Employee Giving incentives: A shared database... relevant for EA job-seekers and activists

At innovationsinfundraising.org we’ve put together a database of information on what each of the firms in the FTSE100 do to encourage and support employee charitable giving.

Do they ‘match’ employee donations, and if so what are the rules for this (caps, maximums, restrictions)?
Do they have a ‘Payroll Giving’ scheme set up, and if so who administers it, and how do they promote it?
Does the company endorse a particular charity or set of charities, and if so how do they choose this?
What are the results… how much has been raised?

As far as we can see this is the first time this information has been made publicly available in a single place. This is meant to be a collaborative, evolving resource, not a static one-time thing. We will continue to improve and expand this as we learn more and people share information. You can peruse the sortable, filterable, searchable table, and click on individual firm entries (e.g., for Rentokil Initial). Add your comments and questions in the discussion sections, or suggest a new entry (for a firm outside the FTSE100) or a change using our input form.

We are eager to hear your (the EA community) impression of this… what stands out, what may be incorrect, what would you like to see?

Some early impressions (please tell me yours as well):

At least ⁴¹⁄₁₀₀ companies directly endorse/support a charity (or set of charities) in some way. These are more often than not UK domestic/local charities, but about 14/41 of these endorse at least one international humanitarian charity (like Unicef or Sport Relief). However, I couldn’t find any GiveWell listed charities (although some do related interventions, like “Malaria no More”)
Around half the FTSE100 companies do some sort of donation matching; usually 1-1, occasionally 2-1 matching
There is usually a “cap” to this matching, often a fairly low cap (under £1000); but occasionally much higher (e.g., $25,000 for Coca-cola HBC AG) and sometimes (usually?) with an overall cap
The recorded overall total amounts of employee giving (through payroll giving/matched giving channels) often seem to be rather low in comparison to the scale of these firms, although the reported numbers are sometimes in the tens of millions (we need to dig into this more to see how these are counted)

Why are we doing this, and whom is this for?

EA/Ethically-minded job-seekers may want to consider this in deciding which company to work for. If you are a larger donor (e.g, a ‘Giving what we Can’ pledger) an employer who offers a generous donation-matching scheme will bring a substantial direct benefit, allowing you to greatly magnify your impact. In general, companies that subsidise employee giving–and where many employees donate–may be more likely to have strong social values.

EA advocates may find this a useful step towards understanding how companies choose which charities to support and endorse, and how they might be persuaded to consider (more) impactful opportunities.

Also...

Employees may not know about their own company’s policies, or may not have thought about taking advantage of these.

Fundraisers and charities may find it fruitful to engage with firms with particularly generous employee-giving subsidies.

Researchers and evaluators may use this as one measure of a firms’ (and it’s employees) pro-social orientation. This information should also help enable researchers to find partner firms interested in piloting and testing innovative fundraising programmes and initiatives.

CSR/HR departments may want to compare their own schemes and outcomes to those of their peers.

Employee Giving incentives: A shared database… relevant for EA job-seekers and activists