Meet Selflessly – the fastest way
to engage your employees in giving back!
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Selflessly unifies all your activities in one central platform and combines it with impactful purpose-driven reporting. Build a socially conscious brand with Selflessly’s all-in-one platform — everything that your company needs to build a corporate culture that inspires the best in everyone.
Instantaneously make individual & company donations, create topical giving campaigns, and reduce administrative workload.
Easily find and connect employees to thousands of volunteer opportunities, both remote and in-person.
Powerful reporting and analytics tools to visualize your organization’s engagement and impact in your suite of giving programs to share internally or externally.
Everything you need to set up and automate an employee matching gift program. Simply approve the employee match request and we do the rest!
Engaging employees in corporate philanthropy is a great idea for any company. The modern employee wants purpose in the workplace, and they want to know you support them personally. At Selflessly we want to help engage your team in giving back and volunteering. A Corporate Philanthropy Program is a great way to embrace a culture that cares.
Every teammate wants a culture that cares. The benefits of corporate philanthropy and a culture that cares is seen in your employees. Better productivity. Better employee retention. More employees applying to work with you. Corporate philanthropy should be intertwined with your goals and overall corporate social responsibility.
Already seeing the benefits of corporate philanthropy? Maybe you just need help implementing your initiatives? In either case, our team at Selflessly wants to help your team. Our customers mention the Selflessly software as a huge time saver. Further, employees love having a place to track all of their giving and volunteer time. Whether your team is located in one central area, or everyone is working remotely, Selflessly can help you. Our software can save time by incorporating your corporate philanthropy into your everyday work environment. We’ll help you learn how to easily engage your employees in corporate philanthropy.
You can learn how our easy to use software can create a huge impact. Within days your team can set up an employee volunteer program, a matching gifts program, or simply provide space for employees to donate to causes they care about. Sound great?
To learn all about corporate philanthropy, read further. Also, please feel free to simply send us your email or a question, and we’ll walk you through all the basics! [email protected]
I love having a platform that helps us manage employee engagement and donations, especially across a remote team who needs volunteer opportunities across the country. Getting our account up and running and introducing it to our team was a simple process, and now they’re self-sufficient in tracking their own give-back initiatives.
Sam S
Chief Architect
Excellent experience! Team engagement with philanthropy, both financial and time, are at an all-time high! Selflessly makes managing philanthropy across our team easy. The interface is intuitive and the reporting makes it simple to see the impact of our team’s generosity.
Matt H
Chief People Officer
To help explain corporate philanthropy, we can think about corporate social responsibility overall. Additionally, we can use corporate philanthropy examples. It’s always easier to learn through examples!
A quick summary on the types of corporate social responsibility shows 4 responsibilities that a company has to their surroundings. Feel free to skip below to read further on these 4 types of Corporate Social Responsibilities.
Taking a look at the fourth responsibility, here’s a top-level review of some corporate philanthropy examples and ways to give back:
1. Donating Money
2. Volunteering Time
3. Donating Products
4. Providing In-Kind Services
5. Donating Company Equity.
As your team decides how to give back to those in need and support nonprofits, there are a few common ways to involve both your employees and your leadership.
Taking philanthropy examples a step further, here are the seven most popular forms of corporate philanthropy. These forms combine ways to donate and volunteer at an individual employee level and a corporate level. Corporate philanthropy programs that involve both employee level and company level participation see the best success!
If your team is already incorporating one or many of the top seven types of corporate philanthropy, congrats! Keep up the good work! Deciding which examples to include in your corporate philanthropy program is an important step. To help further, check out a global movement around corporate philanthropy. Pledge 1% explores a few of these philanthropy examples.
Both as a company and as an individual, there are many ways to give back. It’s helpful to start with a simple structure. Pledge 1% provides that structure to start your corporate philanthropy and social impact. The pledge 1% examples are below, and they incorporate many of the 7 types of corporate philanthropy.
Pledging 1% of your time is about volunteering! This can mean everything from hands-on work to skills-based volunteering to mentorship. This might sound like a lot, yet keep in mind that 1% of a 40-hour work week is just 24 minutes! Learn more about Pledging 1% of Time.
Donating your product to charity can mean goods, services, or a unique version of your products that is specifically tailored to nonprofits. Circlebev.com even came up with a specific kombucha to support JDRF with IndyCar driver, Conor Daly! Your team can offer products at a discount or make a full donation. Learn more about Pledging 1% of Product.
Pledging equity means committing 1% (or more) of shares in your company to a specific charity’s ownership. If you aren’t a company that is selling stock yet, this type of giving can still be an option! This is both an effective and easy way to give to the organization of your choice and allow them to benefit from your current and future success. Learn more about Pledging 1% of Equity.
Pledging a percentage of profits is a great way to give money back to great nonprofits! As some teams have unpredictable profits, Pledge 1% lets you determine how much to contribute—even if it’s less than 1%. Just getting started is the right first step! Your team can structure this giving in compliant ways while keeping the beneficiaries up to you and your employees. You can also combine pledging profit with pledging time! Learn more about Pledging 1% of Profit.
Through reviewing the types of corporate philanthropy and examples of corporate philanthropy, you can help your team! Whether you are expanding current efforts or starting fresh, it’s time to solidify your team’s corporate philanthropy initiatives. Remember, we suggest your initiative to involve all your employees!
When starting a corporate philanthropy program, most teams decide between implementing a corporate volunteering program or a corporate giving program. Of course, you can always do both! Ultimately, we suggest having options for both giving and volunteering in your philanthropy program. However, choosing one route is a great way to start. Starting simple and expanding is a great option!
We have a few highlights to consider when creating your program – check out our free PDF here. On that PDF, we suggest a few ways to start a Corporate Giving & Volunteer Program. We call it designing your program. Here’s a little summary of that PDF:
These are all great things to consider when creating your corporate philanthropy program (aka, workplace giving, social impact, etc). Remember, employees want purpose in the workplace, and who wouldn’t?! Helping others can give you an awesome feeling.
If you don’t believe us, check out the sections below with a few studies about the benefits.
What can you do to drive employee engagement and create a happier workplace? Regardless of a virtual or onsite team, the Corporate Volunteering Program has many benefits that will be delivered to your employees. Volunteering has been a popular choice of philanthropy within the months of pandemic recovery. Most volunteers can support nonprofits remotely!
The concept of Volunteer Time Off has been around for some time. Businesses have been incorporating volunteer time off to engage employees. Employees are even hopeful to have these days when selecting a new job. To ensure you’re up to speed, you can review details about VTO (volunteer time off) and why you should offer it as a benefit to your employees. Further, you can review whether this philanthropy benefit should be Paid VTO vs. Unpaid VTO.
Teams provide their employees between 4 and 40 hours per year to volunteer during company time. Generally this volunteer time off is in addition to paid vacation and sick days. Recently, VTO has been increasing in workplaces as employers are taking corporate social responsibility more seriously. Employees view programs like volunteer time off as a benefit.
Employees want purpose in the workplace. These programs can help distinguish your company from others and help to recruit (and retain) the best employees. In fact, according to Forbes Seven Wellness Benefits Employers Should Offer Along With Hybrid-Remote Working, paid volunteer time off is one of the top benefits a company can offer.
Employees want their companies to succeed for different reasons, but the desire is even stronger with purpose-driven companies. A purpose driven company can help to create advocates, improve your organization’s culture, and help to drive your company’s performance!
The bigger the team, the greater the diversity in thoughts, interests, and relationships. Having differences is good, similarities are great, and almost everyone can agree that giving back is important! For that reason, starting an employee giving campaign is a second corporate philanthropy example.
Today’s workers want to give their time and money to causes they care about. One recent study indicated that corporate social responsibility campaigns can boost employee morale and workplace culture while also improving brand perception.
Giving campaigns are a great way to connect virtual and in-office workers. This is a great reason each business should review and redefine their remote work policies over the next one to two years. You can empower your employees to make a difference—and support them in doing so.
Within employee giving campaigns, a good place to start is the following:
Feel free to review our blog on employee matching gifts or check out the company examples coming up!
As your team launches or creates new initiatives within your corporate giving and volunteering, consider a few company examples! Your policy could have the following bullet points as benefits for employees:
Our first example involves gener8tor (g8). They focused first on volunteering and then later launched employee matching gifts. A primary and “powerful motivator” was g8’s initiative to start their 2 Volunteer Days of Service on MLK & Indigenous Peoples Day. Their team is a very distributed company almost exclusively working remotely. Through Selflessly, employees were provided virtual volunteer opportunities and given $100 in matching gifts to be utilized each year.
A second company philanthropy example involves Onboard. Their team combines both giving and volunteer benefits. They provide each employee 24 hours of Volunteer Time Off (VTO) per year. Further, they give each an employee $50 in Impact Dollars to donate to the nonprofit of their choice. They can then track both the number of VTO hours used and Impact Dollars donated within a Social Impact Report! To review in full, check out or post, OnBoard’s launch of Selflessly.
Remember, if your team is not quite ready to offer these benefits. That’s no problem! Think about what you can do as a team. Perhaps a simple coat drive or canned food drive to start. Let your corporate philanthropy program evolve from there!
Our society is often so busy that we forget to celebrate all of the good we have done! When you and your team see the aggregate impact in volunteer hours, in profits donated, in products given, it’s incredible! Not to mention the fact that according to the Satell Institute Study: Businesses with a commitment to CSR & increased Employee Engagement could see turnover reductions by up to 50%. The Pledge 1% website mentions the below statistics.
“Companies with engaged employees see a 26% higher revenue per employee and 13% higher total returns to stakeholders, and 87% of consumers believe corporations should place equal weight on business and supporting communities. And those are just two of many stats. look at Salesforce, Atlassian, Twilio, Patagonia, and other companies known for giving back—you can see the obvious ROI.”
“Over 60% of Millennials state that a “sense of purpose” is a key reason why they work for their current employers. In fact, companies with giving programs have 2.3 times the employee retention rate. Pledge 1% helps you win talent wars!”
To continue stressing the importance of CSR, let’s take corporate social responsibility a step further! Here’s a few articles and statistics showing the importance of CSR in the workplace.
“We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves at some point, something that we’re proud to be associated with. A purpose driven company can provide that relationship.” https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2021/09/importance-purpose-company-success
For Momentum’s Social Impact Stats 2021, A compendium of cause marketing, CSR & purpose data, provides a wealth of great information includes the following stats:
What great news for your team! Additionally, they commented that turnover is reduced by 57% among employees who engage in both giving and volunteering! This is a great reminder of the CSR importance in the workplace. Remember, we are happy to help you to involve your team in your CSR initiatives
Seen above, corporate philanthropy is part of an overall idea around corporate social responsibility (CSR). As a leader, CSR should be included throughout your company’s goals. Your team needs to be thinking about your brand image with respect to CSR. Your employees are thinking about your team’s CSR and so should your leadership.
However, many teams are not as familiar with the 4 types of CSR. You may know the overall theme or idea, yet we wanted to include Carroll’s Four-Part Model as a background on CSR.
What is Carroll’s Four Part Model of Corporate Social Responsibility?
First, Carroll’s pyramid is a framework that helps businesses understand the responsibilities they have to society. The model includes 4 responsibilities: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic.
1. Economic Responsibility
First up, economic responsibility. The foundation of the social responsibility pyramid rests on a business’s ability to be profitable. Yes, that’s right! CSR includes the need to be profitable. The economic responsibility creates a balance between the next 3: ethical, legal, and philanthropic responsibilities. A company needs to survive to support the community. Economic responsibility is overall a positive. Naturally, there are outliers who place this above all other responsibilities. Not a good idea. We see those companies in the news. The goal is more to balance the profits with the other responsibilities.
2. Legal Responsibility
The next level of the pyramid is legal responsibility. This defines a company’s responsibility to follow all the laws and regulations that apply to the business operations. We can think about the tax regulations in certain states, countries, or regions as one example. Further, one can think about the health and safety of employees. Many regions mandate certain rules or laws to follow when employing others. A further example would be meeting regulations set by the FDA. These laws are in place to protect consumers from becoming ill. Naturally, failing to be legally responsible has many negative consequences.
3. Ethical Responsibility
Following legal responsibility on the pyramid is ethical responsibility. Many times, we think about ethical as doing the right thing. Doing the right thing, even though it may not be a law. Generally, ethics go beyond a certain region’s laws and follow the social or cultural norms of that area. Therefore, a company should not be just obeying the law, but also be willing to do business ethically. Although this is not an obligation for your company, it is in the best interests. Customers and employees will be more likely to support your team when making ethical decisions.
An example could be fair working conditions, working wage, working hours, or age of employed worker. Depending on the country or state, laws differ, and your team will have to decide how your business is operated and who your business works with. It is up to management to make moral decisions that will ultimately impact consumers, employees, the environment, and this business itself.
4. Philanthropic Responsibility
The final piece on the pyramid is philanthropic responsibility. Businesses are expected to give back to their communities. Similar to ethical responsibility, this is not an obligation or law for most countries. However, incorporating philanthropic responsibility has many benefits. Businesses being philanthropic improves brand image. Further, consumer engagement increases & employees are more likely to apply for a job. The nature of this responsibility is completely voluntary and is guided by your company’s desire to take part in social activities.
Naturally a company can donate part of the profits from the first section of the pyramid — economic. However, philanthropic does not always have to be money that is donated. Teams can donate time or products. With that, leaders can create a volunteer program to allow for volunteer days or volunteer time off. For that, you may want to include a volunteer policy which will help to manage and coordinate your team. The social responsibility of a business is to make sure that they can affect social, economic, public health, and environmental changes in a positive way.
What great news for your team! Additionally, they commented that turnover is reduced by 57% among employees who engage in both giving and volunteering! This is a great reminder of the CSR importance in the workplace. Remember, we are happy to help you to involve your team in your CSR initiatives
One question that can come up is what is the difference between philanthropy and charity? Philanthropy vs. charity is a great question and easily interchanged. Most everyone associates positive images with philanthropy and charity. Likely, we believe both help others and both are beneficial for the community.
The good news is that there are benefits of philanthropy, and of course, there are benefits of charity. Both are great to involve in your life and with your team at home or work. It’s not Philanthropy vs Charity. It’s Philanthropy and Charity!
The concept behind philanthropy is about ideas & actions that are done to better humanity. Philanthropy focuses on long-term solutions and social change. Philanthropy is based on collective and organized responses. It also has more independent communities. Anyone can be a philanthropist. You can help solve issues within society.
Now, let’s look at charity. Charity is more of an emotional response, and it’s more focused on relief in the short-term. Supplying people and communities with COVID vaccines is a charity example. Funding to create the vaccine would fall within philanthropy! Sending masks and other aid are also great charity examples of short-term relief. Charity relieves a particular social problem, whereas philanthropy focuses on addressing the root cause.
Remember, they are both great! Short-term solutions are needed. Additionally research and longer term solutions are also needed. We have to find the root cause of the issues to solve them long term. Both philanthropy and charity are critical partners to improve communities everywhere. Many of us do both without even realizing it.
What great news for your team! Additionally, they commented that turnover is reduced by 57% among employees who engage in both giving and volunteering! This is a great reminder of the CSR importance in the workplace. Remember, we are happy to help you to involve your team in your CSR initiatives
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