by Rachel Ayotte | Apr 8, 2025 | Article
Workplace giving has long been a popular way for employees and businesses to support causes and missions they care about. But, in the last few years, there have been several new, exciting trends in workplace giving that are key for nonprofit organisations and foundations to understand.
In this article, we’ll cover what workplace giving is and what trends grantmaking foundations and their grantees should be aware of so they can maximise opportunities.
Often called Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR), workplace giving is a form of philanthropy in which employees donate to charitable causes with support from their employers.
Unlike more generalised giving from individual donors, workplace giving programs are a more structured way for people to give back to their communities. Plus, this type of giving can often even be a more powerful way to contribute to a cause — many workplace giving programs leverage the influence and support of their employers to maximise impact.
Matching programs are a very popular way for businesses and their employees to give back. In fact, more than 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs!
While most companies offer a dollar-for-dollar match, many organisations are now going beyond that, even tripling matching for specific causes — studies show the top 10 matching gift companies will match on average up to a whopping $47,500 per employee per year.
Nonprofits know that time is often just as valuable as money. But, 49% of individuals say work commitments are their biggest obstacle to volunteering.
In response to that, a lot of businesses offer Volunteer Time Off (VTO), which gives employees days off of work so they can contribute to causes they are about. According to studies, companies with paid volunteer time off programs offer an average of 20 VTO hours per team member annually. That equates to about 2.5 full days each year!
For the nonprofit sector, this is a huge opportunity for skill-based volunteering. Employees can take time off from work and use their specific job skills to help out, giving organisations access to valuable corporate talent — without the cost.
Microdonations have been a trend for quite some time. This small, incremental giving is a great way to get all different kinds of donors involved and make contributing to a cause accessible.
In a similar vein to microdonations, many organisations now offer payroll deduction programs. These programs allow salaried workers to give a portion of their paycheck — small or large percentages — every week or month to a cause they care about.
Despite how global some political, social, economic, or environmental needs are, many people have recently become drawn to more localised philanthropy.
Because of that, many companies are focusing their CSR initiatives on supporting causes right in their own neighbourhoods — whether they’re helping to eradicate food or housing insecurity or something else entirely.
This approach, which allows employees to see their impact firsthand, can even be a great incentive for employees to get involved beyond their company’s CSR initiative.
Perhaps one of the best strategies for maximising workplace giving is letting employees lead giving decisions.
Forward-thinking companies who are leading or starting a purpose-driven CSR program are letting employee groups direct giving decisions, creating employee-led grant committees and supporting fundraising initiatives started by staff.
This shift recognises that employees often understand community needs best and have genuine connections to causes. In turn, more people tend to participate, and the sense of ownership improves workplace culture.
Workplace giving is a powerful mechanism for philanthropy — one that all nonprofits and foundations should take advantage of.
As new trends emerge and more employees take advantage of their work’s giving programs, CSR initiatives will become even more robust and impactful to both local and global causes.
Articles
Feature focus
Ebooks
Videos
Releases