Employee Giving Software Overview
Employee giving software is a type of program designed to enable businesses to efficiently manage their workplace giving and charitable contributions. It can help companies track and report donations, manage budgets, organize fund drives, and more. The main goal of this type of software is to make it easier for companies to implement effective corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and give back to the communities in which they operate.
Employee giving software typically includes features like an online donation platform, which allows users to accept payments from donors via a variety of payment methods including credit cards, electronic bank transfers, PayPal, or prepaid cards. This makes it easy for employees to make donations quickly and securely. Additionally, many platforms offer tools that allow users to set up recurring payments or donate with their own funds at no cost.
Another popular feature is fund management capabilities, which enable employees to create individual funds and assign amounts of money within those funds for specific causes or organizations. This allows companies to ensure that their donations are going where they plan for them to go instead of getting lost in the noise of other charities or causes.
In addition to these core features, most employee-giving software also provides analytics so businesses can track progress made toward their CSR goals. Detailed performance metrics such as total amount raised over time, employee engagement rates on campaigns, and average donation size by employee classifications or departments can all be used by managers or executives when making decisions about the direction of future giving activities or assessing overall success in this area.
Finally, some programs offer additional resources like volunteer management systems that allow companies easily coordinate volunteer opportunities with local non-profit organizations without adding extra administrative costs or burden on existing staff members. Other tools may include rewards programs that recognize employees who donate frequently as well as ways for businesses to connect with large-scale philanthropic partners such as foundations or charities in order get more involved in major projects they may be interested in pursuing.
Overall employee-giving software is an invaluable tool for bringing corporate social responsibility initiatives into reality while enabling businesses to achieve greater efficiency when managing workplace generosity efforts across multiple departments and teams within an organization.
What Are Some Reasons To Use Employee Giving Software?
- Increased Efficiency - Employee giving software streamlines the donation process, which eliminates tedious paperwork and saves time for both administrators and employees. Additionally, it increases the accuracy of donations by preventing data entry errors.
- Improved Communication - Employee-giving software facilitates clear communication between stakeholders. For example, administrators can quickly inform employees about new campaigns or announce winners of fundraising campaigns through email notifications.
- Increased Donor Engagement - With employee giving software, donors are able to customize their giving experience with a wide range of options such as setting recurring donations and creating customized payment plans. This helps to encourage donor engagement and loyalty over time.
- Better Tracking Capabilities - With employee-giving software, administrators have better visibility into where donations come from. Donors can also track their own donations in real time using an interactive dashboard to see how much they’ve contributed to different causes over time.
- Simplified Tax Deductions – Employees who donate through the software will receive automated tax reminders so that they can quickly access records for accurate deduction filing when tax season approaches.
The Importance of Employee Giving Software
Employee giving software is an essential tool for businesses today, as it helps to enhance employee engagement and encourage philanthropic activities from within the organization. By having a platform that employees are comfortable using, employers can easily organize corporate charitable activities, allowing their team members to get involved in a meaningful way.
Employee-giving platforms provide various tools that enable employees to donate easily and efficiently. Many of these platforms offer automated donation collection services, letting donors set up recurring contributions that align with their payroll schedule or pay period. This not only makes donating simpler and more straightforward but also encourages long-term involvement with charities by providing consistent support to select causes throughout the year.
The ability for companies to track donations and measure the impact of their employee giving program is another benefit provided by these software solutions. With metrics related to donor participation, donation size and frequency, as well as yearly trends, business leaders can have greater visibility into the effectiveness of their efforts when it comes to charity initiatives and making a difference in local communities or abroad.
On top of that, employee giving programs are becoming increasingly popular with modern-day workers—particularly millennials—who look for companies who make social responsibility part of their mission statement. Offering this type of program often serves as an effective recruitment and retention strategy; appealing both current employees looking for greater workplace satisfaction as well as potential hires who want meaningful careers associated with leading organizations striving towards positive change on all fronts.
It’s clear that there are numerous benefits associated with implementing a corporate giving platform in the workplace; amplifying enterprise success while supporting charitable endeavors taking place across our communities worldwide at the same time.
Features Offered by Employee Giving Software
- Donation Matching: Employee giving software offers donation matching services, which allows companies to match donations made by their employees to select nonprofits and charities. Companies can also set limits on how much they will match per employee each year. This service helps companies attract qualified talent, show appreciation for existing employees, build positive relationships with communities, and promote corporate social responsibility.
- Tax Receipts: Employee giving software provides automated tax receipting services to eligible donors who request them when donating through the platform. These receipts enable donors to accurately calculate their charitable contributions and claim deductions on their annual income taxes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Additionally, this feature helps charities drive donations by ensuring that potential donors receive all the legal paperwork necessary for record-keeping purposes.
- Automated Donations: Employee giving software automates regular donation processes so that users can easily set up recurring or one-time payments with ease. By offering direct deposits or automatic bank transfers, users can save time and effort in having to manually enter payment information each time they make a donation. The software also stores payment details securely so that donors do not have to reenter their information upon future donations.
- Gift Cards & Financial Aid Programs: Another feature provided by employee giving platforms is the ability for employers to offer gift cards as part of a financial aid program or other benefit programs offered by non-profit organizations and charities associated with the company’s initiatives or causes they support. With this service, employers are able to provide funds directly with gift cards rather than using outside resources like checks or cash payments transactions which may be more timely and cost-effective in certain circumstances such as emergency funds needed for natural disaster relief efforts where large numbers of people need assistance quickly without delay due to mail delivery timings, etc.
- Customizable Giving Options: Lastly, user-friendly employee giving platforms offer customizable options so that employers can tailor their own unique process in order to meet specific needs within an organization's philanthropic goals whether related directly or indirectly to corporate engagement activities. Employees will have different preferences when it comes to scheduling donations throughout the year, amounts given at each given period of time; along with other factors like categorizing gifts according to salary brackets of various staff members; while some would prefer automated processes others may opt for manual input methods depending on their current level of comfortability towards technology use, etc., hence customized options during setup period enables employers better engage all relevant stakeholders types across the board in order deliver meaningful results most efficiently possible over longer duration established timeframe accordingly planed strategies.
Types of Users That Can Benefit From Employee Giving Software
- Employers: Companies that wish to provide an easier way for their employees to donate money to charities or causes of their choice.
- Non-profits: Organizations that benefit from employee giving initiatives and strive to increase the amount of donations they receive.
- Donors: Employees who are interested in donating time, money, goods or services to a cause they believe in.
- HR & Finance Teams: Internal staff who manage payroll deductions and ensure all giving procedures are compliant and secure.
- IT Teams: The tech experts responsible for setting up, configuring and maintaining the software.
- Communications Teams: Company representatives responsible for creating messaging campaigns around employee giving initiatives and tracking results.
- Administrators/Organizers: People tasked with organizing the logistics of streamlining employee giving campaigns and ensuring employees can easily participate.
How Much Does Employee Giving Software Cost?
The cost of employee-giving software depends on a variety of factors, including the number of users and the features offered. Generally speaking, basic packages range from around $100 per month to several thousand dollars per year.
For smaller organizations or single-user plans, more basic packages may provide just enough for individual employees or small teams to set up their own donation accounts and track donations in real-time. For example, a monthly subscription to GiveButter, which enables individual employees to create their own fundraising campaigns utilizing custom branding and allows users to accept major credit cards as well as Venmo payments can start at as low as $99/month.
At the same time, more complex versions of employee-giving software exist for medium-sized businesses and larger nonprofits that require sophisticated features like data import/export capabilities and customizable tax receipt templates. These packages tend to have higher rates, usually starting at around $1,000/year or higher depending on additional services provided by the vendor. For instance Chari Dy’s all-in-one solution allowing you to customize your charity platform and take advantage of automated campaign reminders starts at around $2,500 a month plus an upfront setup fee.
In addition, there are also “free trials” available if you want to try out certain products before you buy them - though many vendors limit how long this version last - so make sure to read over any contracts carefully before signing up.
Risks To Be Aware of Regarding Employee Giving Software
- Security Risk: Employee-giving software stores large amounts of sensitive data including users' financial information, which can make it vulnerable to identity theft or other malicious attacks.
- Network Risk: If the system is not properly secured against external threats such as hackers, viruses and malware, the system's network may become compromised, leading to data loss and potential legal liabilities.
- Data Breach Risk: Improper access control measures could lead to unauthorized disclosure of employee information stored in the software, leading to significant losses for both employees and employers.
- Privacy Risk: Without proper controls in place, employee-giving software can unintentionally expose private employee records like Social Security numbers or other confidential personal details.
- Human Error Risk: Employees may inadvertently input incorrect data that could cause errors or delays in donations being processed correctly, leading to a financial loss for both employer and employee.
- Regulatory Compliance Risk: Without proper checks on donations made through the software, companies may run into compliance issues with relevant regulations governing charitable contributions or tax laws related to those contributions.
Types of Software That Employee Giving Software Integrates With
Employee-giving software can integrate with a variety of different types of software. This type of integration is beneficial as it allows employee data to be shared between the programs, helping reduce administrative overhead and providing a more cohesive user experience. Types of software that may integrate with employee giving software include payroll systems, Human Resources information systems, donor management systems, and accounting or finance applications. Additionally, many companies use corporate intranets or chat platforms to connect their employees for communication and collaboration, which may also integrate easily with employee-giving software.
What Are Some Questions To Ask When Considering Employee Giving Software?
- What is the cost to use the software?
- How user-friendly is the interface of the software?
- Does it offer any analytics or metrics to track donations and employee participation in giving campaigns?
- Are there any integrations with popular payroll processing systems like ADP, Ceridian, or Paychex?
- Can employers adjust their donation matching criteria within the software?
- Is setting up new campaigns easy and intuitive for administrators to do?
- How secure is the data stored in the system and can users grant access at each level of donation information (e.g., donor, amount donated)?
- Does it provide a streamlined way to report contributions on behalf of employees to IRS (US) or tax authorities in other countries if applicable?
- Does it support multiple currencies so international employees could participate in corporate giving campaigns as well?
- How often are updates provided and are they available without download/installation fees?