4 Ways Companies Can Give Back During #GivingTuesdayNow

Have you heard of GivingTuesday?

Typically, GivingTuesday is the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It’s a day where individuals give to their favorite non-profits before the holiday season.

This year, due to the COVID-19 crisis, communities and non-profits are coming together for #GivingTuesdayNow on May 5th.

If your organization is looking for ways to give back during COVID, Giving Tuesday Now is a great opportunity. Here are some unique ways to launch your charitable giving efforts during this time. 

Workplace Giving Programs

Workplace giving “is a corporate culture model designed to spur employees to volunteer or make donations to charities.” 

Many organizations focused their workplace giving on volunteer days - but COVID has hindered these opportunities. This has many organizations shifting their focus to enabling their workforce to easily make charitable contributions. 

Typically in workplace giving programs, businesses will double the donations made by their employees. For Giving Tuesday Now, you can incentivize employees to give to their favorite causes by tripling donations for one day only - or maybe all week long to really keep the good going. 

Organizations love using Pinkaloo’s modern giving platform because they can easily track which charities their employees are giving to and employees can easily keep track of their donation receipts. When everyone gets a $300 tax credit for donations this year, it’s a great idea to incentivize giving! 

Plus, everyone who gives through Pinkaloo on May 5th will receive a special badge on their profile.

Employee Assistance Funds

Have your employees been impacted by COVID? If your organization has had to close their doors or limit hours, an employee assistance fund is a way to give back to those most impacted. 

Employee Assistance Funds (EAFs) are also known as Employee Relief Funds and are programs designed to help employees handle unexpected hardships. 

Typically, organizations will partner with a nonprofit organization to launch an EAF. America’s Charities, a partner of Pinkaloo, can help you launch and scale your EAF with ease. To raise funds for your EAF, you can set a budget internally, fundraise from other employees, and fundraise from your community. 

For example, The Wing, a female coworking space, launched an EAF in partnership with Emergency Assistance Foundation, a 501c3 organization and started a GoFundMe page. They’ve raised over $100,000 to give back to employees through their community. 

Crowd Fundraising 

Are you located in a small community? Are there one or two charities your entire organization can get behind? Then you might want to think about crowd fundraising. Crowd fundraising is when a group of people get together to fundraise for a specific cause. Rather than having your employees donate to the causes of their choice, you select a few charities for them to rally behind. If you live in a small community or are in a specific area of business, crowd fundraising is a great opportunity. For example, if you’re a grocery store then giving funds to a nonprofit that feeds communities is a great cause to crowd fundraise behind. 

If you work with a corporate social responsibility partner like Pinkaloo, you can easily configure your own crowdfundraising campaign that allows corporate sponsors to highlight their contributions. 

One example of a crowd fundraising campaign is CapeCod 5, a community bank, coming together to raise funds for selected local healthcare providers where they’re matching up to $100,000 in donations! 

Contribution Marketing

“Contribution marketing means offering a product or service that fills an immediate need.”

How can your organization fill an immediate need with your product or service? Can you give away free products to those in need? Can you offer your services to frontline workers at no cost?

We’ve seen many organizations step up in terms of contribution marketing during COVID. Whether it’s an alcohol company giving back to bartenders, Google offering their video services for free, or local restaurants giving away free food to those in need, everyone is stepping up in unique ways. Leading publications, like this Forbes example focused on Fintech contribution marketing, are aggregating lists and is a great opportunity for some earned media coverage.

Think about how your organization can give your products or services to those in need this Giving Tuesday Now! 

How Will You Give Back this Giving Tuesday Now?

There are a wide variety of ways to give back this Giving Tuesday Now. What’s most important is that you do as much as your organization can in this time of crisis.