Table of Contents
Best Practices
Easy to Earn, Apply Often!
Eliminate barriers in employee participation by allowing volunteer hours to count towards grants. Employees are empowered and become valuable resources to the organizations they support by providing the organization with more opportunities to increase the value they deliver.
What Could This Look Like?
Employees earn $X for each hour they volunteer to go towards the bank of funds available for a grant to their favorite nonprofits. Through incentivizing employees for each volunteer hour, they can apply at their discretion, quickly disburse money within their communities, and reach more organizations. In addition, internal processes are improved as employees become encouraged to apply for grants year-round, resulting in fewer incoming requests immediately before a deadline.
Client Example
Client B: Transforming Engagement Programs
Client Goal: Improve employee engagement and give employees more opportunities to give back to their community.
Client Strategy: Client B removed limitations and minimums, allowed volunteers to combine their hours across the organizations they volunteered with, and added the ability grant to multiple organizations.
Program Outcome: Employees were able to make a difference faster, easier, and potentially more often to any organization of their choice. Additionally, Client B's application process was streamlined and made it easier to approve and disburse funds.
Program Details: Volunteers were able to request a grant valued at $10 per hour after volunteering a minimum of 10 personal and company-sponsored hours with an eligible organization. Employees could award additional grants with a minimum of $10 and maximum of $2,000 to multiple organizations. Grant requests were accepted until February 28th of the following year.
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From
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To
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Outcome
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Volunteers are limited to one grant request per year during a pre-determined timeframe
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Volunteers can request multiple grants throughout the year, after logging a minimum of 10 volunteer hours for one organization
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More flexibility to extend impact
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Volunteers are limited to selecting one organization each year
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Volunteers can submit multiple grant requests to qualifying organizations using the combined hours from all their organizations
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More flexibility to extend impact
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Grant amounts are determined through pre-set tiers based on logged hours
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Grants can be awarded to multiple eligible organizations and $10 per hour are earned
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Simplified structure for employees and for teams to manage; More flexibility to decide the grant recipient
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Extend Employee Impact within Organizations That Matter to Them
Volunteers may spread their time and money among several organizations, allowing employees to combine their volunteer hours. This gives employees a better chance of reaching the minimum and returning their dollars to their communities.
What Could This Look Like?
As employees make a difference by volunteering with multiple organizations, they earn Dollars for Doers funds for each volunteer hour. After reaching a minimum of 50 volunteer hours shared across all the organizations they volunteer with, the employee can select one to receive a $500 grant. They can continue volunteering and award grants until a maximum of $1000 in donated funds is reached.
Client Example
Client A: Doubling Grant Disbursements
Client Goal: Increase participation and expand community impact.
Client Strategy: Client A transformed its Dollars for Doers (D4D) program from restrictive and rigid into configurable and flexible.
Program Outcome: Client A provided the flexibility that encouraged employees to take advantage of the offered program and earn more funds for their favorite nonprofit organizations. As a result, the dollars disbursed throughout their community were more than doubled.
Program Details: A grant was made to an eligible nonprofit organization of the employee's choice after volunteering a minimum of 50 hours throughout the calendar year. If the organizations the employee volunteered with do not qualify for the D4D program, they may choose another eligible organization. Employees were notified via email of their eligibility and had until January 31st of the following year to apply for the grant. After submitting the request, the grant required simple internal admin approval.
Note: By default, employees will not be able to submit more than 24 hours in a single day. For employees to do so, custom configuration will need to be added.
Standard emails will be a feature available without additional configuration soon.
From
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To
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Benefit
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Log hours for a specific organization
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Log an employee's total volunteer hours to determine eligibility to apply
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Flexibility to become eligible
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Award grants to specific organizations when an employee logs a defined minimum-hours for that organization
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Award grants to any organization when an employee logs a defined minimum-hours accrued across all organizations
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Flexibility in deciding the grant recipient
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Employees do not receive a notification when they become eligible for a grant
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Employees automatically receive an email notification when they become eligible for a grant
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Encourage participation; Awareness of opportunities
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Volunteer hours must be manually approved
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Volunteer hours are automatically approved
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Remove congestion in workflows caused by manual verification
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Volunteer hours must be approved by the nonprofit and then receive internal client approval for the volunteer grant
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Volunteer grants must be approved internally by the client and volunteer hours do not need to be approved by the nonprofit
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Simplify internal processes
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Break the Tradition
Traditional company-sponsored volunteering has become more challenging in hybrid and remote working environments. Volunteers are finding convenient, flexible opportunities to give to their community. This type of flexibility attracts those that might not have volunteered otherwise, although traditional long-term volunteer relationships are still meaningful. Recognizing small actions increases participation in programs, community interaction, and the ability to get corporate dollars to the community.
What Could This Look Like?
Elevate your program and increase your impact by allowing employees to log time for non-traditional volunteer activities like donating blood, leading an employee resource group, collecting coats for a coat drive, promoting awareness through a cause challenge, packing hygiene kits, or participating in a can drive. After accruing the minimum number of 10 hours, employees can grant $100 to any organization eligible for your D4D program.
Client Example
Client C: Creating an Inclusive Environment
Client Goal: Adopt a culture where families can own a shared purpose, be selfless, support the causes they care about, and be involved as active community citizens.
Client Strategy: Client C made it possible for volunteers and their families to combine their volunteer time and apply it to a volunteer grant.
Program Outcome: Client C has provided more than $95 million in matched financial support to their communities within the last 10 years.
Program Details: Employee family members were encouraged to participate in volunteer efforts and offer their skills to their communities. Each family's collective volunteer time could be used to provide a monetary contribution to the organization of their choice.
Related Articles
Dollars for Doers Overview
Dollars for Doers Program Configuration Guide
Dollars for Doers Portlets
