The Evolving Face of Workplace Giving

Workplace giving is an important part of philanthropy in North America, as it has been for a long time. It has been, and continues to be, driven by deductions automatically taken from an employee’s payroll. This makes it possible for people to give a greater amount via monthly deductions, and it also makes the giving process simpler for those employers with such a program.

There is a certain amount of administrative overhead required for a company to set up and provide a workplace giving program. As a result, these programs typically have been found in the realm of midsized and larger companies.

The Internet in general has brought more capability to more people at incredibly low costs and barriers to entry. This dynamic is finding its way into workplace giving and opening this area up to new employers and employees.

Small- and midsized-business owners who haven’t traditionally been involved with workplace giving campaigns via groups like the United Way and others are now able to easily create customized online donation pages for the local causes of their choice and enable their employees to make online donations using credit cards rather than payroll deductions. Donations also can be one-time gifts or recurring monthly donations.

Even within larger organizations where there already may be payroll deduction programs, credit card donation programs like this help open up new donation opportunities by involving Gen Y employees or others who may not embrace payroll deductions.

A powerful aspect of online giving programs like these is that the CEO (or other passionate employee) can set these types of programs up in a matter of minutes and circulate the giving pages to fellow employees or vendors. This is a scalable approach to getting more local companies involved with employee giving programs than would have been possible under the payroll-deduction scenario.