The Business of Charitable Giving

As the holiday season draws nearer, many businesses look for ways to give back to their communities, such as through charitable contributions.

Many businesses celebrate the holiday season or ring in the New Year with a gift to charity. Charitable giving can come in many forms, from volunteering at a soup kitchen to donating to a local charity.

Apart from the positive contribution you can make to any number of worthy causes, recent research claims that spending money on others enhances the giver’s happiness, and can even have positive health impacts. The question is, how do you give back in a way that’s relevant to you, your cause, and your employees?

There are many ways a business can give back to the community during the upcoming holiday season or any time throughout the year.

Option 1: replace employee gifts

A donation on employees’ behalf can make a big impact but doesn’t have as much interactivity as some of the other options below – a compromise might be to let staff vote on the cause that their gift donation will benefit.

Option 2: make it an activity

Volunteer days are a great way to practice team-building with your staff. A month-long food drive at the office, for example, could culminate in a day of volunteering at a food bank. Or, the team could learn new collaboration skills by working at a job site for Habitat for Humanity. These projects can be especially motivating to staff if you put them in charge of organizing and overseeing it from start to finish.

Option 3: create a productivity incentive

According to a recent study, when workers are given a social incentive (like a charity donation), their performance increases by 13 percent – and that number increases to 30 percent among the lowest performers. Set milestones for individual employees, project teams, departments, or the whole staff that trigger various levels of donations. Alternatively, you can use “charity dollars” as a reward for jobs well done – employers and managers can thank each other with donation credits that can be used toward company causes or other charities.

Option 4: give time off for volunteering

Additional paid time off for volunteer work is one of the most popular new perks among trendsetting employers.

Here at Merit Insurance, our Toronto and Waterdown offices demonstrate the spirit of generosity in various ways throughout the year. This fall, our employees organized a Food Drive and delivered multiple carloads of food to local food banks. In addition, to show continued support, our team will be delivering a cheque for $500 in the coming months.

Each holiday season we also select a local charity to support through financial donations. Our Toronto office has chosen to support SickKids Hospital and our Waterdown office the Compassion Society and Interval House of Hamilton

Whichever way you or your business decides to give back to the community, embracing the spirit of generosity may not only be heartwarming; it may also be good for the heart.