How Benevity's "Spark" Transforms Workplace Giving

More from my conversation with Jana Taylor of Benevity.www,benevity.org This time we talked more specifically about their newest product Spark, an online platform for employee giving and volunteering.

Employee engagement is a big buzz world for companies in general. It takes time to build that kind of engagement, to give employees a voice  in a many areas of their worklife, but certainly not in workplace giving programs. Companies are asking employees to give and it is from their heart and yet they haven't been given the opportunity to express what it is they care about.

We have been around for three years now. Spark workplace giving has been around only for a short while. We are very interested in the whole concept of engaging employees in corporate philanthropy.

When we were talking to companies about how to engage their employees and consumers in giving Companies told us that they really like the idea of workplace giving and even told us what were the challenges.Some of the challenges that the companies have told us about is that they are struggling to deliver workplace programs that are truly engaging, that have broad adoption and generate interest with their employees.

Likewise on the employee side, there is quite a lot research that links giving with employee engagement. So they don't want to just give their money away to charity they want to engage their company employees in doing this. Employees have increasing expectations from their companies to help them give back and they also have increasing expectations that they live in a web based world . They want a seat at the table and they want to participate more proactively in giving back.

Unfortunately a lot of the programs that are in existence are really for status quo, check the box off kind of thing. But they are very top down, they don't even involve the passion of the employees. A lot of times they outsource programs to charity aggregators for the workplace giving programs, simply a digital touch form, That doesn't really align with the web based world their employees live in.

I think when companies look at their goals then,yes, they want to be good corporate citizens and they want to engage their employees, if they really want to boost their employee participation and engage their employees and move the needle on other employee related issues, When you look at the metrics on attracting, motivating and retaining of great talent, then they have to do workplace giving in a new way.

The tool that we built for employee giving and volunteering, it's called Spark. It allows the company a tool that is already built and it is a very engaging way to get employees involved with company volunteering and giving, and it can be done in a way that aligns with the companies charities that they support. Using Spark they can enable their employees to give to any registered charity and they can create any campaigns around individual charities or campaigns around funds. They can create the company fund, for whatever cause, a real time matching campaign where an employee can donate to any charity or to the company fund and the company can match that.

There is a reporting section within Spark that the administrators can see, where they can create reports on any different aspect of the programs and they can see the result of the campaigns so that they will be able to look at and track the metrics and success. And for employee giving a lot of companies have an internal or external employee engagement survey and where they can ask questions around how well they are we doing with employee engagement.

There are many ways the platform can be used and we continue to spark their imagination in terms of how it can be used. But there are specific opportunities and whenever a company uses the Benevity platform, so that is why we developed Spark on top of the Benevity platform, in a sense we built our own car on top of the engine.

Giving is personal, it is from the heart. People need a way to tap into supporting the causes that resonate with them personally. At the same time it gives companies the software that's their own brand. They can roll out their own program and at the same time have the ability to create the cause funds. They have the ability to create campaigns that align company giving with employee giving. It is an easy way to communicate with employees what causes the company supports.

It really inspires employees. One person told me recently that when she saw Spark it had shifted her thinking. She said the way that they had been doing it it was a chore and a process. Spark makes it more of an experience.

We are building a volunteering model that will give companies' opportunities to communicate internal or external volunteering opportunities and will be able to create campaigns around volunteering, where employees can then select the opportunities that resonate with them, create accounts and then track them. And for employee giving a lot of companies have an internal or external employee engagement survey and where they can ask questions around how well they are we doing with employee engagement.

Development team is working on right now the ability for companies to reward for volunteerism, with donor dollars in an employees account.

We are very passionate about helping companies with their corporate giving programs.

Benevity Helping Create Customer and Employee Giving Programs That Really Engage

I had the pleasure of talking with Jana Taylor, marketing manager for Benevity, a certified BCorp, that has developed a software platform that helps businesses better engage their customers, employees and corporate partners in cause marketing and charitable giving. More recently, Benevity has also built another product, Spark which actively engages and tracks employee giving programs. Jana and all of the Benevity employees are passionate about how Benevity can help businesses achieve newer and more effective corporate giving and cause marketing programs.

Part I is a transcript of my interview with Jana which describes Benevity, its beginnings, and the vision for what it can do for the world of corporate giving and philanthropy. We will continue in Part II about the newer product, Spark, aimed at improving employee giving.

INNOVATIVE CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY PROGRAMS 
We do a lot of things at Benevity helping businesses with corporate philanthropy, cause marketing initiatives, as well as employee volunteering initiatives where we have built a particular product called Spark. We are very interested in the whole concept of engaging employees in corporate philanthropy. We have been around for three years now. We are very passionate about helping companies with their corporate giving programs and helping them to do things differently.

We represent ourselves as a hybrid company in that we are a software company and a for profit company, but we have a social mission to help philanthropy and to give businesses a new perspective from the technology perspective to be shown how to implement their corporate giving programs in new and innovative ways.

THE BEGINNINGS

This is not just for the purpose of being new but also for the purpose of to be able to generate better returns both for the social impact and enabling greater contributions to the communities so that when they what to give back. But also from a business perspective, whether it is cause marketing or a giving initiative or an employee giving program, to really have a new technology to better help them measure the impact of that as well. Initially it has been an area that is becoming more important but also an area that as has been getting more scrutiny and we see it as having importance, because people are caring about giving back more and if you look at the research that we got from the Cone and the Edelman reports, whether it is on the consumer side or the employee side, people are thinking more than ever about giving back. So that is a change and the change in the companies in how they have to give back.

The founder is Bryan de Lottinville .He was not an original IT person but a lawyer. He basically was involved in a growth company as an executive. What prompted him was that he really wanted not to leave a legacy of just fixing companies , he was motivated to do more and when he was working as an advisor for a company that was looking at turning consumer loyalty programs into donor programs that's when he started thinking about cause marketing and philanthropy. He was looking at the perspective from his experience at IStock Photo, which was a company that had a very strong online community and really revolutionized and democratized that industry.

IMPROVING THE CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY LANDSCAPE

Soon when he was looking at corporate philanthropy he was looking at it from that lens. When he looked at the philanthropic landscape he saw so many problems such as the duplication in not for profit and the high cost of fund raising and the small percentage of donations that come from companies. As for democratizing philanthropy, it's great that there are giving plans and high net-worth individuals , but what about the person who can give only twenty dollars or two dollars and they don't the opportunity to make them feel that they've made a difference and how to build giving into the business.

That was the idea behind the Benevity platform. basically it is an engine that is embedded into individual transactions so that from a company's perspective they can engage consumers or employees in optimal charity of choice giving that under their brand.

CREATING A BRAND HALO EFFECT

Everyone here is very passionate about the idea of helping companies do this better, putting an 'x' through "that is how we have always done this " corporate giving programs and that includes cause marketing and employee giving programs. And giving them a way to do this differently and specially giving them a way to support charities and at the same to engage their employees and consumers in giving. Because one of the things that we also feel is needed is that, is in addition to where people are caring more about giving back , they are living in a world where personalization and empowerment and customization. Everyone has a profile in Facebook and Linked in and everyone knows that they can go online and order a custom made shoes from Nike.com, people are used to this world of personal empowerment. In addition to the fact that they lived in this web based world, they want to give back more and the ways that companies have been traditionally been them ways to give back,they are not really engaging them anymore. From the company's perspective, in addition to wanting to be a good corporate citizen, it is not completely altruistic. They also, with cause marketing, are also doing this because they want to engage their customers. They know they can create a brand halo effect.

What we are seeing is that there are so many ways for companies to do things better. The traditional cause marketing program where you have one company and one it really isn't engaging anymore.

IMPROVING THE CUSTOMER GIVING EXPERIENCE

 I noticed in a consumer article that on the consumer side there is almost a skepticism, you see that increase prevalent in cause marketing. Yet you see the Cone and the Edelman reports that people want more cause marketing offers that are not satisfying. For example I went into a drugstore and they asked me if I wanted to donate to AIDS and I asked if the company was matching the donations and the employee didn't know. Which is too bad for her but which is also bad for the company.

We look at programs like that and we say, what if you gave your customers the ability to donate to their cause of choice, so if you want to donate to retailers X charity of one type or another charity they will match your donation.

And what if you could create your own personal foundation where these are the five charity that you or someone else cares about, instead of loyalty points you could redeem them for a donation to your charity. Those are the kinds of things that you could do from a cause marketing front with the Benevity platform.

HELPING COMPANIES DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY

Those are the kinds of things we are trying to help companies to do things differently.

Our platform is used in a number of different ways. It can be used in cause marketing initiatives, with e-commerce initiatives, with web based initiatives. Then we are starting to build products on top of our platform, specifically for workplace giving.

So when we went to companies to ask them about building the platform when it came to employee giving they told us that they want a pleasant solution. They didn't just want us to build the engine for the car they want us to build the engine.

So from the consumer side, if the company is using our platform they have a way to embed cause marketing into offers in a more flexible way. It enables them to embed a cause element into a product price, you buy this particular product x percentage goes to a particular charity of choice and by the way if you donate to a certain fund we will match that.Because it enables you to add optional charitable giving into your business model, you can then measure the impact of that . You can also track this and do an AB test, you can offer this product with a caused offer over a product without a cause offer you can then do a test. Or what if you do a cause with the company choosing cause versus the consumer choosing the cause.

GETTING EVIDENCE

What companies have told us is that it gets the community investment or their corporate philanthropy closer to their target. In the past the CEO is standing there with the big check and hoping that the word will get out. If you are doing cause marketing and if you are doing community investment, and you can get your customer involved in a matching program, then basically know whether it is effective or not. As a company we support, as an example let's say the environment, you can see whether it is compelling or not . Likewise instead if writing a big check to an environmental charity you can have a web based offer that if the consumer gives to that fund we will match that. You get the evidence whether one campaign is more compelling than the other.

Happiness,Wellbeing,and Flourishing in the CSR Workplace

Studies have shown that personal happiness increases with personal philanthropy and volunteerism. If so, then that logic can be extended to corporate giving, meaning that employees could experience an increase in well-being from their company's giving and volunteer programs as part of their involvement in CSR.

The latest trend in studies and books on happiness has come from the new field of positive psychology founded by Martin Seligman, of The University of Pennsylvania. Martin Seligman first came out with his landmark book "Learned Optimism" followed by several others including "Authentic Happiness". As president of the American Psychological Association in 1998, he initiated a whole movement in looking at and studying human behavior by focusing on positives with the goal of increasing them, rather than focusing on correcting the negatives.

 Martin Seligman has more recently rejected the word “happiness” for the broader term, well-being or “flourish" with his new book: Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being and How to Achieve Them.

Various organizations most notably the Gallup organization, have been measuring wellbeing in different levels of societies for countries, state and cities. Positive Organizational Studies have cropped up in graduate schools to address the impact of a variety of organization behaviors on well-being in the workplace. No one, as yet, to my knowledge, has measured the effect of CSR and employee volunteerism on employee well-being, with the exception of one area. We have noted several reports and studies on the positive effects of CSR on employee in regards to hiring and retention.

Could that mean that employees that are involved with their company’s CSR in the form of workplace giving programs or volunteering also experience well-being and flourish within their jobs?

The answer to that is worth exploring further and is to be continued….

How Does Your Company State It's Philanthropic Goals and Mission?

We talk a lot about mission in many of our posts. For example, companies like the House of Marley that describes theirs simply as "putting Bob's beliefs into action",  or the Feed Project that has a whole page dedicated to their stated mission.

A lot of companies miss this essential step of not having a carefully formalized and stated mission statement about their charitable giving. Too bad for them and for the causes they serve, as having a clear sense of what your business wants to achieve in its charitable giving is a tremendous advantage. 

I have been recently helping a local non-profit to build partnerships with local businesses. So I have been carefully scrutinizing a variety of business's website for their info on community giving. My impressions of these are that they go from being fairly simply stated goals on up through a well stated mission. 

Anything written down is a good start, but the clearer the mission and the more employees that are engaged in the drafting, the more impact your philanthropy can have.

Here are some of the stated goals and missions I have come across: 

 Fenwick and West:"We choose to partner with and contribute to organizations with which we can assist in achieving their goals. We believe this integrated approach offers the greatest value to the recipient organizations."

Foxhunt:"has formed collaborative relationships with targeted nonprofits to support youth educational, athletic,and performing arts programs.

Tech CU:"is proud to be a strong supporter of community initiatives that impact the neighborhoods where our members live and work."

CPP: "Consistent with its corporate vision, CPP’s philanthropic activities today focus on contributing to programs that support people, promote educational opportunities, and help under served communities."

 

Many of these do specify more clearly on their sites what kinds of projects they fund, how they involve their employees and how non-profits can apply for funding. 

There is a great advantage for every business that gives back to the community to sit down with employees and develop a mission for their philanthropy because of the following advantages:

• Gives charities a clear cut procedure to follow when submitting their requests
• Creates a review system  to process the charitable applications
• Makes charitable decisions more thoughtful and carefully chosen
• Engages the employees in the charitable giving process
• Aligns the philanthropy with the mission of your business
• Helps assess whether you have achieved your goals and purpose

How does you company state its philanthropic goals and mission? Let me know.

 

Go Daddy Delivers a Knock Out Punch In Giving

While Go Daddy may the premier domain registry business, it also delivers a knock out punch in philanthropic giving. No wonder that CEO Bob Parsons received the Muhammad Ali Entrepreneur Award for donating over $2.8 million to date, to causes such as Make a Wish Foundation, Starlight Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and many other local groups based in communities where GoDaddy has offices.

At the Celebrity Fight Night charity event in Scottsdale AZ, the company also donated $2.5 million to help fight Parkinson's disease. Along with Muhammad Ali, other celebrities recognized Bob Parsons as an inspiring philanthropist.

Inspiring others seems to be a mission of Bob Parsons in many ways. On his personal video blog site he posts wild, wacky and fun videos that serve as motivational messages and tips for other entrepreneurs. This episode below, #42  is in response to the many questions that Bob Parsons receives from entrepreneurs about how to stay motivated and keep going in bad times. 

His motivational videos don't say anything about giving back to the community as a part of a business strategy. But one gets the sense that giving back, inspiration and helping others is part of the mission of Go Daddy and its founder.

To find out more about Go Daddy's charity work, visit GoDaddyCares.



For related stories about other philanthropic companies that also strive to inspire others.
Charitable Designs
Socks For Happy People 
GiveSomethingBack

The Attractor Factor in Business Giving

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has written a piece How Giving Has Helped One Business Grow about Blake Mycoskie of TOMS Shoes and his opening presentation at the annual meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. While the story of the beginnings of his inspiration is moving, he also added three key points about why embedding philanthropy into the fabric of a business can help it grow with the attraction of these three essential elements.

We have written lots about why giving is strategic and advantageous for business growth, but here is a different way of thinking about it. 

1. Attracting Loyal Customers
Blake cited a story about a woman he spoke to in an airport who, without knowing who he was, told him that it was the philanthropic aspects of the company that appealed to her. We also know with current research by from Edelman's Good Purpose Study 2010 , that indeed customers not only are enthusiastically supporting  businesses with a social purpose but are increasingly expecting it.
 .
2.Attracting Quality Employees
TOMS shoes was able to lure employees from other well known shoe manufacturers because of the attraction of being part of a cause and having more meaning in their work. Studies have shown that even volunteering can contribute to an increase in employee satisfaction and retention rates.

3.Attracting Participating Partners 
Companies like Ralph Lauren and ATT have joined with TOMS shoes to support their cause. Paul Newman set a trend in this area with Newman's Own, by enlisting other companies to help support his Hole In the Wall Camp for children with life threatening illnesses. CECP which he founded, is based on the principle of businesses helping to support, inspire and partner with each other in their philanthropic efforts.

See related stories about other companies where giving has helped them grow.
Give Something Back which we wrote about last year was recently profiled in the SF Chronicle.

How Small Businesses Can Light Up on International Philanthropy Day

This Mon, Feb 28th is International Corporate Philanthropy Day (ICPD) organized by the CECP, Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. The purpose of CECP is to help recognize the important role of business in society, and while its membership is offered to large corporations engaging in both local and global philanthropy, small businesses can take example and ideas from this organization for their own philanthropic initiatives.

LIGHT IT UP- TOLL THE BELL
The Empire State building and other tall buildings and landmarks across the country will be lit in the blue and green colors of  CECP on ICPD, and representatives of CECP will ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Why not have any company or business organization in any community toll a bell, put up blue and green lights, and honor International Corporate Philanthropy Day!


INNOVATIVE, INSPIRATIONAL IDEAS FOR CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY

While the membership of CECP  consists of large corporations and their corporate giving programs such as: General Mills, Intel, Western Union and many others, the goals of CECP is to have these companies set an example for others. The tradition of inspiring others to give began  when Paul Newman founded the fledgling enterprise Newman's Own. As his company grew so did the charitable giving, involving a number of other companies that participated in Newman's Own's projects.

Eventually in 1988, Paul Newman started CECP with the goal and mission, as stated on their site: " to inspire and challenge today’s business leaders to find innovative ways to fulfill unmet social needs, to lead the way towards better alignment of business and social strategies, and to serve as business ambassadors of inspiring business leaders".

There is just as many examples of the philanthropy and giving of small companies in local communities and examples of innovation that are solving local social needs, as there are of large corporations. It has been our mission  here at Business That Cares, to highlight the best of them.


OPPORTUNITIES

There are many opportunities and suggestions for companies to take advantage of on International Corporate Philanthropy Day on CECP's site. These suggestion's are equally suitable for both large and small companies.

• Join peers in your community for collaborative philanthropic activities.
• Tell your company's story about your philanthropic initiatives, by publicising and communicating  with the public.
• Post your company's support of causes on your website or through social media.
• Display banners or posters of the charities that you give to at your business.
• Recognize your employees that have volunteered for a cause.
• Engage your entire company in a planning session for your philanthropic programs.
• Set up a grant program for non profits to apply to.
• Plan a charity fair in your community. 

In addition, ICPD can be a great day to have your business employees volunteer for a worthy cause, whether it is local or a more global one. 

For more ideas for innovative ideas for business philanthropy check out some of these posts:

Can Your Business Give Back and Do Social Good?
Giving Bears, Kids and Heroes 
Charitable Designs

Can Your Business Give Back and Do Social Good? Richard Branson Challenges Entrepreneurs

It's almost been two years here at Business That Cares that we've been featuring businesses and entrepreneurs that have taken on the challenge of blending philanthropy, giving back to community, and social responsibility with their business models.The purpose has been to use  these stories as inspiration to others who are planning to do the same.

Richard Branson, is not the head of a small business, by any means, but he is personally engaged in philanthropy and has embedded corporate giving throughout the culture of his conglomerate of companies, and especially through Virgin Unite, the foundation that works towards revolutionizing the way businesses and the social sector work together for social good.

At a charity event for Center for Living Peace in Irvine, CA, Branson challenged entreprenuers to think differently: "to change their way of thinking as to running their businesses, make them a force for good, not just a force to make money."

Branson, joined by another successful entrepreneur/philanthropist  Rob Dyrdek who said of Branson that " his principle and school of thought and his entrepreneurial spirit has inspired me."

And so, for more inspiration, check out this original video of the event by aol.smallbusiness.

(My apologies for the annoying commercials at the beginning of the video. But the video is worth watching not only to hear Richard Branson's message, but also for seeing his " pirate for peace " outfit.)

Charitable Designs

Increasingly in our wired world, businesses large and small are learning the absolute necessity of a strong web-presence. But if you've ever tried to commission a website design, license a domain or contract with a host, you probably realize that the process can be a fair bit trickier than the sum of its parts. That's one of the reasons WebsitesGiveB@ck caught my eye. The Front Royal, Virginia-based family business offers creative but affordable web design services, specializing in small businesses and the service business community. For one flat rate, they bundle together the entire project: designing a five-page site, registering your domain, offering a year of web hosting, submitting your site to search engines, even throwing in a few hours of technical assistance.

But as their name implies, WebsitesGiveB@ck has a secondary mission. As envisioned by co-founders Elena Patrice and Linda Saker, the company donates about 20% of the proceeds of each web design project to a charity of the client's choosing. As Elena Patrice told me, "We feel we have a huge opportunity to help in two significant ways. First, small businesses are struggling, and we present them with an amazing service that covers virtually every base in their website design for one flat rate. We go many 'extra miles' because we want to do all we can to sincerely and honestly serve small business owners. Second, we help charitable organizations, who are experiencing their greatest decline in donor assistance ever. We summarize our efforts as the 3 C's: Company-Customer-Cause. It all works together, and that's our tag line: 'Good business and goodwill coming together.'"

According to a listing on their site, WebsitesGiveB@ck and their customers have donated to The American Red Cross, Toys For Tots, The Nature Conservancy and Special Olympics, among many others. For 2011, they have sent the ambitious goal of raising $60,000 in charitable donations.

Like many small businesses profiled on this blog, WebsitesGiveB@ck sees the relationship between business, the community and philanthropic groups as an evolving, interdependent one. As Patrice describes it, "As an entrepreneur in this time in history, 'giving back' and thinking of more than the bottom line is almost hardwired into you. For us, it was the cornerstone. Something that Sir Richard Branson stated has always stuck with me: 'With success and owning a business comes an awesome responsibility to others.' He is correct and we all need to keep this in mind."

Break Open the Bubbly! Best of 2010 Awards for Philanthropic, Benevolent, Purpose Driven Businesses

Benjamin Franklin's adage: "Do Well by Doing Good " has never proven to be so true as this past year. While this has been a tough economic year for many companies, businesses that have been founded on the principle of blending philanthropy and a purpose with good business have been thriving. And receiving recognition for doing so has become an exciting trend in 2010.

This past fall nearly every major city or region has held business philanthropy awards with categories for both large corporations and small businesses and we noted some of these award ceremonies in November. Yet more and more philanthropic businesses and their founders have been receiving  awards or accolades from their industry peers not only for their outstanding commitments and contributions to their communities through volunteering and philanthropy but also, and more remarkably, for their success in building and growing businesses with quality products. These achievements are especially notable as they prove that businesses that do good can indeed do well in spite of the difficult economic times.

The following businesses have been profiled here, and we are proud to have discovered them early on!

Lauren Bush of FEED, was honored to accept the Humanitarian of the Year award at The Accessories Council Excellence (ACE) Awards

Next week I am excited to go hear the founder of the FEED, Lauren Bush speak at my daughter's alma mater, a local girl's private high school in the area. What excites me is that last July we profiled the FEED project, a company that sells FEED bags, handbags and now also other fashion accessories that help support programs that are eradicating hunger. Since then, this philanthropic venture has not only expanded their product line, captured general acclaim for their humanitarianism, but has also garnered awards and recognitions from the fashion accessories industry as well.

Ecojot: has won the Bronze at the 2010 Canadian Design Exchange Award. The category was Visual Communications Brand & Identity.

Last June, we profiled Ecojot, makers of 100% post-consumer recycled paper products which donates school supplies to kids in need around the world through their corporate giving model  "Buy one, we give one". What was special about this award to Ecojot was the acclaim they received for the design quality of their products from the industry, while having their philanthropic purpose acknowledged at the ceremony.

Mission Street Chinese: 2010 winner of the Eater Awards for " Empire Builder of the Year, San Francisco" from Eater.com

Well I don't know exactly what "Empire Builder" means, but it sounds great and perhaps refers to the amazing transformation that this business has gone through. Mission Street Chinese/Restaurant along with its sister restaurant Commonwealth, began as a food truck and then became Mission Street Food -where they rented the space of a Chinese restaurant two nights a week and donated a portion of their proceeds to local causes. Their story launched and inspired our blog , as they have been a "benevolent business" (as they call themselves) from their very beginnings and continue to do so. I like the idea of benevolent business empires!

Give Something Back: San Francisco Business Times’ Community Change & Impact Award; U.S. Small Business Administration Business of the Year; Newman's Own/George Award; E-Achievement Award; San Francisco Business Times Top Corporate Philanthropists Awards; Inc. Magazine’s “Inc. 100 and Inc. 500” (8 out of 9 years); Classy Awards finalist for Philanthropic Business of the Year

We profiled the company Give Something Back, an office products company in a three part interview with founder Mike Hannigan. Since then, Give Something Back has been receiving awards and acclaim for both their philanthropic business model and their achievement in business growth  from so many organizations and institutions.

Sweets Truck: Classy Awards finalist for Small Philanthropic Business of the Year;named 2010 Los Angeles Small Philanthropic Business of the Year

When we first wrote about Sweets Truck and their commitment to support their community, we found the idea very sweet and charming, not to mention yummy. Then later we were very excited about their nomination for Classy Awards an awards competition recognizing the top philanthropic achievements by charities, businesses, and individuals in eight major cities nationwide.

e-Cycle: Inc. magazine has named e-Cycle number 763 in its 2010 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing, privately-held, for-profit companies in the U.S.

Perhaps the most telling of all the awards and acclaim are the ones that come from industry leaders acknowledging the success of a business. e-Cycle has proven to be a leader amongst philanthropic and green companies achieving business success not in spite of their purpose, but most likely as a result. We were thrilled to interview their co-founder, Tonia Irion about the philanthropic side of their business.


Congratulations to all of these business for their achievements and for their inspiration to others.I look forward to seeing this trend of recognizing philanthropic businesses to build even more in 2011. It is going to be a great year with more and more businesses becoming philanthropic and more and more public acclaim for their mission to "do well by doing good".

Are You Or Your Business Deluged With End Of Year Requests From Charities?

Have you noticed how more and more of your  friends are starting charities? How more and more friends are on boards and committees of non-profits and so more and more of them are helping raise money for a good cause? Just this week, I have received four newsletters, one phone call, two e-mail requests, one letter and one phone call -all from friends. They all say the same thing: charities have been hard hit, this is a really worthy cause, won't you give, give again, or give more?

Personally, what I find frustrating are the ambivalent feelings rising up in me. Yes, they are all worthy causes and yes, I want to help my friends as I have been there too helping raise money for a cause. I am finding it tougher and tougher to fend these requests off while at the same time feeling guilty that I have to do so.The trap that I am in, and I am sure this applies to many people, is that as these requests increase so has my total giving while at the same time individual donations to my favorite charities have decreased from previous years. It is hard to say to them: "I am giving to you less this year, because I am now also giving to, (for example) an orphanage in Africa.

Is this experience any different if you are small business, or large one for that matter?  You may have already have a favorite community cause or causes that you employees care about that you have been sponsoring all along, If you have a giving plan, you may already budgeted your charitable contributions for the year, Yet, you too are probably deluged with solicitations from local charities and you would like to help-you really would.. Add to all of this the fact businesses this past year have had even less to give than before.

Here is an example from a local business owner in Lane County, Eugene Oregon, where businesses have seen pleas for help from local charities climb as the economy has declined in the past three years.

“There’s so many probably deserving groups that it’s really hard — you can’t even take all the calls,” said Rob Bennett, owner of Bennett Management Company and the Downtown Athletic Club. Plus, he added, “We have relatively less (to give) than what we did three years ago. We’re holding our own, but the decisions are harder and the amount we can contribute is down from earlier years.” Register.com

Last year, we posted: "How To Say No (and Yes) To Charity Requests, which gave suggestions on how to cope with this increase in requests for donations.

What I think this holiday scramble really points to is that private giving (not at the Bill Gates' billionaires level) is being tapped out and charities need to turn to seek support from businesses both during the holidays and all year in order to survive. Even if a business cannot give much in cash donations there are so many ways that a business can do to help that private individuals cannot.

Here are some ideas:

• Create an employee giving program where employees choose which organizations they would like support.
• Matching grants for private donations( which have proven to be enormously successful) .
• Engaging customers for a cause-even a jar on the counter asking for spare change to help a worthy cause, can add up to a lot. Check out how Whole Foods and Safeway do this.
• Donate products, services, expertise.
• Volunteer, have employees volunteer in teams.
• Cause marketing promotion, attracting customers to purchase with a portion of the sales going to a cause.
• Set out collection bins for food, toys, clothing, even cell phones. 

So now- because as a single supporter  I have fewer of these options, I have to go off and write some checks before the end of the year hoping that these will help my favorite causes.

How e-Cycle Created a Winning Company With Passion For the Environment and Charitable Giving

More and more entrepreneurs are starting businesses with a triple bottom line model: businesses that benefit people and the planet, and experience growth and profitability. One company, e-Cycle is leading this trend with its success and profitability as a business that provides an environmental service to businesses and non-profit organizations by recycling old cell phones, as well as an opportunity to help support charitable organizations and causes using the funds from the resale of these phones. 

Press releases are a terrific way to learn about companies that are doing good. Sometimes I get access to and am able to post a press release like the one for e-Cycle, a company that recycles cell phones for businesses and for non-profit organizations.The earlier post was about their incredible success and their phenomenal growth which led to their placement by Inc.on the 5000 list of the fastest-growing, privately-held, for-profit companies in the U.S.

But the real treat for me was to follow up on this story with an interview with Tonia Irion, co- founder of e-Cycle and vice-president of marketing of this innovative company and to discover the ways they not only help the environment, but help companies to give back to charity.

But first a little bit of background and history. Back in 2005, Tonia and her husband Chris were high tech executives who were looking for a change in their careers. With the goal of working together as a couple, and balancing their roles within their new company, they came up with an idea to help companies recycle their used cell phones by buying them, deleting all the information and recycling them through an EPA approved facility.

Since the start of this company in 2005, in Ohio, the company has seen 400 percent growth that has continued to provide employment to over 60 people in these three years of a struggling economy.

L. How did this business start and what was the inspiration for tying it into charitable giving?

T. We spent a lot of time speaking to entrepreneurs in the area and they told us to do something that we were passionate about. And we spent some time mulling that over and came up with that we were passionate about technology, we were passionate about the environment and we were passionate about creating a for profit company where we would be able to give back to charity.

So when we started the company, actually we were vetting the ideas that we had, our first client was American Cancer Society and we collected phones through their Relay for Life walks. They collected 60,000 phones, and we wrote them a check for $30,000.

L. Where did you go from there?

T. What we realized prettyquickly in order to be able to scale and to be able to write charities large checks, which is what we wanted to do, we would be better off partnering with businesses and encouraging businesses to donate all or a portion of their profits that they were going to receive back from the sale of their cell-phones to a charity of their choice. That was the premise for how we began to grow the business and today we work with companies that have chosen this route of whether to give all the proceeds or a portion of the proceeds.

L. So basically you are the channel for these businesses where you write the check to the charity of their choice. This makes it easy for businesses especially if in this economy they are cash strapped, They get this little bonus that has come their way to give back.

T. In this next year we will be looking into starting an actual foundation where we are selecting several charities, we will all let it be up to the client, if they have a charity of choice that they want to give to and also we get the question form a lot of clients about who do you you recommend. So we need to spend a lot of time thinking that through and setting up the charity.So if we are pointing the client in the direction, it has been a vetted charity.

L. Do you have any sense when you set up the foundation of what kinds of charities you will be interested in?

T. There are several that we are looking at this. We haven't made the decision yet . We will probably ultimately choose one or two national and one or two international, and we will choose one or two that are ongoing and a couple that we change every year.

L.Do you still work with nonprofits?

T. Yes we do . We do it in the same way where we are collecting them for businesses, they collect them and we buy them from them. Non-profits are a big portion of e-Cycles's clients and the funds they receive from us go back directly to them..

L.You must feel very good about being more than a triple bottom line company, really. It's a wonderful model, there is such a virtuos cycle here. It also impressive that your company is doing so well.

T. Yes, are very happy about that. 

This is a great way for any sized companies to give to charities without having to dip into their revenue. Companies that are looking for ways to give back to charity can pick which charity to allocate the funds to and can use eCycle as the channel through which this can be processed. This is a quadruple win-win-win- win- for the environment, for charities, for companies and for eCycle.

Ways Your Company Can Give More Bang For the Buck With a Matching Grant

There they go again, another pledge drive for local public broadcasting television and radio stations where programs are interrupted for on-air fund raising. Some viewers find this annoying, yet these stations rely on these drives to be able to continue to bring their quality programming to the public. And businesses can get  great a PR boost with their on air presence where employees are manning the phone lines and with reminders to the public of their generous matching donations.

Matching donations and challenge grants are a great strategy for any business to use in their philanthropy, as they leverage the benefits of their giving to non-profits which can be used to engage customers in consumer philanthropy. Whole Foods sets an example of how they do this with their some of their in-store fund raising. See other examples of Whole Foods and their creative consumer philanthropy in former posts.

This brings me to two studies, one on the  effects on charitable giving with different levels of matching donations and the other on the differences between challenge grants and matching donations. Essentially, the first study out of Yale University, found that 1:1 matching grants greatly increased revenue per solicitation overall levels of giving. The second study designed for the fund raising campaign for the British Columbia Chapter of the Sierra Club of Canada showed that challenge grants had more impact on overall giving than even matching grants.

I recently had a personal experience where I experienced the power of the extra challenge in making a difference in my giving. My college Alma Mater called asking me to renew my pledge this year. At first I was planning to not increase my annual donation. I was pleased to hear that the trustees had established a scholarship challenge to match every gift to the Fund meaning that my renewed gift would be doubled. But here was an additional challenge- that all increased gifts would be tripled. That meant by increasing my donation by $1.00 (well it ended up to be $10.00)   the entire amount of my giving was tripled.
How could anyone say no to that?

These studies and my experience as a donor, suggest that there are a host of creative options that a business should consider when offering matching grants and challenges to a non-profit. Whatever a business chooses to do has important implications on the amount a charity receives.

Businesses that can come up with inventive ways of leveraging, gives everyone involved more bang for the buck- potentially by more than double or even triple.

Businesses That Care About Safe, Clean, Water -Blog Action Day 2010

While millions suffer from lack of available clean water both small and large companies, are donating money and resources to address this worldwide problem.

Today, is Blog Action Day 2010 Water, that focuses on raising awareness and creating a global discussion around the important issue of clean and safe water. The Blog Action Day site offers some shocking statistics on the impact that this issue has on human rights, the environment, technology and local economies.

Even though 70 percent of this planet is made of water, only a small percentage is safe for consumption and only 1 in 7 people around the world have access to safe, clean drinking water in good times, with that number dramatically increasing  in crisis like earthquakes and hurricanes.

Blog Action Day 2010 also supports the UN's mission to bring clean, safe water to millions. Please click on the petition below and add your voice to this worthy cause.

Every year in March (we wrote about restaurants that participated in 2009)  UNICEF's Tap Project partners with restaurants to raise funds to help bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world. Customers are asked to pay $1.00 for the glass of water they normally are served for free which is then donated to Tap.

And other businesses, are getting involved in supporting a variety of programs that are working  towards solutions for the world water crisis-

California-based CellarThief  a wine merchant that sells only three hand picked wines from world class wines at any given time. This unusual wine seller, donates proceeds from each bottle of wine to  the organization Charity:Water . For every bottle of wine sold, Cellar Thief  donates 100 day's worth of clean water.

Pantene Pro-V has created its  first-ever Pantene Global Cause Program, "Healthy Hair for Healthy Water"
Pantene's program can prevent 20 million days of illness and save an estimated 2,500 lives. For every  bottle purchased from pgestore.com Pantene will donate $0.10 to the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund. Ten cents is all it costs to provide a child in the developing world  one week of clean drinking water.  For more information about the charity, please visit CSDW

Dow Chemical  works with NGO's, celebrities, and other companies to raise awareness about the lack of safe drinking water in impoverished communities around the globe. This year on April 18, Dow sponsored the Dow Live Earth Run for Water –  the largest global water awareness initiative, that consisted of a series of 6-kilometer run/walks, concerts and  activities centered around.
Besides raising awareness, Dow has been helping solve the global water crisis by donating funds and materials to make clean and drinkable water accessible following disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti and China. In addition Dow has been providing clean water purification systems to a variety of schools, orphanages  and hospitals in remote areas of Vietnam and India

With all the many times I have been in Starbucks, I never realized that extra bottle of water I purchased helps support  the cause of  providing children with access to clean water. Ethos® Water was created to help raise awareness about this terrible crisis. For every bottle a customer buys, 5 cents goes to the Ethos® Water Fund, part of the Starbucks Foundation. Already more than $6 million has been granted to help support water, sanitation and hygiene education programs around the world.

Small business owner/founder Suzanne Meyer Pistorius, of Blugirl Art  donates 15%  of online sales of specially selected furniture pieces, designer fabrics, jewelry and photography, to Clean Water Action.  Having grown up in Swaziland, where she came to understand the preciousness of clean water Suzanne, now in western MA, has also become an active member of Clean Water Action, helping to address some critical issues such as banning toxic BPA from children's products.

The Miox Corporation in Albuquerque creates equipment that helps sanitize water, making it safe for consumption. "As soon as we heard what happened in Haiti, it was obvious that we could help," said Matt Santillanes, engineering technician at the Miox Corporation.This led the corporation to donate over 100 portable water purifiers. Each purifier can produce 100 pounds of disinfectant per day with just adding water and salt.

Ayindisa Socially Responsible Artisan Crafts, located in Ridgefield CT,donates 15% of the proceeds of its sales of hand-woven baskets to Engage Now Africa specifically for the construction of a shallow well in a rural village of Ghana,Yarkibisi. “The construction of the well will provide much-needed clean drinking water for the village and help fight illness and disease,” said Chris Gay, the founder of Ayindisa.

Please help support this worthy cause by signing the petition below.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

How Not To Do Business Philanthropy -Like Skechers BOBS

Skechers the athletic and leisure shoe company has recently unveiled a new line of shoes called  BOBS, a TOMS canvas shoes look alike. Not only do BOBS shoes look a lot like TOMS with the little tag and all, but Skecher's is also donating a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair of shoes bought.

So, this blog is supposed to be about "innovative ideas for business philanthropy" - with the intent of inspiring other businesses to create giving programs that can create social benefit. Every now and then something comes across my desk that leaves me scratching my head and wondering : "what WERE they thinking?!!!"

I can't presume to know what Skechers was thinking about, but just looking at this program gives one a lot to learn about how not do business philanthropy.

But first, to be fair, it's important to say a few good things about the Skechers program. They are donating shoes to a first rate non profit, Shoes4Soles, that delivers donated used shoes to impoverished areas all over the world. I wrote about Soles4Souls after the Haiti disaster here. Also on the Skechers webpage they have a link to their corporate philanthropy program, the SKECHERS USA, “Nothing Compares to Family” promotion, that ran through 2009, and starred popular celebrity families and benefits children's charities with ads breaking in celebrity weekly and fashion magazines.

There is no mention of BOBS shoes on  this page - which gives me  me a perfect opportunity to launch into the first of several  "What Not To Do's." in business philanthropy.

Don't tell your customers much about the charity or the cause you are partnering with.
When buying BOBS, there is little opportunity for a customer to learn anything about Soles4Souls and what they do. The transparency of the business giving is just as important as the transparency of the non-profit. Soles4Souls is a fabulous organization that provides shoes to disaster victims in impoverished countries and Skechers has lost an amazing opportunity to promote their mission better. To add injury to injustice when I last checked BOBS site, the link to Soles4Souls page no longer exists.

Have no  transparency.
Skechers has a brief description of their donations to Soles4Soles on their website, but there is nothing to describe how they are partnering with them and what kind of shoes they are donating, unlike TOMS which has pages of information about their philanthropy.

Don't bother to assess your business' core values.
Toms shoes started with a vision of being a philanthropic business caring about the plight of impoverished children in the world. Hard to know how Skechers came up with the idea that they cared about barefoot children. If that were part of their corporate values they might  have unveiled a broader program donating other kinds of more useful shoes, like their sneakers.

Don't do something that makes sense as good business strategy.
Coming out with a giving program that is related to you core business is a good idea, but even then, distinguishing yourself from the competition continues to be important for business success.In these economic times, no business can afford to pay little attention to using the best strategy for their business whether it ties into their philanthropy or not.


Don't tell a good story

Part of TOMS success is their utterly original and charming story that has captured the hearts and minds of the public and the media in a big way. Good stories helps inspire others, including your employees, your customers, your investors and other businesses and brings attention to your cause and to your business.


 


Do make everyone question whether it is a marketing ploy.
Skechers may have had truly philanthropic intentions, but the perception of this program is that it appears to be a quick marketing scheme. In the world of business, perception often becomes reality.

There are many lessons to learn from many companies and their giving programs. Often there are mistakes in the planning and execution both for businesses and non-profits.Skechers may be singled out here, but in truth corporate philanthropy, CSR, and community involvement is still quite young as a movement. Hopefully more and more businesses will learn from other successes and failures alike, and come on board to support their communities and good causes through philanthropy.

CSR and Consumers in Shared Social Responsibility

With all the recent controversy about Corporate Social Responsibility, including the latest debate sponsored by Fenton, one important factor notably missing in the discussion is the impact of customer decision making behavior on corporate giving choices.

In a recent study: "Shared Social Responsibility: A Field Experiment in Pay-What-You-Want Pricing and Charitable Giving" by Ayelet Gneezy, Uri Gneezy, Leif D. Nelson, Amber Brown published in Science Magazine, July 2010, customers at an amusement park were given choices for how they could pay for souvenir photos of their ride on the roller coaster.
When customers were given the choice to buy the souvenir photos where half of the profits would go to charity, they seldom bought the package. On the other hand, when another group was offered to buy the photos and pay what ever they wanted, knowing that that 50% of the profits would go to charity, sales almost tripled.


It may make no "business sense" to offer any kind of" pay as you want" program, and certainly Panera bread and other businesses which we wrote about in an earlier post  have been doing just that. Yet customers, seemingly, are willing to pay a lot more to the company when they feel part of the Corporate Giving. The authors of this study suggested that:

"Switching from corporate social responsibility to what we term shared social responsibility works in part because customized contributions allow customers to directly express social welfare concerns through the purchasing of material goods"

The critics of CSR seem to not have taken into account the factor that consumers want to feel that they are sharing in the opportunity to give back . If companies question whether their responsibility to shareholders is more important than their responsibility to their communities, maybe they should take their shareholders out to the amusement park.

How Corporate Giving To Haiti Disaster Has Inspired More Giving

Now nine months after the earthquake in Haiti, a report has come out via the aid agency,World Vision, about the overwhelming corporate response for sending aid to victims of the earthquake. Back in January we wrote: From Cell Phones To Shoes, How To Use Your Business To Help Haiti, where we highlighted stories about businesses large and small that were pitching in with helping out in a huge variety of ways. Following my post, I received a twitter message from Jeffrey Montgomery, the Managing Partner of Omatic Software, asking whether Omatics' contribution to this disaster, donating their Import-o-matic software solutions for free to organizations that are providing aid to Haiti, counted as a worthy example. What ensued was a conversation, "Does Giving Inspire More Giving" about how a company's involvement in aiding a disaster inspired the company to become more philanthropic in the future.

World Vision has seen this type of increase also as this tragedy has been a catalyst for businesses to respond  to the need for sending aid more nimbly and for partnering with aid organizations more effectively. While World Vision commends their corporate partners for their generosity prior to this and other more recent disasters, they are lauding the surge of giving and partnering from the corporate sector that has grown since then.


Haiti Quake a 'Game Changer' for Corporate Philanthropy
Leading aid agency expects to see greater corporate involvement in future disaster responses

SEATTLE, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As Haiti marks nearly eight months since its devastating earthquake and Chile sees the six-month mark since its own destructive quake, international aid agency World Vision has seen a notable increase in both corporate donations and level of involvement and interest in disaster relief from companies in a broad range of industries.

"Haiti was a catalyst for American companies to look at broader and deeper ways they could partner with aid groups that are on the front lines. Now, with companies like P&G and Verizon contributing to the Pakistan flood response, we're continuing to see this trend," explained David Owens, vice president of corporate development for World Vision.

"While we had indisputably one of the most generous set of corporate partners before the Haiti quake, we've been humbled by the overwhelming corporate response in the past nearly eight months," Owens continued. "And with the current hurricane season kicking into high gear, we realize there's a greater demand for charitable partnerships that can serve an enterprise in all the ways it may want to give back—from employee initiatives to corporate foundations to product donations to relevant expertise it can share."

Verizon's financial support for Haiti came through a variety of areas including grants from the Verizon Foundation and a program to match employee contributions dollar-for-dollar. The company also created a Haiti donation micro site where its customers could contribute online to relief agencies' responses.

Best Western International invited its guests to donate reward points from the hotel chain's loyalty program to help survivors of the Chile quake. The company notified customers by email and on its website of the opportunity, which complements the company's ongoing campaign that invites both guests and hotel employees to sponsor children in need through World Vision.

JPMorgan Chase, Symantec and Johnson & Johnson provided their staff with a hands-on way to give back, by partnering with World Vision to assemble relief kits for delivery to Haiti. Overall, World Vision's corporate partners have assembled 25,000 kits since October for use in disaster zones and other high-need areas around the world.

The Salesforce.com Foundation responded to Haiti based on the company's 1/1/1 integrated corporate philanthropy model, where 1% of the company's time, 1% of its equity and 1% of its products are given forward to the community. Salesforce.com leveraged its website to World Vision's relief effort by providing its customers a link where they could make online donations and encouraged other corporations to make their own contributions. In addition, salesforce.com matched all donations dollar-for-dollar to World Vision's response and used Twitter to spread the word. Further, salesforce.com employees mobilized and assembled more than 500 emergency relief kits for Haitian earthquake survivors.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) has also recently noticed a similar trend of increased business involvement in disaster response and global development, particularly since Haiti's January quake. "We have seen that Haiti rebuilding is a catalyst for corporations to offer both financial support as well as sector expertise," explained Stephen Jordan, BCLC's Executive Director.

In addition, the BCLC together with Executives without Borders is establishing a Haiti Business Corps. The pilot project aims to make it easier for companies to effectively leverage their talent and expertise in the delivery of social good to Haiti.

"I'm grateful to all our corporate partners who have given so generously in this extraordinary year of disasters. But I'm also confident that in future global emergencies, the corporate sector will continue to leverage their influence and stakeholders in ways that make a bigger overall difference," explained Keith Kall, World Vision's executive director for global partnerships.

Given Haiti's high rate of poverty and the massive loss of infrastructure and human capital, this earthquake has proven to be one of the most difficult disaster responses in recent memory. While working to scale up construction of transitional shelters, World Vision is also beginning to implement more sustainable large-scale programs in the areas of livelihoods, water and sanitation, health and education. To learn more about World Vision's work in Haiti, please read our 6-month report at http://www.worldvision.org/resources.nsf/main/press-haiti/$file/Haitisix.pdf or call 1-888-56-CHILD.

Corporations may contact World Vision at 1.800.642.1616

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tacking the causes of poverty and injustice. For more information, please visit www.worldvision.org/press

SOURCE World Vision U.S.
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