Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday is a great touchpoint to add to your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program and engage employees. Participation can range from matching employee donations to nonprofits, to directly providing employee service hours like serving meals, collecting food and packing personal care kits for those in need. Community investment continues to trend up as organizations continue to focus on aligning their corporate purpose with their long term values, thus creating a lasting impact on the community around them and a sense of connection for their employees.

Below are a few quick facts and background to get you started.

What is Giving Tuesday:

• Created to promote charitable acts of giving after consumers spent billions of dollars on goods during Black Friday & Cyber Monday
• Observed on the 1st Tuesday after Thanksgiving
• Began in 2012 by 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation

 How to get started:

• Identify & partner with charities that align with your organization’s purpose and or there is an interest in. Charity Navigator- allows you to research organizations to promote and partner with safely 
•  Solicit Employee feedback on how to give and who to partner with
• Create a plan- Who, what, when, where. Don’t forget to test links and do a walk through! 
• Partner with your finance, payroll, & legal teams
• Communicate with employees in advance- Giving Tuesday and end of year is likely to result in higher participation rates
• Provide reminders through multiple platforms- email, Microsoft Teams, in meetings, calendar reminders
• Launch your event
• Evaluate & follow up 
• Lastly extend corporate responsibility and employee engagement efforts beyond giving Tuesday

Why participate (and or establish a CSR, if not already!):

• Improved Employee engagement- Charitable giving improves employee engagement by boosting productivity, ethical behavior, gratitude to the organization, and pride in their work.
• Sense of teamwork outside the workplace- By bringing people together from all levels of the organization toward a common goal
• Impact to the bottom line- many consumers make buying decisions based as much on how they feel about a company as on how they feel about a product, so positive public perception and social media sentiment influences branding and purchasing.

Trends*:

• Financial company contributions grew 7% from 2017 to 2019
• Employee volunteer participation remains steady @ 34%
• Number of volunteer hours increased 26% in last 3 years
• 89% of companies provide paid time or flex scheduling (typically 8 hours annually)
• Most popular trend, skills based volunteering
• Matching employee contributions decreased L

Examples of who participates**:

• Nike, Microsoft, Facebook, Patagonia Banana Republic, West Elm

 *Trends based on Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP) annual survey of corporate philanthropy and employee engagement https://cecp.co/home/resources/giving-in-numbers/

**How Brands Are Giving Back for GivingTuesday 2020 https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/2020/11/how-brands-are-giving-back-givingtuesday-2020