‘Tis the Season to Embrace Corporate Giving

A 2013 charitable-giving trends report offers ideas for building support for your employee-participation rate.

The holidays are nearly upon us, and you might be thinking of ways you and your team can embrace the season and best give back.

One of the keys to a successful charity program, of course, is getting your employees invested in your company’s initiative. America’s Charities, an organization that connects companies with charities, recently released its 2013 report highlighting the key trends and challenges in engaging employees in the effort.

The free report represents findings from such large corporations as Disney and Wal-Mart, but some of its takeaways are applicable to businesses of any size.

First, the bad news: Employee participation in corporate-giving programs is down since 2006, according to the report, with only about 33 percent of employees taking part at the companies surveyed. And at two-thirds of companies, less than 50 percent gave to the corporate program.

Here are two ideas to help bolster your company’s participation rate:

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