Who gets to have a say in where and how companies give back? The answer isn’t as simple as it may seem; ask several different people, and you might get several different answers. The truth is, though, that employees want to have a say in how their companies make an impact. You can meet employee expectations and drive engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts by involving your people in the grants management process. This practice of creating employee-led grants is one way you can evolve your impact programs beyond employee volunteering and giving.
As CSR programs grow and the social impact space diversifies, more and more organizations are looking for new ways to tie their impact strategies to their values. Engaging in strategic granting is one such practice that allows companies to connect their CSR goals to their strengths.
Strategic granting is all about using corporate grantmaking as a strategic tool for employee engagement, organizational value, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), among other things. It also involves strategically selecting grant beneficiaries that align with your core pillars and business values.
From education to youth development and traditional philanthropic organizations, there’s no shortage of causes to choose from. That means that no matter what your organization hopes to achieve, there’s likely a way to tailor strategic granting to fit your needs.
An employee-led grants program is simply one where employees play a key role in deciding how company resources are distributed to beneficiaries. In other words, employee-led grants are significantly influenced by not just social impact or organizational leaders but by team members of all kinds.
The goal of employee-led grantmaking is typically to empower your teams to get involved in your social impact efforts. Employee-led granting gives employees a voice. It also allows them to directly influence your efforts and ensure they support causes that employees care about.
Creating an employee-led grant program or initiative is a fantastic way to engage your team members and retain top talent. However, ensuring your program is a success can be complicated.
The following best practices will help you construct a program that operates seamlessly, effectively engages employees, and delivers value for your organization. Let’s take a closer look:
Want to truly maximize your engagement potential? Think big. Consider how employees from all across your organization can get involved in ways that match their skills, preferences, and responsibilities.
Research suggests that CSR initiatives have the greatest impact on employees and their engagement when those initiatives support authenticity. In this context, authenticity describes being able to bring a complete version of oneself into the workplace.
Adopting a “bottom-up” approach that embeds CSR activities into an employee’s job is key here. When CSR is seen as “extra work,” it can actually negatively affect engagement levels.
So, ask yourself what you can do to make engaging in granting a natural and fulfilling part of an employee’s job. Who can help draft your request for proposals? Who could sit on an application review board? Who could pitch in by spreading the word?
Employees want to feel like their special skills and abilities are not only recognized but utilized. In fact, a focus on strengths is a key driver of employee engagement; that is, when companies successfully focus on an employee’s strengths when assigning work, they’re more likely to successfully engage them.
Fortunately, granting is a great way to tick each of these boxes. Recognize employees for their special abilities by assigning them unique roles or tasks in the granting process. Include employees with relevant subject matter expertise in crucial decision-making processes, like selecting which grant applications to review in more detail.
One of the best opportunities to engage your employees in granting is during the application review process. That means allowing employees to help decide who receives funds.
To ensure that this process goes smoothly, it’s smart to cover your bases before it’s time to make big decisions. Train your teams to bring everyone onto the same page about expectations, goals, and desired outcomes.
It might also be helpful to create a scoring sheet or rubric that employees can use to evaluate proposals. Think about key requirements – like being located within your area, for example, or meeting certain KPIs – that you expect from beneficiaries, as well as traits that align with organizational values.
Your employees are the experts on your communities, and your CSR team members are experts in making social impact decisions. Together, these forces can select grantees who further your goals and leave a lasting impact in the spaces you care about.
When it comes to grantmaking, your audience isn’t just potential grantees – it’s also your employees, particularly in the case of employee-led granting. So, learning who and what to target through your grantmaking programs means starting with your employees themselves.
Conduct a survey to learn more about your employees, their interests, and who they are. What sort of things are they passionate about? Where do they live? Do they engage in any relevant activities – like volunteering – outside of the office?
As you gather intel, it’s also a good idea to check with your DEI team, if you have one, or employee resource groups (ERGs) for even more insights.
All of these efforts will help you ensure you create an inclusive grantmaking program that truly speaks to the wants and needs of your teams.
Keep the good times and positive impact going by supporting grantmaking programs with related initiatives. You can use activities like volunteering and employee giving to foster ongoing relationships and engagement between your teams and grant beneficiaries.
For example, if you recently funded a nonprofit organization focused on climate preservation, you might plan a volunteer beach clean-up day to keep the momentum going.
No matter what your grantmaking program looks like, it should aim to be equitable above all else. Consider approaching granting through a DEI lens, which involves aligning grantmaking decisions with DEI initiatives and goals.
There are lots of ways to embed DEI into your program’s activities, too. You may, for example, choose to offer a grant during Black History Month to an organization doing work within that demographic. Or, maybe you decide to ensure your application review committee is made up of a diverse pool of employees.
Is granting truly “employee-led” if employees have no say over when, where, and how they get to participate? While there may be some natural limitations that restrict who can do what, there’s still plenty of opportunity to consider and accommodate employee needs.
Establish an open line of communication and encourage employees to share their thoughts and experiences. What is it like engaging with your granting program? What sort of challenges exist? What ideas do employees have for improving future initiatives?
The more social impact activity you invest in, the more data you’ll be able to pull. And more data typically also means a higher chance of securing increased investments in your CSR programs.
Make sure that your employee-led strategic granting programs shine and justify the investment they require by incorporating their data into your social impact reports. Take opportunities to highlight employee contributions and the impact of employee-led initiatives, both in terms of engagement and on your community.
Ensuring that you have a centralized platform for managing grants is key, as is choosing tech that’s user-friendly. Lower the learning curve for employees, grantees, and other stakeholders by choosing a grants management solution that’s built for accessibility.
Groundswell Grants is the first web and mobile-facing platform that brings grantmaking, giving, volunteering, and other CSR activities into one central location. Review proposals, launch new programs, and invite employees to get involved, no matter who or where they are.
Groundswell’s grants management solution helps you successfully engage your people and track the impact of your grants so you can build a streamlined, stronger CSR program.
Ready to amplify your impact? Put power back in the hands of your people and engage employees in strategic granting decisions with the help of Groundswell. Book a demo with our team today to get started.
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