The DOs and DONTs of Corporate Giving

• DO: Think about how you will merge your giving strategy and goals with your corporate strategy and goals. Are there any charities who share a similar vision or mission? For example, if you’re a financial advisor – you may want to look into teaming up with a nonprofit like Junior Achievement who teaches youth about making smart money decisions. Do you run a construction company? You may consider finding some nonprofits or schools who teach trades to low-income adults.

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• DON’T underestimate the power of relationships you will build through partnerships with nonprofits. If you take the partnerships seriously, you will gain valuable contacts through staff and board member interactions. This is an investment that could impact your bottom line.

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• DO: Ask your employees what their passion is. Imagine spending all your time rallying your employees to support your favorite animal shelter only to find out not a single person you work with is passionate about animal rights. If you find out their passions don’t align with your corporate strategy for giving, consider offering them a matching gift grant to encourage giving to nonprofit of their choice. On average, major corporations match employee gifts up to about $1,000. Match any amount, even $100, will go a long way to show your team that it’s crucial for the team to be engaged in philanthropy.

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• DON’T forget to provide time for volunteering opportunities to your employees. The estimated national value of an employee hour is $25.43. Even if you’re a small business and can’t afford a big corporate giving program, you can probably afford to offer group volunteering and optional volunteer time off hours for your employees to give back their time. If you organize a time for employees to take the day off to volunteer at a food pantry for the day, that amounts to a $1,000 donation to a charity.

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• DO: Track every penny you spend on charitable giving. These donations are 100% tax-deductible. Think strategically with every gift -- ask yourself why questions and how it will add value to your company and the people who make up your company. You should be tracking corporate philanthropy just the same as you would monitor any other performance metric in your company. As we say at Blackbird Philanthropy Advisors, anything worth doing is worth doing well.

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• DO: Take the time to get to know the nonprofits you support. You could even organize nonprofit tours and interviews for your employees to help choose the best spot to invest your corporate cash and time. This process should be taken seriously just as any other endeavor you undertake in your business.

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