Are you gearing up for your Fall campaign? This charitable season is a great time to consider adding features to your Spark solution so you can get even more people participating and make an even bigger impact.
In previous webinars, we've talked about how programs are shifting to be more responsive, democratized and inclusive than ever before. We shared stories of how clients in our community are leading the way, and we gave you some great ideas to amplify your program and make this your best charitable season yet. But, maybe you felt that those were really big changes to implement.
Well, we’ve got you covered with our “Lightening” Round of quick wins! These incremental approaches can help you generate greater involvement and do more good in a slightly simpler way—lightening the load on your program changes.
Quick Win #1: Break Down the Walls
Remove thresholds for greater inclusion, participation and impact
Dropping thresholds is the simplest change you can make to your program today! For example, do you require a certain number of volunteer hours to be logged before a grant or dollars for doers is rewarded? Or, do you have a certain donation amount that qualifies for a match? If you’re running volunteering or giving initiatives, consider removing any maximums or minimums you might have for your program.
Why is this important? Many of your employees’ lifestyles and commitments don’t allow them 10 hours or 50 hours to volunteer (e.g. single parents, employees with multiple jobs). So, by removing thresholds, you’re making your program more inclusive because it’s much easier to participate.
Quick Win #2: Combine Your Budgets
Combine your giving and volunteering reward budgets to help your people give meaningfully
Do you have separate reward budgets for giving and volunteering? Some of your people may be donors, while others are volunteers. So, when you combine these budgets, you’ll incentivize all of your employees to participate in supporting the causes they care about in the way that is the most relevant and makes the most sense to them—and get rewarded for that activity.
One of our technology clients used to have a $200 cap for volunteering rewards and $300 cap for matching donations. Instead of splitting these rewards, they bundled them together (and increased the combined cap to $1,000). The result? They achieved record participation that year!
Quick Win #3: Raise the Roof
Increase your match caps and boost your program impact this year
If your Goodness program is likely to end this year with extra budget, consider increasing your match caps. We've seen that for every dollar you raise the match cap, there can be a corresponding $0.25 in donations. So, as you raise your ceiling, people also raise their donations.
Quick Win #4: Micro-Goodness
Make micro-volunteering available to appeal to everyone in your company
To get more people involved, especially those who may not have time outside of work hours, consider micro-volunteer opportunities. For example, set up one-hour opportunities in the office where employees can make sandwiches, pack care kits or populate Missing Maps. A lot of people doing a little bit of good can go a long way, while bringing teams together to share a common purpose, problem solve and collaborate.
This is also a great way to get more people involved on #GivingTuesday. Consider working with the charity partners who you grant to or the organizations that your people are passionate about to set up micro-volunteer opportunities on December 3 that everyone can participate in or learn from. And don’t forget to give out volunteer rewards for these activities!
Quick Win #5: Payroll
Payroll is the single most cost-effective and easiest way for your people to make a donation
And now for our final powerful technique: payroll! Did you know that programs with payroll have 41% higher participation than those that don’t? Payroll makes it easy for anyone who wants to give quickly, and because there are no merchant fees, it’s also the most cost-effective way for charities to receive donations. Also, while everyone in your company has payroll, they may not have access to credit cards or PayPal accounts. So, if your program doesn’t let people donate by payroll, not all of your employees will be able to participate.
Payroll is a little more work, but it packs a punch, so if you’re thinking about adding payroll, reach out to your Client Success Manager to learn more.