An Employee Giving Program is a way to show employees that companies are invested in Social Impact and that there is a partnership between employees and the company in deciding how funds should be disbursed to do good in communities.
You’ll need the following decisions and configurations in place to launch your WeSpire giving program. Work with your CSM if you have questions or need guidance.
When designing your giving program on WeSpire, all eligible users will receive the same giving benefits. Any rules you set for eligible charities and matching will be universal, and you will be able to target specific giving activities to employees based on their Teams (ie Location and Function) as well as creating a dynamic plan to use Personal Grant Accounts.
While all Users with access to giving will need to be subject to the same rules, in some cases, WeSpire customers choose to restrict which platform Users are able to access those Giving Benefits. For example, eligible users may have to be from certain countries or be full-time employees.
If required, you can work with your CSM to design a solution to restrict access to giving benefits based on certain parameters.
WeSpire recommends making all platform users giving-eligible. This makes it easier to manage consistent communications, reduces complexity, and provides the best experience for all employees.
Matching is an excellent way to increase employee giving both dollar amount and participation. Your company can determine match parameters for all your employees and offer targeted matching activities as well as year-round opportunities to give.
If matches are available, employees will see a special “match available” flag on the charity listing and employees can directly request a match from their available funds when they make their donation. Employees can only give what’s left in their balance and can only give to valid organizations.
WeSpire eases the administrative burden as matching guidelines, including corporate-level match cap, are established before your program launches, removing the manual, hard-to-execute, administrative experience.
Matching Program Rules
When you configure your program, you are able to select:
Retroactive Matching
When employees donate on your WeSpire platform, their match-requests will be automatically approved and processed, but if you would also like to allow employees to apply to request a match retroactively for a donation made off the platform (ie on a charity website or in person), you can enable our Retroactive Matching tool which will require a member of your team to review and approve any incoming requests.
Budget Considerations
When planning your budget without existing figures on usage, consider that about 5-10% of employees will use their match balance on the low end. If the program is well-promoted, that figure can grow to 30-50%. More than 50% utilization of your giving program would be considered extremely high.
WeSpire recommends having a matching gift program as part of your giving benefits and allowing employees to receive a matching gift for contributions made to any charity.
This way, you allow employees to give where they live and support what is important to them. And, by using targeted Giving Activities, you will also be able to highlight charities that align with your corporate philanthropic strategies, disaster relief initiatives, or seasonal themes.
Best-in-class programs include:
You can use your employee giving budget to help determine the correct cap per individual. Most WeSpire customers match between $500 and $3,000 per employee per year.
WeSpire supports international giving by allowing employees to give using their native currency and to give to charities across the globe.
From a logistical perspective, all donations from the platform will continue to flow through a US-based donor advised fund (DAF). What does that mean?
When deciding if you will allow international giving, keep in mind that there are fees associated with currency conversions and disbursements to non-US charities.
Review the Giving Fees as well as the List of Vetted Charities to inform your international giving policies.
Your CSM can also help answer any additional questions.
If your company has a global reach, WeSpire recommends making all available international charities available for donation. This gives the greatest potential for employees to find a charity that aligns with their priorities.
Additionally, you can enable all currencies affiliated with countries in which your employees live.
If your company’s employee-base is primarily US-based, you may identify certain non-US charities to add to your giving-eligible list in alignment with disaster relief or other targeted initiatives.
