINCA International
This story showcases a tangible way that donors can help people around the world grow their businesses, provide for their families, and chart their future.
Since 1984, FINCA has been on a mission to end global poverty. In the spirit of our 40th anniversary, we have set a bold and inspiring goal: to reach more people living in poverty than ever before. Last year, FINCA impacted the lives of approximately 14 million people across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Now, with renewed determination, FINCA strives to touch the lives of even more communities in need.
Despite promising technological advances, efforts to alleviate poverty are hampered by rising inflation, armed conflict, and other factors. Nearly 700 million people around the world live in extreme poverty, earning less than $1.90 a day. According to The World Bank, it is unlikely to meet the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 without exceptionally high rates of economic growth over the remainder of this decade. It remains one of the toughest challenges of our lifetime. FINCA’s response to this reality must be both strategic and tactical. We cannot do it without your support. Will you join our movement and give to our poverty eradication programs?
Invest with us in women like Margaret Mbuthia who sells blankets and women’s shoes in Nairobi, Kenya. Mbuthia is a client of Kwara, a financial empowerment platform supported by FINCA. Through Kwara, she is able to access credit easily which she then uses to grow her business.
Meet Ake
Charity: Operation Smile
This story, paired with the photo, shows such a great full-circle story of a child who was helped by Operation Smile. It explains the problem, mission, and success of the charity very clearly, and features a happy, healthy child helped!
On a day that is intended to bring a family joy, the birth of Akekapop “Ake” was met with unforeseen sadness. Ake was born with a cleft condition.
His parents were rice and cassava farmers. They neither expected his cleft lip nor knew how to treat it. Samai, Ake’s father, thought his son would be subject to painful bullying, fearing that Ake would develop an inferiority complex. With many misconceptions surrounding cleft in low-income countries, members of his family believed that a cleft condition was bad luck. Yet, it wasn’t long before Ake’s family discovered Operation Smile Thailand. Following their bus ride to reach the surgical program site, Ake and his family met more parents and children affected by cleft. These interactions helped make them feel more confident that Operation Smile would take care of their son. Prior to his surgery, Ake’s family rarely took photos of him. Today, Samai and his wife said they proudly take many photos of him and his new smile.
Samai attributes his son’s happiness to the medical volunteers who devote their time and skills to changing the lives of children like his son so that they can be treated with kindness and accepted by their communities.
When asked if he wanted to say anything to Operation Smile, Samai said, “I was very happy that Operation Smile Thailand had a mission to provide free surgery. Earlier, I was very worried. Now, Ake got surgery and he’s very happy. He would like to say thanks to medical volunteers and the Operation Smile team who help create smiles for Thai kids.”
Clean water for a family in Bangladesh
Charity: WaterAid
This story really illuminates the hard choices many people have to make to keep their families safe — and how a simple change can have lasting effects. Paired with a dynamic photo, this is a great story of success from WaterAid.
Arsenic and excessive salt from rising sea levels poisoned Julia’s young family with every sip of water they took. The pond near the rural village where Julia, her husband and their two children live in Bangladesh is their primary source of water. But it was contaminated by the poisonous carcinogen arsenic and so high in salinity, the entire family was at risk of hypertension and high blood pressure.
But Julia only had two choices: Either collect the pond water she knew was making her family sick or travel miles from her village to pump drinking water from a distant well, which caused incredible hardship. If she chose to go to the well, Julia had to carry heavy jars that were difficult to lift and caused her long-term physical pain. She also had to walk miles to and from the well, which could take all day, instead of caring for her two young children, Priota and Tuli. Every time she left her children behind, her heart broke. As she carried the empty jars she would fill to quench her family’s thirst, she wished that finding clean water wasn’t so hard. Every family in their village was suffering.
Then, their lives changed forever because of support from WaterAid donors who believe that everyone — no matter where they live — should be able to access clean drinking water. WaterAid has a technical team of engineers who specialize in solving problems like Julia’s. As part of a large-scale initiative to ensure no one goes without clean water, we are working in three of the most water insecure districts in Bangladesh to pilot appropriate technology to meet the specific needs of each community. In Julia’s village, we are using a simple, yet powerful technology called a pond sand filter. The pond sand filter pumps water from the pond and passes it through several chambers containing sand and gravel, which treats the raw water and removes contaminants. The water supplied through a pond sand filter is free of arsenic and salt and suitable for consumption.
This simple change has radically transformed the lives of everyone in Julia’s village. Instead of fearing sickness with every sip, they are confident their water is safe and clean. Instead of spending hours collecting water, they can care for their families and improve their livelihoods. This project is just one example of how donations from WaterAid supporters are being turned into technology that is making transformational change — getting clean water to a thirsty world.
Thank you to WaterAid, FINCA International, Operation Smile, HIAS, Plan International, Action Against Hunger, CARE, Direct Relief, and UNICEF USA for providing content for this blog.
