How to Choose your perfect Team cause

Engaging your employees through charity work, is well known to bring many advantages, including a boost in morale, pride in your workplace, increased employee engagement with your company and improvements in staff retention to name a few. There are numerous case studies supporting this, such as this short informative read in the Huffington Post.

So, it's clear that investing some time and money in charity focussed work is highly beneficial to both YOUR employees and YOUR Business. But, where to start?!

1. Ask your employees what matters to them

Perhaps hold a ballot of suggested charities or broader causes, or ask employee's to 'pitch' for their charity or cause and win votes. Alternatively download the 'Charities seeking support' list at the bottom of the page, to help your employees to decide.

Passing the choice over to your team, will immediately generate the kind of positive attitude, engagement, focus and commitment you aspire to. You'll probably find a core band of employees who are already extremely passionate and supportive of certain charities that are dear to them.

Their enthusiasm will be infectious! Remember - cause related support is passionate and loyal - you'll see your employees shine!

2. The Pros and Cons of approaching a Charity directly

Your employees may have inside knowledge of how your team could help your chosen charity - for example, your employees may also be Trustees or volunteers in their spare time. If so, then great. If not, then the best place to start is by either asking the charity directly or by contacting a company that provides specialist skills in supporting Charities.

If you approach the charity directly, then be mindful of a few things.

a. They may well be short-staffed

b. They may not know how you can 'help'

c. You may get referred straight to their fundraising pages on their website

d. They may be nervous to attempt something new with you, due to the level of additional work it would place onto the charity in order to arrange it.

It's not that the charities don't want your help, it's just that frequently, they're simply not resourced enough to always accommodate individual requests.

Our blog piece on the Pros and Cons of Volunteering Days, gives a balanced view of when it’s most appropriate and beneficial to the charity to work directly with them.

3. Using a Specialised Charity Engagement Company

The benefit therefore of using a specialist company, is that they will largely be able to reduce the workload for the charity in accommodating your request. They'll already have a working relationship with the charity and understand what type of activities are helpful for them. Consequently, the cause-related work for your team, becomes much more beneficial to the charity and not a 'hollow' victory that looks good on paper but in reality has delivered little. There of course is a cost associated with this, but it removes the cost you may inadvertently put onto the charity by going direct to them.

Many of these companies already have lists of charities looking for very specific support. For example, at O3e, we have a list of charities and the specific support they are seeking, plus we have ingenious fun and engaging ways for your team to both support the charity, build a relationship with the charity and ultimately feel great.

If you would like some inspiration, you can download our latest Charities Seeking Support list here.

Good luck!

#Employeeengagement #CorporateSocialResponsibility #charity