We offer nonprofit organizations a simple, affordable, plug and play mobile fundraising solution. Our full suite of mobile services will help your organization inspire, engage, and activate new supporters using mobile phones. Starting at just $69, the mobile platform offers real-time tracking, reporting, campaign creation, and mobile message broadcasting.
Get the most out of your story and storytellers. By giving you the ability to take advantage of immediate, impulsive, and emotion-driven donations, mobile fundraising provides you with the technology you need to get the most out of your story and your storytellers.
Increase your fundraising potential. Whether your mobile fundraising campaigns are driven by word of mouth, social media, or large scale marketing efforts, Causecast Mobile Fundraising provides cutting edge mobile tools and services to engage new donors, reconnect with existing ones, and increase your fundraising potential!
Causecast Mobile Fundraising
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There are plenty of reasons employees jump from nonprofits to work in the private sector. While the benefit of improving a community through a nonprofit’s work is unparalleled in the corporate space, long hours and pay differences can prompt nonprofit employees to start exploring private sector job opportunities. So why is this important to your recruitment strategy? The answer, in short, is corporate responsibility.
More and more companies are realizing these days that corporate responsibility is great for business. Companies like Toms, LinkedIn, and Cisco have all integrated corporate philanthropy into their business models. Companies that invest in corporate philanthropy do so in a number of ways such as matching donations to nonprofits, organizing employee volunteer drives, and integrating cause marketing into their product offerings. Corporate responsibility is becoming an expected added value for consumers. When you buy a cup of Starbucks coffee, or a pair of Toms shoes, you know a portion of those proceeds are going to a good cause. And that makes consumers more likely to build long and lasting relationships with these companies.
According to Ryan Scott, CEO of the Causecast Corporate Philanthropy platform, “Patagonia, The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry’s have carved their entire brand identities from their principled positions around ethical business and good corporate citizenship…and the dedicated following that has resulted. And in the cutthroat race to hire top talent (even amidst a down economy), CSR is crucial; amongst Millenials, 92% want to work for a socially responsible company.”
So what does this have to do with hiring nonprofit employees?
Foster a Socially Responsible Environment
Just throwing money at social issues isn’t going to build the trust and reputation that creates long and lasting relationships with consumers. A socially responsible company needs socially responsible employees.
Companies often devote a significant percentage of their overall corporate giving through employee-centric corporate giving programs. For instance, many companies match employee donations to nonprofits or provide grants to nonprofits that their employees volunteer for. But all of this first requires employees who value giving to charitable causes monetarily or by donating their time.
And that’s why hiring nonprofit employees is great. Many people in the field have a great passion and commitment to social responsibility already. When one of your employees does good, your company looks good.
Nonprofit employees also provide great networking opportunities and a specialized knowledge base. If your company is new in the social responsibility game, former nonprofit employees can provide invaluable expertise about the world of nonprofits and social change. And it doesn’t hurt that their old colleagues can make valuable contacts in the nonprofit world.
Bring Passion and Commitment to Your Company
Let’s face it, most people don’t work for nonprofits because they dream of getting rich and famous. People get involved in nonprofits because they care. It’s that sort of passion and ethos that can be rare when looking for new hires.
Nonprofit employees are team-workers who, while having personal drive, aren’t in it solely for themselves. It’s a vision of the greater good that drove them to work in nonprofits in the first place and will lead them to work for what’s good for the company, rather just themselves.
Drawing in Nonprofit Employees.
Certainly nonprofit employees aren’t all saints, but if you create a strong reputation of corporate responsibility, or are working to build one, your future hire will be able to bring that drive and passion to the workplace.
As mentioned earlier, many companies offer volunteer grants, match donations, and offer “days of service.” According to Chris Jarvis at Realized Worth, “employee volunteering programs increase engagement levels at work when it connects to an individual’s need for meaning and accomplishment.” Not only do these programs create an environment of social responsibility among your existing employees, but they will draw in more socially responsible employees.
If you don’t offer any of these programs, get started. Entice interested new hires that have a background in nonprofits with the ability to sit in on meetings for your company’s corporate responsibility policy and goals. Many potential employees are looking for these values in any employer, so don’t get left behind.
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
John F. Kennedy’s inaugural words will never ring as true than during National Volunteer Week, which this year falls on April 21-27. First instituted in 1974 by President Nixon, National Volunteer Week is a time to celebrate the power and social impact of service. This year’s theme is “Celebrating People in Action,” honoring those who take action to solve significant problems in their communities.
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that leads United We Serve, President Obama’s national call to service initiative, Americans are volunteering more than ever. 2011 saw the highest number of U.S. volunteers in five years; 64.3 million Americans volunteered an estimated 7.9 billion hours with an estimated economic value of $171 billion. Although the price of volunteerism is immeasurable, these estimates help organizations acknowledge the millions of people who dedicate their energy, talents and time to making a difference.
Endorsed and supported by President Obama, Congress and other national and state leaders, National Volunteer Week is also recognized by corporations and nonprofit organizations in numerous events throughout the country. Various corporations will exercise their corporate philanthropy nationwide in recognition of their employee volunteers.
In good company
Need ideas? Here’s what a random sampling of some organizations have in store:
Defense company Raytheon will encourage employees to volunteer by organizing and participating in events that represent Raytheon’s key corporate citizenship areas: mentoring students in math and science, empowering veterans through education and supporting needs in their local communities. Raytheon employees have demonstrated passion about the communities where they live and work, having donated nearly 400,000 hours in the past two years.
Some of Raytheon’s National Volunteer Week events include in Portsmouth, R.I., “Creating Your Future in Math & Science” where Raytheon employees will introduce students from Kickemuit Middle School and the Lincoln School to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers. Raytheon employees in the Washington, D.C., area will conduct interactive science experiments as part of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology’s Techstravaganza. And in Boston, at a celebration of nanoscale science hosted by the Museum of Science, Raytheon employees will introduce parents to their MathMovesU® program, a company initiative committed to increasing elementary and middle school students’ interest in math and science education by engaging them in hands-on, interactive activities.
In another nationwide effort, thousands of employees from Wisconsin-based Kohl’s Department Stores are celebrating National Volunteer Week and Earth Day by volunteering in their local communities for Kohl’s fourth annual National Go Green Event. Employees will volunteer for youth charities by participating in environmentally-based activities through Associates in Action, Kohl’s employee volunteer programs. Kohl’s will also engage in corporate giving by donating a total of $2 million to participating charities. A few of the planned activities include volunteering with land trust Growing Power to plant, weed and do construction work in support of community gardens and an urban farm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. New Jersey employees will do a beach clean up in Sandy Hook and to support children’s environmental education in Texas, associates will help clean up the Austin Zoo.
Members of the American Gaming Association (AGA) will be holding their annual “All In for Giving and Volunteering” campaign during National Volunteer Week. The initiative features gaming companies across the country participating in employee volunteer recognition activities while also engaging in local community volunteer projects.
In Las Vegas, Aristocrat Technologies has events planned for every day of the week, including building wooden toys for Toys4Smiles, assembling food and toiletry bags for seniors at Helping Hands, and helping with spring cleaning at Street Teens.
Isle of Capri in Boonville, Missouri is aiming to log 100 total employee volunteer hours during the week. Planned activities include food prep at a food bank and general maintenance and storm clean-up at a local animal shelter. Some employees will also build houses for Habitat for Humanity and host a resident birthday party for seniors at an assisted living center.
Nonprofits: how are you stepping up?
Non-profits are encouraged to seize the moment and not only celebrate the week through volunteer recognition but to also promote community outreach by offering plenty of volunteer opportunities.
For example:
In Chicago, Heartland Alliance, which helps the impoverished improve their lives and realize their human rights, is requesting volunteers for their spring service projects. The projects include office work, gardening, clean up and construction at various mental health and homeless shelters along with teaching banking and money skills to Heartland Alliance clients.
The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) of Sarasota County, Fla. will celebrate National Volunteer Week by holding volunteer recognition events and participating in public health and emergency preparedness activities. Volunteers will serve as MRC leaders and offer health education as part of a local public health initiative and provide medical care and counseling for victims, families and responders.
Various organizations nationwide will be holding events to combat hunger in their local communities. The Hunger Heroes Project in North Central Massachusetts is holding a volunteer event to help establish food security in local food pantries by packaging 20,000 meals. Another Massachusetts non-profit, Cooking Matters, an organization that teaches nutrition education is looking to train as many volunteers as possible to teach hands-on cooking skills to low-income families. And the Twin Cities United Way’s Caring Connection Program has a full week of volunteer activities, from serving meals for hungry families and homeless youths at various shelters to sorting and packing food at Second Harvest Heartland.
Since our nation’s founding, volunteers have been the backbone of social action and change. Technological advances and social networking have now made volunteering even simpler, and as societal needs grow amidst shrinking budgets, volunteers are needed now more than ever. National Volunteer Week highlights the spirit of giving and the enormous contributions that volunteers make every day.
Most companies recognize that investing in employee engagement and development are vital to remaining competitive in a constantly evolving business world. When companies spend time and money improving the skills of their employees, they send a message to workers that they want to invest in their future. And in return, companies expect to see increases in job performance, organizational commitment and job satisfaction from their workers.
Employee training and development often focus on hard skills; the basic proficiencies needed to perform one’s job duties. But good employee training also generally also covers soft skills such as teamwork, leadership, problem solving and public speaking – the unquantifiable abilities necessary to give companies a competitive edge. This doesn’t come cheap: according to human resources think tank Bersin and Associates, the average training cost per employee in 2010 was $1200, with most of that money going towards developing soft skills such as management and leadership abilities.
So if soft skills are as vital as hard skills – and pricier to boot – where can employees acquire and cultivate these talents without breaking the bank? One place to look: employee volunteer programs.
Corporate volunteering and corporate giving programs not only help fulfill a company’s CSR mandate; they also offer workers a unique opportunity to participate in teambuilding efforts and develop job-related skills. On top of that, these programs are a bargain. According to the Trends Of Excellence In Employee Volunteering Series by Points of Light Institute, a company will spend about $416 on each person that participates in an employee volunteer program. That’s significantly lower than the $1200 that it costs per employee for one training program.
Clearly, businesses can reap much organizational value from supporting employee-directed corporate philanthropy. So why do so many companies under-fund their employee volunteer programs? You wouldn’t expect an athlete to do well on a starvation diet, right? Well, your employee volunteer program can’t thrive on twigs and berries either.
When a company’s volunteer activities don’t align with its values and cultures, management often doesn’t see the correlation between volunteerism and how it benefits their company. Since successful volunteer programs should relate to a company’s core business, it’s important to first define a company’s corporate philanthropy strategy, expectations and goals. That’s often missed in the “check the box” mentality which overwhelmed administrators sometimes apply to their company’s volunteerism.
What’s the solution?
Give ‘Em Choice
When empowered by their companies, employees tend to be more engaged and happier in their work. One path to empowerment is in supporting causes that are important to employees and offering them an environment in which they can make an impact. Long gone are the days of relying on United Way because that’s all your lone, part-time administrator could handle. A new era is upon us in the field of corporate philanthropy, and that innovation must trickle down to your employees. Engagement comes from meeting employees where they are, not expecting them to mold their passions solely around your CEO’s signature cause.
Walk The Talk
Volunteer programs also work best when supported by the company’s top executives, so senior management should lead by example by participating in and promoting their initiatives. When employees are clear about their company’s vision, they’re more motivated to represent the company’s brand, build relationships and strengthen their communities by sharing their skills and passions.
Turbocharge Your Systems
Other reasons for under-funded employee volunteer programs are a lack of employee enthusiasm due to disorganization, too much tedious administrative work and difficulty in calculating a return on investment. An efficient program management system like Causecast’s Community Impact Platform addresses these challenges with its well organized and easy to use interface, tools to measure and communicate community impact, a menu of volunteer opportunities and creative giving options that allows employees to support causes they care about in the ways they want, and a personal concierge service to help administrators adopt novel strategies and execute their volunteer programs throughout the year. An effective employee giving and volunteering management resource eases administrative overload and greatly expands the possibilities for corporate volunteer programs.
Companies today recognize that maintaining a competitive edge requires investment in their number one asset: their employees. Employee volunteer programs – when well-fed and supported by corporate management – offer a cost-effective way to develop the skills of a company’s workforce while improving the lives of those in need.
As evolving technologies keep us hooked to new and updated gadgets, and Americans now own (according to the Environmental Protection Agency) an estimated three billion electronic products, one inconvenient question lurks constantly in the shadows:
What are we supposed to do with all of our old gizmos?
While responsible businesses and consumers want to recycle their outdated technology equipment – and often think they are – the reality of the electronics recycling business is an eco-horror show. Rife with misperception and abuse, the e-waste industry is notorious for cashing in on the good intentions of those who want to do right by Mother Earth and then delivering nothing but more problems for old mom.
Electronics recyclers claim that they’re lawfully disposing of electronics after stripping them of their hazardous contaminants. The ugly truth is that after charging exorbitant fees for collection, recyclers often send waste to countries like China and India, where rules are lax and dangerous materials are commonly dumped near farms or sources of drinking water, or burned after the electronics are mined for reusable microchips, copper, and silver. Because circuit boards are fireproof, the workers who burn or smelt down electronics just end up carbonizing the circuit boards and creating more emissions, then filling up landfills with the residuals. This isn’t exactly what most people have in mind when they think “green.”
Enter Materials Conservation Company (MCC), an e-waste company that prefers to think of its mission as recovering materials rather than recycling end of life electronics. Using a proprietary mechanical process, MCC safely reduces electronics to two new raw materials, rendering them into a metal concentrate or powder. The company then sells the metal to refiners, who employ an electrolytic system to make commodity grade metals, such as copper. The end result is that electronic equipment – the toughest material to recycle – is 100% reutilized.
Think of it as a reverse Amazon, but instead of ordering products and putting them into a cart, you put products you already have into a cart. That cart comes in the form of collapsible reusable containers that are sent to businesses by MCC, then picked up from company loading docks within 48 hours after being prepared to ship to regional centers. Recycling partners disassemble the electronics, the scrap is sold to scrap channels, then the circuit boards and wiring are sent back to MCC where the processing begins to extract the metals to be reused in other ways, and recycles the circuit boards into an epoxy resin for use in waterproofing.
Did I mention that the cost of this to businesses and consumers is $0?
“Over the course of several years, we have developed a unique business model that takes our proprietary technology processing combined with eCommerce software, and leverages it with the existing physical infrastructure,” explains founder Michael Burney. “We work with existing companies to handle the logistics and disassembly so that we don’t add trucks to the world, we generate no emissions in processing, and the only consumable is electricity. The whole process is designed to be efficient.”
Most businesses do their recycling based on depreciation schedules; only when a piece of equipment is fully depreciated (aka broken) do they recycle, and they do this by paying waste companies significant sums for retrieval. MCC offers a different model, where all locations of a company have pre-arranged access, the cost to the business is free, and organizations are provided with reporting on their materials. And all of this is done sustainably.
MCC’s main competitor? The trash industry, a business that thinks in terms of tonnage. According to the EPA, 2.37 million tons of electronics were ready for end-of-life management in 2009, but only 25% were collected for recycling. The rest of that tonnage went to landfills or was exported, where most of it will not be reused or recycled.
Earth Day may have long come and gone, but Causecast salutes companies like MCC that are thinking of the earth every day, innovating ways to nurture our planet back to greater health and pave a greener path for the future.
Contact Causecast now to learn how we can help you have a positive community impact simply by disposing of your electronics in a sustainable way.
Women have gained so much ground over the past fifty years that it can often seem that they’ve arrived at a place of equal opportunity.
They haven’t.
Today, less than five percent of the world’s heads of state are women, and women make up just nineteen percent of representatives in parliaments worldwide. Despite producing more than forty percent of the world’s food, women own less than one percent of the world’s farmland.
At a speech before the U.N. last year, President Obama challenged heads of state to break down the economic and political barriers to women’s equality. Responding to this call, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the Equal Futures Partnership, a coalition of countries committed to removing barriers to political participation and economic advancement of women in their respective countries. The U.S. announced a number of commitments to further the goals of the partnership, and key among them was advancing women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
A handful of private sector organizations whose work highlights how the U.S. is advancing its commitment to this mission were asked by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to participate in the Equal Futures Partnership. Amongst these select organizations, Causecast was invited to join the Partnership because of its ability to quickly launch cause campaigns and make it easy for corporations to engage their employees around cause. At the New York launch of the Partnership on September 24th, Causecast was honored to be one of approximately 10 private sector partners invited to the standing-room only event, which drew together founding members and distinguished diplomats from 12 other countries.
Causecast’s goal with its involvement with the Equal Futures Partnership is to make it easy for clients to support girls and STEM-related organizations through their employee giving and volunteering programs.
How does Causecast do this?
When it comes to girls and STEM, or any cause for that matter, the interest and willingness to help are in abundance. In short supply are the time and resources needed to set up, manage, and track meaningful opportunities to get involved.
This is where Causecast provides its secret sauce. The company’s technology and services offering removes, to the greatest extent possible, the transaction costs associated with these efforts. Our platform makes it easy to provide information about meaningful ways to get involved - be it through volunteer events, donations (monetary or in-kind) or fundraising. We have both a mobile and desktop offering so that employees may access the platform in the way that works best for them, and our concierge service works to find innovative nonprofits with sterling reputations for employee efforts to support. CTEq’s STEMWorks database serves as an ideal source of information for these efforts, and has helped Causecast to launch a ready-made campaign for the Partnership called GIT Inspired!, supporting girls in technology and STEM fields. The campaign is available to any company that uses the Community Impact Platform, and Causecast will be working with its clients to adopt or develop initiatives that make the most sense for their organizations.
Causecast’s VP of Product, Kate Stahnke, chairs the Employee Engagement committee for CTEq, and is also the point person for Causecast’s involvement with White House’s Equal Futures Partnership. “I’m excited on a number of levels that Causecast is committed to girls and STEM,” notes Kate. “As a senior technology executive, I’m keenly aware of how the shortage of girls in STEM affects the shortage of technical talent as a whole in this country. As a STEMinist, I strongly believe that STEM skills afford women an opportunity to create rich professional lives. As an American, I believe that advancing economic opportunity and political participation of women is among the most efficient ways to ensure our long term peace and prosperity. And as a Causecast employee, I’m proud to work for a company willing to commit significant resources to this cause – by way of its involvement with Change The Equation and now with the Equal Futures Partnership. That sense of excitement and pride is exactly what our platform works to foster in the employees of our clients.”
At the launch of the Equal Futures Partnership, a general theme of the event – echoed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – was that the efforts of the founding countries weren’t just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. This thinking perfectly summarizes why Causecast’s involvement with the partnership benefits all of its constituents: the girls it hopes to support in STEM learning; the companies it hopes to galvanize towards unique corporate philanthropy and employee engagement efforts; and the employees of these companies whom it hopes to rally around the issue of STEM education.
Your employees want to perform community service; they really, really do…but amidst their busy schedules they just can’t seem to find the time.
So how about making volunteering easier than ever by offering virtual volunteer opportunities? It’s just one more tool that savvy companies are using to sharpen their employee volunteer programs, and by extension, their overall corporate philanthropy complexion.
Online or “virtual volunteering” allows people to help non-profits in a variety of ways, from web design and social media strategy, to translation, accounting, research, data entry and a host of other needs. This kind of skills-based volunteering allows virtual volunteers to contribute as much or as little time as they can, all from the convenience of their computers or smartphones. When employee volunteerism includes online opportunities and fundraising, your employees can effortlessly donate their time and talents.
Bringing Global Support to Local Nonprofits
Overcoming geographic boundaries and time constraints, virtual volunteering connects volunteers of various backgrounds, skills and cultures that may not be available locally to a charity, thereby enhancing an organization’s resources. The hope is to also mobilize additional support as virtual volunteers learn about a non-profit and the people it serves. In turn, volunteers can share this information with their companies and communities, creating a network of support.
You’ve got would-be volunteers who aren’t web wizards? No problem. If volunteers can read, write or do math, technology can help them tutor a child without even leaving their desks.
For example, Innovations for Learning, Inc. (IFL), an Illinois nonprofit that develops innovative technology to supplement reading and math instructional programs for K-2 classrooms, offers a web-based tutoring program that remotely pairs tutors and students. “Tele-tutors” talk to students over the phone while sharing a mutual screen on their respective computers, where they can read stories, work on word activities and do homework together. All of their work is integrated with the classroom instruction, and the tele-tutors are seen as an extension of the teacher while providing individualized attention to each student. Since no travel is involved, more time is spent working one-on-one with each student, allowing for convenience and flexibility for the tutor. Because of tele-tutoring, teachers have reported improved student performance; students look forward to their weekly virtual appointments and are motivated to work as they anticipate the call from their tutor.
Micro-Volunteering Makes it Even Easier to Contribute
Even if your employees only have ten minutes to volunteer, there’s an app for that. Using a touch of a button on your smartphone, you can “micro-volunteer” by doing simple volunteer projects in small increments of time. While they’re waiting for the bus or sitting in a boring meeting, your employees can be doing volunteer work.
Micro-volunteers are generally not required to undergo a screening process nor do they need to make a specific time commitment. Besides donating money, an example of micro-volunteer work is helping a museum add tag words to the tons of images in its database to help them be searchable for future use. By crowdsourcing the task of tagging the photos to micro-volunteers, the museum can catalog a greater number of photos without the expense of paying staff.
Companies such as cause integration leader Causecast make it easy for businesses to get their employees volunteering online. Causecast’s Community Impact Platform helps companies promote virtual volunteering opportunities within an online volunteer and giving platform, to make volunteering as accessible as possible for busy employees. And if the charities that a business wishes to support don’t offer virtual volunteering, Causecast will help those nonprofits develop online volunteer opportunities or source other nonprofits that can be supported through online volunteering.
So apply some strategic philanthropy to your corporate giving. Let your employees know that they can hop on their computer or phone, get to work, make the planet a better place and feel good about themselves. But carving out the time…now that’s the part only they can do.
I’ll volunteer that I’m a big fan of the Taproot Foundation, an organization that’s been an instrumental player in the pro bono movement in 2001 and has been steering the way ever since (matter of fact, I’m a new board member of the organization). Through award-winning programs, groundbreaking thought leadership and partnerships with companies to develop and scale corporate pro bono programs, Taproot works to engage the nation’s millions of business professionals in applying not just their time, but their skills, in the service of the nation’s nonprofit community.
Now I’ve got another reason to salute my friends at Taproot; they’ve just announced the launch of a new platform that will serve as a one-stop shop for nonprofits and businesses engaged in pro bono work.
Thanks in part to organizations like Taproot, pro bono is big business these days, a hot-and-getting-hotter marketplace estimated at $15 billion that’s drawing participation from global corporate leaders. Indeed, just one of the campaigns that Taproot helped spark, A Billion Plus Change, has already secured an estimated $2 billion in pro bono resources from leading companies across the country. As Taproot founder Aaron Hurst sees it, “The movement is fundamentally to have professionals recognize the honor and privilege to be able to work in their field, realizing that many can’t afford their services and changing what it means to be a professional to include doing good work, pro-bono work, which is the literal translation.”
The pro bono movement is a win-win for everyone involved. As companies seek to engage employees in their corporate philanthropy, they’re tapping into the skills and resources that are the core of the company. Businesses have been paying a lot of attention lately to crafting employee engagement programs that reflect what employees care about and that can be seen as an employee benefit. As a part of these programs, companies are instituting policies such as matching gifts programs, payroll deductions for nonprofits, employee days of service and disaster relief campaigns, to name a few. Skills-based volunteering is often a centerpiece of all of these initiatives, one which delivers high impact to employee and nonprofit alike.
Effective pro-bono initiatives feel authentic, springing naturally from an alignment between employee interests, community needs and company programs. When all of the pieces are in place, skills-based volunteering programs yield tremendous benefits. Employees gain leadership training, job skill development and internal networking beyond the highly valued community service experience. According to a study on skills-based volunteering by True Impact, skills-based volunteers are 142% more likely to report job-related skills-gains than traditional volunteers, 47% more likely to report high satisfaction from volunteering than traditional volunteers, and 82% more likely to report that volunteerism generated new recruits for their company versus traditional volunteers. And from the nonprofit point of view, pro bono and volunteering of skills and talents can be as much as 500% more valuable for nonprofits.
Taproot wants to further expand the pro bono market by increasing the accessibility and professionalization of pro bono services. How? By helping nonprofits better define their needs and connecting with organizations that can fulfill those needs. Taproot’s new interactive tool allows nonprofit users to browse the most common pro bono projects and learn about the scope of each project as well as the benefits, risks, and skills necessary to ensure successful engagements. And to facilitate connections with pro bono providers, Taproot has partnered with LinkedIn to open up the pool of resources available to nonprofits.
This new platform is just one more step towards realizing Taproot’s original mission. As Hurst puts it, when he founded the organization, “I saw the barriers that nonprofits face and wanted to scale the impact they’re reaching for in society. I realized that yes, money’s an issue, but a huge part of the problem is the lack of access to talent, the functional talent that is really needed to scale an organization. And so Taproot came out of that entrepreneurial “ah ha!” moment, from seeing that we could create a parallel philanthropic marketplace, a consulting marketplace of talent.”
Taproot’s latest step is to increase its arsenal of powerful new online tools as well as its advocacy. For example, Taproot recently helped to publish Powered by Pro Bono: A Nonprofit’s Guide to Scoping, Securing, Managing, and Scaling Pro Bono Resources, which shares advice for nonprofits that Taproot garnered from serving 1,600 nonprofits, training 13,500 professionals, and designing 20 corporate pro bono programs. And Taproot is also launching the Pro Bono Pledge, a web-based advocacy campaign to enlist professionals to donate their talents through the Taproot Foundation and, more importantly, to flex their social entrepreneurial muscle, help build pro bono programs, and challenge their professions to adopt pro bono service as a core value. The Pro Bono Pledge takes a grassroots approach to empower professionals, not just companies, to lead the effort to make pro bono a core part of business.
Taproot and other pro bono advocates hope to establish pro bono volunteering as “the new normal” in workplaces everywhere. Given the profound benefits that pro bono offers to professionals and nonprofits alike, I’m rooting for the continued success of this exciting movement across the world.
Companies like financial services firm Ernst & Young understand that matching gifts programs aren’t just a perk for your staff. Indeed, Ernst & Young doesn’t see these programs as a perk at all: rather than a side project, their matching gifts program is an integral part of Ernst & Young’s overall strategy.
The matching gifts program at Ernst & Young has tight parameters, rewarding employees for donating only to an accredited nonprofit college or university in the United States. Small donations need not apply – the company only tracks donations over $25 (or $100 for more senior personnel), and the donations to a single college or university must be over $2,500 for a calendar year to be matched. Despite the restrictions, or perhaps because of them, the program has flourished, allowing Ernst & Young to maintain close connections with the accounting and business programs at top American universities.
Companies looking to create a matching program of their own are often at a loss for where to start. Even companies with long-standing matching gifts programs would do well to examine potential improvements. Ellen Glazerman, Executive Director of the Ernst & Young Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees matching donations for Ernst & Young employees, was happy to sit down with us and describe how her company’s matching gifts program has thrived.
Here’s Glazerman’s list of the five ways you can maximize the benefits of your own matching program:
1. Pick a Focus
“Long ago, we decided that we wanted to focus on creating a talent pipeline,” says Glazerman. Ernst & Young wanted to support higher education, and it also wanted to create a crop of accountants with top-notch training. From this strategic focus, the current matching gifts program was born. “We are driving specific goals that relate to our strategy,” Glazerman notes. “While people will always come to you looking for other ways to give, you simply can’t do everything, so it’s important to put a lot of thought into where your company decides to help out.”
2. Know Your Interests
What philanthropic ventures does your company have a vested interest in? That’s the question you must ask yourself as you begin a matching gifts program. For Ernst & Young, “If there’s not a pipeline of bright, interested people coming out of accounting and business programs, we don’t have a business,” Glazerman notes. While Ernst & Young employees are not bound to donate to accounting programs, much of the money is directed that way simply because people tend to give to the places that they came from. Thus, while not every donation will result in a swarm of new, hungry recruits, the lion’s share of donations will wind up serving this strategic goal.
3. Automate
Automation makes things easier on your employees and encourages more of them to participate in your volunteer and corporate giving programs. At Ernst & Young, employees need only sign onto a website, enter in their donation and wait for the end of the year. They don’t have to spend time trying to figure out how much of their donation is tax deductible and how much qualifies for matching gifts; their giving platform does all of that for them. The easier your matching gifts program is to use, the more employees will want to participate.
4. Include Employee Voices
When asked about the best way to overcome any challenges a matching gifts program presents, Glazerman suggests involving employees. “Everyone needs to feel encouraged to share their point of view,” she says. This not only heads off potential employee resentment about how decisions are made; it also allows you to mine all the energy of your engaged employees to find the best solutions.
5. Evaluate Your Goals
Before and after the matching gifts program is up and running, you need to evaluate your goals and progress. “You have to look at what your interests are, but also what you’re interested in,” Glazerman says. “Maybe your goals have changed,” she continues. “Always ask yourself, ‘Is this what we want to do today?’” There’s one added benefit to evaluating your company’s goals with regards to your matching gifts program: “it provides a good excuse to start making changes.”
A matching gifts program tends to attract the types of highly engaged employees that every 21st century business is looking for. It also (hopefully) aligns with your company’s strategy, allowing you to grow your brand while leveraging strategic resources and making a social impact. The success of your company’s philanthropic programs will largely rest on how carefully you consider strategic questions ahead of time. “There are a lot of good causes, but you have to select the best ones for your business in order for them to really pay off.”