Demo Video2025 GivingTuesday Toolkit for CSR Teams
Do more good on GivingTuesday
On GivingTuesday, many organizations are looking to make a positive impact in their communities. But GivingTuesday is also a prime opportunity to make a difference in your company.
GivingTuesday is a great opportunity to involve your employees in your corporate social responsibility (CSR) and philanthropic efforts—and maybe even let them take the lead.
Workplace giving and volunteering initiatives can help your company build a culture of social impact that connects employees with your mission and with each other. Use this GivingTuesday as an opportunity to make a difference in your community while building a culture of engaged employees.
While there is no one-size-fits-all program, this toolkit will provide you with ideas and resources to create a successful campaign that fits your organization, allowing you to do more good in your community as well as within your company.
Developing your campaign
There are many different ways to participate in GivingTuesday. Some organizations may focus on a donation drive, some may host a day of service, and still others may do both. Whichever you choose is a matter of finding the right fit for your organization and employees. Here’s how to find that fit and get started.
If you need examples of previous programs to jump-start your planning, check out GivingTuesday’s toolkit for companies and brands.
Listen
It’s important to understand what causes matter most to your employees so you can create programs that resonate. It’s a good idea to start your GivingTuesday planning with a survey to understand what your employees care about. Then, you pick relevant partners based on those insights.
It’s also a good idea to ask employees how they would like to participate in GivingTuesday. Some may want the freedom to individually donate to causes that resonate with them. Others may want to donate together as an organization or focus efforts around a particular cause that aligns with the company’s mission.
Listen to your employees and adapt your program to fit their preferences. Do this early in the planning process and your program will have the foundation it needs to drive high employee participation.
Prepare
The tools you use to run your GivingTuesday program will have a major impact on how employees feel about your program. If the tools are confusing to use, employees won’t participate. If the tools are intuitive, employees will participate. It really is sometimes that simple from our experience.
As a part of the initial planning process, take stock of your tools and make sure they’re exactly what you need. We're a bit biased, of course, but Bright Funds is a great option if you’re in the market for new CSR software–we have a database of 8 million nonprofits all over the world you can use to run your GivingTuesday programs.
Educate
An often overlooked stage in GivingTuesday preparation is educating employees about what it is, how to participate, and why your organization is engaging in corporate philanthropy in the first place.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. You’ll need to adapt your communication strategy to fit how your employees prefer to communicate, whether that’s via Slack or via flyers in the break room. We’ll dive deeper into communication plans a little later in this guide.
Here are a few things to consider when you educate your organization about your GivingTuesday program:
When providing educational materials on GivingTuesday, detail why it’s important to your organization. Include information on previous corporate philanthropy initiatives and outcomes.
Consider holding a charity fair and bringing in nonprofit partners to share their stories. Give employees a chance to talk with nonprofit partners and ask questions.
Host GivingTuesday discussions or lunch-and-learns. Include tutorials on the tools you’ll use (like Bright Funds and WeHero). Record these discussions and sessions for future reference.
Consider creating a dedicated Slack channel to host all updates, resources, and general coordination communications.
Activate
GivingTuesday is a great opportunity to activate your employees’ sense of philanthropic purpose through volunteer events.
If you don’t have the connections or time to plan your own volunteer event, WeHero can help you host customized hands-on, high-impact, educational initiatives aligned with your company’s mission and interest areas.
For example, WeHero has helped organizations host volunteer events like:
An offsite experience for Citrix creating hygiene, food, and health packages for community members experiencing homelessness.
A team-building event for Visa employees where they built backpacks full of educational supplies with the Kids in Need Foundation.
Start planning early by:
Working with leadership to determine ways to incentivize employees to participate (e.g. a Dollars for Doers campaign).
Engaging employee resource groups (ERGs) to help gather input and get the word out.
Brainstorming with and looping in key stakeholders and support agencies, such as WeHero.
Bonus: 8 ways Bright Funds (and friends) makes GivingTuesday brighter
Bright Funds, WeHero, and WizeHive are now all a part of the Submittable family of brands. Together, they make workplace giving, employee volunteering, and corporate grantmaking a breeze on GivingTuesday–-and year-round.
Put your plan into action
Once you have a foundation for your GivingTuesday program in place, it’s time to create your plan and put it into action. It’s best to start as early as possible as these programs can sometimes take quite a bit more time and effort than you initially thought.
Build a timeline
First, outline a clear timeline for executing your GivingTuesday campaign. Use a tool like Asana or Notion to outline your major milestones, then fill in the relevant tasks from there.
We have a full workback calendar you can use as a framework for your timeline. At a high level though, here are the key milestones to keep in mind.
Clarify Your Objectives
As a part of the first phase of planning (the 3 to 6 months prior section in the timeline), you need to clearly establish your objectives. These will serve as a “north star” as you execute your program.
Answer the following questions:
Why: Why are you running a GivingTuesday campaign? How does it align with your overall business goals?
Who: Who are you hoping to impact with your campaign?
Most organizations see GivingTuesday as an opportunity to reach the communities they work within (although your employees can also be your answer to “Who?”). Identify any specific causes or communities you want to impact.
What: What will your campaign include? Donations, volunteer opportunities, or a combination of the two?
When: Decide the length of your campaign (e.g. one day or one week?).
Where: Will your campaign be virtual, in-person, or will you offer various avenues of participation?
Prepare your communications
A successful GivingTuesday campaign requires clear internal and external communication. Think through what each audience needs to hear as a part of pre-launch, launch, and post-launch communications.
Note that as you’re creating these communications, GivingTuesday has graphics and logos you’re free to use.
Internal communications
Consider all avenues for internal communications to keep your employees updated on your plans. These might include email, your giving/volunteering platform, internal communications tools, and company meetings.
It can be difficult to cut through the everyday noise, so we recommend using the CSR communications toolbox Rich Maoire, CEO of Rocket Social Impact, created. You can listen to his full podcast episode here where he goes into details, but at a high level, for effective internal communications, you need:
Be bold to stand out: Don’t treat these communications as any other company announcement. Get creative, use emojis, have your C-level executives share messages, etc. Do whatever you can to make noise.
Use emotion or humor: This will help you resonate with your employees. People remember emotional messages better than they remember dry, basic event details.
Measure outcomes: Communicate early on which outcomes you’re pursuing and why. Then follow up with the results after the event to show follow-through.
Be adaptable: Meet your employees where they are. People who work in manufacturing probably don’t use Slack, but they all use the break room. Adapt to their preferences and your message will stick in their minds.
Here are a few practical ideas for communicating with employees about your GivingTuesday initiatives:
Send regular updates leading up to kick-off day.
Highlight specific causes employees can give back to and encourage employees to learn more about them.
Hold a virtual Town Hall where leadership announces the GivingTuesday plan and shares how employees can get involved.
Create a Slack channel to share updates on GivingTuesday. This can then be a space to share photos of GivingTuesday activities, share impact data, and post related educational materials throughout the campaign.
External communications
Your external communications are an opportunity to educate your stakeholders on your commitment to doing good in your community.
As a bonus, encourage employees to share what they are doing with their friends and family to give back, as this helps build excitement around participation. When crafting your external communications, consider:
Sharing plans for GivingTuesday on your social media platforms. Highlight the causes your organization has chosen to support or the opportunities you’ve created for your employees to participate.
Preparing and distributing sample social media copy for your employees. This will give them tools to share their impact with friends and family on their social media channels.
Promoting your campaign with the GivingTuesday network.
Sending out a press release and media alert.
Crafting messaging for partners and customers that will inform them of your company’s GivingTuesday plans and encourage them to participate.
Capture your campaign and results
You need a plan for how you will capture and share all the social good your organization is doing on GivingTuesday. For example, if you’re:
Organizing a company-wide volunteer event, elect someone to capture images and video of the day.
Empowering your employees to donate to causes they care about, ask them to submit stories explaining what their cause means to them (ask for permission to use quotes!).
Building on GivingTuesday to create a larger corporate social responsibility initiative, interview leadership about why GivingTuesday is important to your organization and what CSR initiatives in the upcoming year
Once you’ve gathered all of these stories, you can compile them on your website and share them to celebrate the contributions of everyone in the company.
Measuring and reporting on your campaign
A GivingTuesday campaign is only complete once it has been properly measured and evaluated. Understanding how the campaign impacted your community and your organization is essential to growing your philanthropic efforts and planning for the following year.
To paint the full picture, it is important to gather both qualitative and quantitative data points. Share these results with your stakeholders via internal and external channels and consider including them in an annual CSR report.
Quantitative Data
Number of participating employees
Total number of organizations impacted
Total amount of donations raised by employees
Total dollar amount matched by the company
Total amount of hours volunteered
Total X accomplished in volunteer time
Qualitative Data
Impact stories from employees
Impact stories and quotes from organizations benefiting from your campaign
How these organizations plan to use these donations, (e.g., new playground equipment for a local park or additional beds for a homeless shelter)
Statements from your organization’s leadership regarding your company’s philanthropic goals
Stories of volunteer experiences, including quotes from participants and those they served
Include a list of what was accomplished for the organization and add context. For example “Served 2,000 lunches to students on free lunch programs” or “10 gardens planted in community parks”
Beyond GivingTuesday
Giving doesn’t stop at GivingTuesday, and neither should your philanthropic efforts. If you do not have a formal policy around philanthropy as part of your company’s CSR practices, this is a great time to capitalize on the momentum of GivingTuesday and build out a year-round program.
Here are three ways to build upon the successes of your GivingTuesday campaign and increase your social impact and employee engagement, year over year.
Start at the beginning. Consider ways to make workplace giving and volunteering part of your company culture year-round. Feature these employee programs in your benefit offerings to help you retain and attract new talent. Highlight them in your benefits communications, new hire orientation, welcome package, recruiting collateral, etc. to build a culture of employees who are connected to your corporate philanthropy mission from the very start.
Double down on volunteering. Did you see a lot of enthusiasm for volunteering during your campaign? Establish a Volunteer Time Off (VTO) program and allow employees to take time away from their desks to do good in their community while still receiving their normal compensation.
Corporate grantmaking for even bigger impact. Build upon the donations made during your GivingTuesday campaign. Ask employees to nominate causes they care about—that also align with your company’s philanthropic values—to be considered for a corporate grant. Recruit employees to help develop the selection criteria and sit on the review committees to keep them engaged in your philanthropic programs year-round.
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