Augment your employee benefits with this for improved recruitment & retention
Total charitable giving in the US reached $499.33 billion in 2022, a 3.4% decline after record-setting years between 2021 and 2022, during the COVID pandemic, according to the Giving USA 2023 Report. Giving increased in many categories, including foundations and companies, but the economy has hit consumers as individual contributions decreased. Adjusted for inflation, the total decline amounted to 10.5%.
At the same time talent recruitment and acquisition has rarely been as difficult as it is now, and often those at work are barely engaged. Employer branding is critical to successful recruitment efforts as people choose to work for companies that share their values, TechTarget reported. It can also reduce churn and increase engagement, the report said.
Uncommon Giving is a tech platform that helps companies to better recruit and retain top talent by packaging employee giving within the corporate benefits package, as Andy Howell, CEO of Uncommon Giving explains in the video. Credit unions' people-helping-people philosophy and culture is ripe for this type of benefit. Watch to learn more!
Excerpts from our discussion with Uncommon Giving CEO Andy Howell (auto-generated transcript):
Sarah: I was reading some stats that, you know, 57% of people are going to give the same as it did last year, 30% are going to give more, you know, same goes for the time dedicated to volunteerism as well, that kinda surprised me, especially given the economy. How about you?
Andy: Well, I've been in the nonprofit ecosystem. For a long time, I've worked in a number of software companies that support nonprofits, either through donor management, or fundraising, and then a couple of companies that support donors, and particularly companies that that engage their employees and generosity. And it has never ceased to amaze me how generous people are in the United States.
Sarah: So, I'm sure still many nonprofits might struggle with fundraising this year, you think? Are you hearing that at all?
Andy: everyone's always talking about that. People set goals, you know, they want to achieve them. And, you know, they want to do better than they did before. So we'll see how the year plays out, I think it's been a big year forgiving, I do think there's been a little bit of a of a drag with inflation, just some some general economic issues that people are wondering about, but I think overall, us giving is going to kind of maintain that resiliency that we talked about earlier. But yeah, I think I think nonprofits are always looking to find people that care about the mission that they serve. And so that, you know, they also have better tools nowadays, you know, they have ways to communicate with people and, and find those that might be compelled to support them in their, their ultimate mission. It's not just about fundraising or raising a certain amount of dollars. It's accomplishing the impact that they set out to make, and so I think people are passionate in that space.
Sarah: Your website says that the employees are five times more engaged and companies with volunteer programs, 50% reduction in turnover has been experienced 13% increase in productivity. It's interesting to try to connect those dots, you know, how does that work?
Andy: Companies generally have a set of core values, you know, they really believe in something. And oftentimes it has some community impact or giving back or, you know, just being a good corporate citizen. And that's attractive to employees that want to work for a company that is that. And so having a having a workplace generosity program just manifests, it's a good way to sort of walk the talk of your core values, or live your values. And so if they can, so we just think about it, I guess the slightly broader, you know, you think about enabling philanthropy, so giving your employees a way to do good to help someone else doesn't have to be dollars, but just to do something for someone else. And then how that could be part of the employee experience. So a couple of things have happened over recent times, we don't go to the office as much as we used to, to people are a little bit more distributed. So they can't really, they don't really build as well, that would be harder to build a relationship between employer employee, or also with your fellow employees, just through the traditional employee engagement tactics. And so there's data everywhere, that shows that if a company can support an employee and their desire to make an impact, whether it's just do something good for someone else, or impact a charity that they really care about, then they will get the benefits of retention and engagement and productivity and overall morale. It stems from the basic neuroscience of doing good for someone, helping someone else is great for the recipient of that help. But it's also really good for the giver, it creates oxytocin in the body, which is the happiness chemical that reduces stress, and creates self-esteem. In the context of employees doing a volunteer opportunity together, they get to go with their coworkers and their friends and go make an impact, kind of in the context of work, but it's not work. It's, it's just, you know, with your so you build deeper relationships, all that endures back to the benefit of the folks that are trying to make to make sure their employees are engaged and feel good about the employer, the company, the brand, you know, what do we stand for. And so, it's funny, we talk about it all the time. And it's, it's sort of under our nose, you know, it's, it's the employee engagement tactic is right under our nose, we used to, we used to build office spaces with all kinds of fun things for people to do, you know, to make them happy, or kombucha machines in the kitchen or, you know, all those kinds of things. And it turns out if you just support someone, and in allowing them to be generous with their time, that's kind of the ultimate human nature. And you can tap into that it's very easy to manage, very cost effective thing to manage. But you'll start seeing if your focus is I don't want to say like less on philanthropy and more on employee engagement, but just on both, you can get both by supporting folks in their desire to do something good for somebody else.
Sarah: Uncommon Giving works with some huge companies like Chick fil A and others. How and why did you land on credit unions?
Andy: The original founders of Uncommon Giving were actually community bankers. I think there's some similarities (to credit unions) in the sense that they, they were very part of their identity was supporting their community. But they built a platform to support generosity and employees. And then, of course, through a technology platform, you can you get data, so you can report on it, and you can tell your story. That's not disingenuous. It's really nice for your community to know that our employees volunteered this many hours for this many local nonprofits in the community. I mean, that's part of part of your brand, that's part of your identity as part of your giving back to the community.
Sarah: Final thoughts?
Andy: We think of ourselves as is trying to amplify generosity, and that's a good thing, because I think it's happening. People want to do good; people derive benefit from helping someone else. And of course, the recipients of that goodness benefit from it.
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