This is an update to a blog post originally published in 2019.
If attracting top talent, improving employee engagement, and boosting company culture are high on your to-do list in 2024, consider adding philanthropic opportunities to your agenda. According to NonProfitsSource, there are some hefty statistics to back this up.
- Employees who engage in corporate giving programs have 75% longer tenure with the company.
- 88% of Millennials find their job more fulfilling when they have opportunities to make a positive impact on society and the environment.
- 71% of employees indicate that it’s very important to work at a company that partakes in philanthropy, such as by matching employee donations.
- 82% of the survey respondents say employees want the opportunity to volunteer with peers in a corporate-supported event.
At Motivation Excellence, an incentive and performance improvement company headquartered near Chicago, we recommend implementing charitable opportunities in a variety of ways throughout the year.
“Being an active participant in our community is important to us as a company, and we know it also improves key indicators of employee happiness, like feeling connected with each other and providing a positive atmosphere,” says David Jobes, President & CEO.
Jobes adds that happy, engaged employees are more productive, contribute to the company culture, and are more likely to stay on staff. “Incorporating charity into your business’s routine can be simple yet very powerful, not only for the charities but for the relationships you build with your team.”
Here are a few of the ways Motivation Excellence leads by example that are easy for any company to adopt or adapt to fit its needs.
Snack for Charity
Every month a new charity is selected. Our company buys snack items like bags of pretzels, string cheese packets and granola bars. Employees are encouraged to pay a dollar for each snack. At the end of the month, the money collected goes to that month’s charity. Team members can submit suggestions for which charity is chosen. It can be local or national in nature. Often, if it’s an employee suggestion. It’s something personal to them, which makes it more meaningful for the entire company. More than 75 charities have been selected over the last decade as part of the Snack for Charity initiative.
Adopt-a-Family
For Thanksgiving and Christmas each year the Chicago Motivation Excellence team adopts families through a nearby township program. Sign-ups are displayed, and employees pick which items they’d like to shop for and donate. No one is required to donate, and everyone gets to choose how much they contribute. In our Traverse City, Michigan location, the team collects donations for a local food bank in time for Thanksgiving and also adopts families for Christmas.
Charity Days Off
Each year Motivation Excellence employees can take two days off with pay to volunteer for the charity of their choice. America’s Charities found employees are more likely to participate in workplace philanthropy if the company is willing to provide incentives like paid time off and matching gifts. They also reported that 75% of employees said having a choice of charity is imperative. This opportunity checks both of those boxes.
For longtime Motivation Excellence employee, Debbie, this perk gave her an opportunity to step outside her comfort zone and volunteer for BraveHearts, a charity that uses horses in therapies for children and adults.
“By Motivation Excellence giving us these days, we can learn a lot about ourselves—strengths that we may not have realized we had inside—by helping others. They are letting us experience personal growth along with our professional lives in the company,” Debbie says.
Team-Building Events
Developing company-wide events centered around a charitable project is a staple for the Motivation Excellence group. Sometimes it involves volunteering off-site at places like Feed My Starving Children or Phil’s Friends. Other times it’s about bringing projects on-site like tying blankets for sick children through Project Linus or making holiday cards for deployed military personnel. It’s always about teamwork and feeling good about doing something for someone else. It can be a lot of fun too. Filling socks with essentials for a homeless shelter started with a scavenger hunt to find all of the items and ended with one team claiming victory by filling their socks in the fastest time. Of course, the real winner is the charity and the people it helps.
Another longtime employee, George, says he loves these opportunities. “When we did the blankets for the kids and went to Feed My Starving Children, it was great. We’re all like a family here, and working at a charity is a great way to contribute to something bigger than our immediate organization.”
Community Involvement
The Traverse City office has a couple of different events their team participates in each year. One is volunteering at the beer tent at the Cherry Festival each summer. Another is cleaning up roadways in Michigan’s Adopt-a-Highway program. One is perhaps a bit more fun than the other, but both contribute to bonding with coworkers.
Ad Hoc Giving
Jobes also values the ability to contribute to causes close to his people’s hearts when asked.
“This is a great way to get to know what’s important to your team. Over the years I’ve donated money to JDRF because one of our employees was very active in that organization. We’ve also helped out high school and college athletic teams with their fundraisers. When someone comes to me with an ask like that, I like to be able to help out,” Jobes explains.
Jobes and his team at Motivation Excellence find great memories are made through working on charitable projects together. The company, over the last 10 years, has donated more than $100,000 to charities.
“It’s wonderful to have the ability to do this. As a company, it lets people know what we value. As individuals inside the company, it allows each of us the opportunity to share what’s important to us. It’s the latter that really makes coworkers into friends, and that’s what strengthens engagement and culture. Everyone wins when you look at philanthropy as a core of your business,” says Jobes.
Motivation Excellence, Inc is an incentive company dedicated to helping clients Inspire Extraordinary Performance. We do this through personalized rewards, aspirational group travel, performance tracking and wow-worthy meetings and events. Headquartered outside of Chicago, we have another full office in Traverse City, Michigan and remote offices across the country.
