Since the early days of the pandemic, companies have been frantically searching for ways to continue to drive impact and engagement in their communities. It’s more important than ever to support employees in finding real meaning during a tumultuous and often isolating time. It’s quickly become evident to most that yes, even in a hybrid world, companies and employees themselves need to continue to increase impact for the causes and organizations they care about. Even a company like ours that makes remote work software needed to rethink our philanthropic program. When we rebranded from LogMeIn to GoTo earlier this year, we also launched GoTo Gives, our program through which we fulfill our mission to create a more sustainable world by connecting the next generation workforce to the power of possibilities. We had also made the decision not to return to full-time office work, so while that meant less office hubs with employees, it opened up a ton of possibilities and new areas of the world where we had employees that wanted to make a difference.
According to Inside Philanthropy, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, nonprofits are noticing “a significant rise in individual contributions.” In fact, even more specifically, they are seeing “a substantial number of corporations are making matching gifts part of their own COVID-19 response, bumping up multipliers and creating COVID-specific matches for employees.” It’s clear employees want to give back, but without as many in person volunteer activities, and in office fundraisers and events how can businesses maintain or even increase their impact? We took a look at some best practices that businesses of all sizes can roll out to make sure that just people employees aren’t in the office, doesn’t mean our communities won’t still feel their presence.
Inside Philanthropy identifies matching gifts programs as a way “to recognize employee volunteerism by awarding funding to the nonprofits they work with, based on the level of individual and team commitment.” In doing so, employees are more engaged and passionate in supporting the organizations they care about.
Over the past two years, we’ve seen two common trends amongst corporations’ matching programs. To start, companies have increased their dollar amount in which they match. In fact, according to Double the Donation, many large Fortune 500 tech companies have shifted their matching program from 1:1 to 2:1, doubling their employee matching requests. In turn, it is proven that employees are more willing to give if their organization has a matching program. According to Charities.org, “84% of donors say they're more likely to donate if a match is offered, and 1 in 3 say they would give a larger gift if matching is applied to their donation” That being said, it is evident that matching gifts can not only drive greater impact through specific dollar amounts, but can also increase employee engagement.
We’ve seen tremendous growth and greater involvement through our own employee giving program at GoTo over the last several years – particularly during the pandemic. And just last year we launched WeSpire, an employee engagement software platform that enables giving, which has allowed our employees, known as GoGetters, to give whenever they want to. Employees have come together in person, Slack, email, and over our GoTo platform to create dialogue around inspiring causes and organizations. Together, we were able to create truly remarkable change. And in just the few months since we launched GoTo Gives and our new brand, we’ve seen:
- Employees have donated to over 400 global organizations
- More than a quarter of the donations went to organizations supporting diversity, equity and inclusion causes
- More than $100,000 donated to organizations supporting Ukraine refugees
- Since we started our matching program in 2018, nearly $800,000 has been donated to causes around the world! And this is only the beginning for GoTo Gives!