It starts with the right information
Program guidelines shared with your employees are critical to the success of your program. Doing so allows all eligible users to understand the complete program offering and locate answers to common inquiries.
Benevity’s End User Care team will also refer to the program guidelines when answering support requests from your employees to ensure a consistent and accurate response.
Here are a few areas of considerations to add:
- About your program
- User eligibility
- Cause eligibility
- General giving
- Company match
- General volunteering
- Volunteer rewards
- Additional information
Note: Remember that Benevity already covers common technical inquiries asked about Spark in our Help Centre. This includes 'how to' specific items like: How and when will a cause receive my donation? Where do I find my donation receipts? Are there any fees applied when I make a donation? What if I have to cancel my volunteer commitment? Your Implementation Consultant will enable this with FAQs that best pertain to your Program set-up.
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By answering the questions suggested in this document in your program guidelines, you’ll be poised for Program success. Your users will be properly informed of your program offering and feel encouraged to take part.
About your program
- What is the objective of your program?
- What is the purpose of these program guidelines?
- Who is responsible for establishing and maintaining your program guidelines?
- In general, how does your program benefit causes?
- In general, how does your program benefit your end users?
- At a high level, how does your program work? What is offered?
- How does your program align to your business and organizational CSR strategy?
- Who is Benevity? What does Benevity do?
User eligibility
- Who is eligible to participate?
- What happens to the eligibility of those who go on leave?
- Are gifts from spouses or other members of the user's household eligible?
- Are any office location or countries not supported in your program?
Cause eligibility
- Which causes can users interact with in the program?
- Can users give and volunteer with any cause globally?
- How are causes added and classified?
- Can users nominate a cause for consideration if they cannot locate themselves?
General giving
- Who is able to create and host a giving opportunity? Are giving opportunities queued for approval?
- Are user donations tax deductible?
- What payment methods can be used to make donations?
Company match
- Are users eligible for a company match? Which users?
- Is there a user cap per currency per year for matching? Is the user cap for donation matches blended with volunteer rewards?
- What is the donation match rate? Is it dollar-for-dollar (1:1)?
- Will donations be matched first come, first served until a company cap is reached? If so, what amount per currency?
- Does the match budget refresh on a calendar or fiscal year?
- Is there a minimum donation amount to receive a match? If so, what amount per currency?
- Which causes qualify to receive matching? Which causes do not qualify to receive matching? Why do you follow this philosophy?
- What types of donations are eligible? For example, donations of cash or stock made by the employee.
- What is the criteria for external match requests? How long do users have to submit match requests in Spark after they donated offline?
General volunteering
- Are users eligible to volunteer during work time? How many hours of paid volunteer time are they eligible for annually? Is leadership approval required? Do volunteers also need to track their time in a time tracking application? Which causes are eligible for volunteering on company time?
- Who is able to create and host a volunteer opportunity? Are volunteer opportunities queued for approval?
- How long do users have to track volunteer time in Spark after they volunteered?
- Can users track time towards general volunteering, like cleaning up a park?
Volunteer rewards
- Are users eligible for a volunteer reward rate for time tracked? How does it work? Once issued, when do they expire?
- Is there a maximum amount of volunteer rewards users receive per year?
Additional information
- Where can users learn more about the program?
- Where can users locate their giving and volunteering history from your previous platform?
- Can users log into their account using a mobile app?
- How do users contact Benevity's End User Care team for technical support inquiries?
- If users have additional questions about the program itself, who do they contact at your organization? What is your program email alias?
- Are there additional policies or guides that pertain to your program? Where can users access this information?
Next steps
These helpful Program Guideline Recommendations allow all eligible users to understand the complete program offering and locate answers to common inquiries.
Download the sample program guidelines
Get a head start! Use our sample program guidelines as a starting point and tailor them to best describe your program and suit your needs. Download the document here.
As your Program Guidelines evolve, make sure you always share them with your Benevity team. This way, we can answer user inquiries with the most up-to-date information.