GivingSeason 10 giving season ideas for your company to give back this giving season e-book
2 Table of Contents What is the giving season? How can companies get involved? Examples of companies getting involved 10 giving season ideas for your campaign 4 7 9 15
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Nearly a third of all charitable giving occurs in December, with the last three days of the year taking 12% of total annual donations. Itâs a huge opportunity for fundraising and charitable donations, and a prime time for organizations to focus on their CSR Theinitiatives.giving season is an essential part of a nonprofitsâ or organizationsâ fundraising calendar. Thatâs not to say that charitable endeavors should be shelved until this time of the year, itâs just a great time to encourage employees and customers alike to engage with charitable initiatives.
Now, you may be wondering what exactly we mean by the giving season. Letâs dive in.
What is the giving season? 4
âIf weâre being honest, itâs not fixed, itâs a loose term to refer to the period roughly between November and January every year. Itâs where basically weâve got a whole load of tentpole celebratory days and festivals from a whole bunch of different communities â
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The giving season refers to the months leading up to the end of the year in which charities and nonprofits tend to receive more interest and donations. It's a fairly flexible period, as we heard from Andy Frain, the Campaigns and Public Affairs Manager at Charities Aid Foundation.
Hereâs what Andy had to say about the giving season when speaking at Alayaâs webinar on Getting ready for year-end giving season campaigns.
ANDY FRAIN Campaigns Manager Charities Aid Foundation
Tentpole celebratory days are any days your customer or prospective customers identify with and rally around in some sort of way. Itâs the ideal time for fundraising activities because people are already in the giving mindset due to a shared sense of community and giving back.
Andy then highlighted the importance of religious holidaysâlike Hannukha, Diwali, and Christmas among many othersâand secular daysâlike Remembrance Sunday and Thanksgivingâin the giving season.
Another key point highlighted by Andy was the importance of Giving Tuesday in the giving season. Itâs the Tuesday following Black Friday and Cyber Monday that aims to encourage people to give after a weekend of spending on offers and deals. This year sees Giving Tuesday fall on November 30th.
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In its simplest form, participating in the giving season can look like payroll giving, fundraising, and volunteering. This simple way of giving back is popular year-round with organizations, and the giving season is hardly expected to be an exception.
âWhen we talk about the giving season it becomes a really important part of any fundraising or giving calendar Itâs about working out what your strategy is to make the most of that. Iâm not suggesting you piggyback your campaign off every single day that you can find; I imagine thatâll spread you really, really thin and make you look a bit insincere â How can companies get involved?
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âItâs all about developing a consistent theme and message and making sure you can get eyeballs on whatever your campaign might be. Giving Tuesday is born out of this; if you think about it, itâs directly related to thanksgiving and Christmas and a whole load of people use it as a springboard for their campaigns.â
ANDY FRAIN Campaigns Manager Charities Aid Foundation
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Andy made some really great points about viability and sincerity, but it begs the questionâwhat can companies do to make the most of the giving season?
Preparations for the giving season begin well in advance to ensure organizations are ready for the âspringboard momentâ:
âWhat it does do is give you the chance to create common themes and common threads and it means that you can use all of these really important days across the end of the year as a springboard for your own campaigning.â
âOne of our strategic partners thatâs based in the US and Canada is Childrenâs Miracle Network Hospitals and they actually plan many of their fundraisers 6-9 months in advance. So, as a company, weâre actually able to look at a schedule and we know what we can anticipate from this strategic partner nine months in advance â
In Jeromeâs experience, the most successful campaigns during the giving season are those that began preparations many months before the season started. Theyâre well planned and well equipped, with resources like toolkits and guidelines to ensure swift and smooth execution when the time comes.
During the webinar, we heard how Marriott International and NatWest have mobilized their giving strategies throughout the giving season and what theyâve learned from it.
Examples of companies getting involved
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Marriott International and the Childrenâs Miracle Network Hospital
JE E Manager of Social Impact & Volunteerism Marriott International
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âItâs
JE Manager of Social Impact & Volunteerism
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Jerome summed up the importance of solid preparation for fundraisers by highlighting the aim of these efforts: about reducing the number of steps that are needed to be taken by those who want to support â
Marriott International
This preparation ensures that everyoneâs on the same page when itâs time to launch the campaign, with all materials and resources ready for deployment.
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Breakfast campaign: a 90-day period in which breakfast was $1 more expensive, with that dollar going towards supporting CMN Hospitals Bonvoy point donation: customers were given the opportunity to convert reward points into cash to donate to the local partner hospital âHotel stays for the holidaysâ: in which patients of CMN Hospitals and their families were invited for a holiday experience to remember
Templates, one-pagers, landing pages, QR codesâthey all facilitate charitable donations, especially during the giving season.
This planning and preparation have enabled joint fundraisers and campaigns since 1983, through which Marriottt and CMN Hospitals have worked together to raise over $138million through a number of exciting initiatives, such as:
They posted it on social media, both internal and external social media, and we were able to share some of the brilliant stories of what people were doing in their own private lives to support communities and celebrate that as an organization.â
JE E Manager of Social Impact & Volunteerism Marriott International
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NatWest's 'Giving Tuesday' campaign
The final guest at our webinar was Michael Duncan from NatWest. He spoke about how NatWest has been a part of Giving Tuesday since its UK launch in 2014, and how the organization uses the holiday to kick off the giving season. Hereâs how one of their early initiatives worked: âThe Giving Tuesday team back then had what they called UnSelfie We got thousands of colleagues across the organization to write down on a piece of paper with the Giving Tuesday logo on it, you know, âI fundraised for this charity by doing thisâ or âI volunteered hereâ or âI XYZâ
M N Head of Giving Strategy & Programmes NatWest Group 13
This was an impactful start to NatWestâs corporate giving season and an exciting celebration of the colleagues taking part.
Since then, NatWest has also introduced payroll giving initiatives with great success. Although incentivizing colleagues to set up or increase their payroll giving requires a budget, Michael stresses that itâs really not that muchâespecially considering the ROI: âI have a rule of thumb that as long as youâre seeing an increase in giving which is greater than the amount of money youâre putting into the incentivization, youâre doing pretty well.â
How can we learn from this? Preparation is key You might have to break a couple of eggs to make an omelet These two examples of how organizations can take part in the giving season provide two important learnings: Itâs not impossible to pull something together last minute, but itâs certainly not as effective Strategizing your campaign and funding your initiatives are essential for their success. 14
10 giving season ideas for your campaign 15
NatWest encourages colleagues to share their charitable endeavors and achievements in order to inspire others to do the same. Human nature is such that the opportunity of a humble brag is too irresistible to pass up, and encourages colleagues to share their charitable efforts online for others to engage with.
The second great giving season idea from NatWest revolves around time. Colleagues are encouraged and empowered to volunteer three days a yearâsupported by volunteer time off. Organizations are in an ideal position to offer skills-based support and workshops to a wide variety of nonprofits and communities. Understandably, one of NatWestâs key volunteering programs is MoneySense which focuses on helping young people become financially capable. Volunteers from NatWest give workshops in schools on financial literacy with the aim of ensuring children learn key skills for adulthood.
Throughout the webinar, the speakers all shared how theyâre preparing for the giving season this year, which led to some exciting initiatives being revealed. Weâve compiled these into a list and added some of our own to inspire your corporate giving season ideas:
On the other side of this coin, NatWest gives nonprofitsâboth big and smallâa platform on which to be heard. They use their social channels to champion charities and nonprofits by providing them with space to communicate.
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This initiative is part one of NatWestâs multi-faceted approach to this yearâs giving season. The campaign pushes employees to act charitably using their voice, time, and money. First up, voice.
Although they mainly do this in schools, the initiative can be applied in many other circumstances.
1. Use your voice 2. Skills-based corporate volunteering
3. Donation matching for employees 4. Rewards conversion for customers
matching, in general, is an effective way of boosting donations to a cause and it definitely doesnât require a payroll giving scheme.
NatWest also encourages donations by inviting customers to convert their rewards into charitable donations. This allows people to get involved in different ways, and you donât need a rewards program to get started. For example, instead of vouchers for money off, you could provide customers with vouchers for charitable donations. This is a great way to get customers involved in your giving season without getting them to directly donate. You can encourage that too though!
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The last of NatWestâs ideas for giving season is to encourage colleagues to give. They do this using their payroll giving scheme by giving a âboostâ payment to any colleague who increases their salary deduction or signs up for the first time that they can then donate to a charity of their choice. This is especially effective during the giving season due to the general spirit of community and giving felt at this time of Donationyear.
Marriott Internationalâs upcoming giving season is set to focus its efforts in Washington DC, one of the companyâs largest markets and just miles from their global headquarters. Theyâll be collecting food donations for a local partner of theirs, Capital Area Food Bank.
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6. Set up a donation point
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Another great giving season idea is to organize a giving point in your organization. Here, employees can come and choose from a list of gifts selected by a local nonprofit. They then purchase this gift and bring it in to be sent to the chosen Theseorganization.charities are typically childrenâs charities, but you can apply this initiative to many different organizations. Discuss with partnered nonprofits and local communities to see what their communities need this giving season. Digital food bank donations
Thereoff:
The giving season just so happens to fall during the office party season. Whatever office celebrations youâve got planned, you can always incorporate an auction to raise funds for your chosen nonprofit. Here are some great ideas for what to auction
Encourage employees to donate warm clothing: to the local homeless shelter. This is the most direct way of helping keep people warm during the holiday Spreadseason.the word on social media: so others can take inspiration. Itâs a way to use your platform and its influence to spread the word and inspire others to take on where you are in the world, the giving season can be the start of a very cold couple of months. For people without homes, it can be a very difficult time.
A holidayâs goodie basket or hamper A weekend away Event tickets Local experiences
Dependingaction.
are a plethora of things you could offer employees, but keeping it holidaythemed is what will keep them in the giving spirit.
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There are two ways in which you can support people without homes in your local community: 7. Host an auction 8. Donate warm clothes
This can be organized by the organization, but itâs a lot more impactful coming from employees. Plus, organizations can support employees in their efforts.
9. Organize a holiday-themed fundraiser
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A fundraiser is a great way to raise money during a set period of time, and itâs an especially great giving season idea. Whether itâs a fancy dress fun run or a holidaythemed bake sale, there are plenty of opportunities to get everyone involved during the giving season.
Kick off the giving season by introducing a limited offer on your product or service. You can manage this however you choose, but essentially youâre looking to inform customers that youâll be sending a percentage of your profits during this period to a chosen nonprofit. For example, letâs say you sell wooden furniture. During the giving season, you could agree with a local nonprofit to donate 10% from every wooden table sold during the month of December. Make sure to specify the time constraints on this initiative and ensure that itâs logistically possible for you to do.
10. Send a percentage of profits to a charity of choice
As always, itâs up to you what giving season ideas work for your organization. There are plenty of opportunities to give back for companies big and small! âThere is no one way to go about the giving season, itâs just about working out what campaign can you guys manage yourselves. Be flexible and donât be afraid to change plans if you see something isnât workingâ ANDY FRAIN Campaigns Manager Charities Aid Foundation Wrapping up 21
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