What is Corporate Fundraising?

Corporate fundraising is where businesses and private companies raise money for charity and donate to good causes. Often it is in the form of cash or an in-kind gift to a charity.

There are many reasons why businesses and corporations choose to fundraise. It gives them an opportunity to create a meaningful dialogue about their social values and responsibilities as an organisation. Employees, and potential employees, can buy in to fundraising initiatives, but it’s also a chance for the business to showcase its values with stakeholders, investors and wider society. When corporate fundraising is done well, it provides an opportunity to elicit real social change through the charities companies choose to support.

Benefits of Corporate Fundraising

Key benefits of corporate fundraising include:

Supporting causes you care about. You can help make effective social change to causes that mean something to your stakeholders and employees.
Helping the community. By giving to schools, sports clubs and community groups in your local area you can boost the local community. You will also be able to directly see the impact of your fundraising efforts.
Improving the reputation of your business. If you’re a philanthropic company it shows to the public that you’re a business that cares and can be trusted.
Enhancing employee engagement. Raising money for charity makes people happy, and happier people are more productive. If your business gives to good causes regularly, it helps people feel proud of where they work and proud that the organisation is doing good in the world. This can help boost staff retention and help you attract employees too.
Building company loyalty. By continuing to raise funds for good causes, you will hopefully build company loyalty across your employees, stakeholders and with the local community.

Yet, while there are multiple benefits to corporate fundraising, there are challenges too. People across the business may buy in to the idea of fundraising, but their day-to-day jobs can easily get in the way. Planning large scale corporate fundraising events can help boost your fundraising credentials, but they can be labour intensive and they cost money too. Plus, you’ll be asking people to sacrifice their spare time or take time out of their working days.

Why Corporations Choose easyfundraising for their Fundraising Needs

With easyfundraising, we give you a free, quick and hassle-free way to make corporate donations without it impacting on the daily running of your business. Now you can raise free donations for charity with your business’ online shopping.

Ease of Use

Easyfundraising is super simple to use. It takes minutes to sign up with us and every time you shop with one of our partner retailers, the retailer will make a donation on your business’ behalf. All you need to do is shop for business supplies, or whatever your organisation needs, just as you usually would with one of our 7,500+ retailers. Then we take care of the donation with the retailer.

Once you’re all set up, you can continue to buy the same things with the same suppliers at the same prices. Just with easyfundraising, you can boost your corporate charity giving at the same time.

Variety of Causes

There are so many different causes you can choose to support through easyfundraising. In fact, we have over 190,000 causes registered with us. These include animal and wildlife charities, international aid organisations, children’s charities, research into cancer, disaster relief, and so much more.

If you’re not sure about the next charity your business wants to support, you can browse our full list of good causes online for a little inspiration. You’ll see plenty you know already and some you may never have heard of before. Either way, we’re sure you’ll find a charity that aligns with your business values.

Community Engagement

It isn’t just international or national charities that you can support through easyfundraising. We also give your business the opportunity to give to local sports clubs, community groups and schools in your area.

By selecting one of these organisations as your chosen cause when you shop online with us, you can boost your ties with the local community and give back to the people around you.

How to Set up Corporate Fundraising with easyfundraising

It couldn’t be easier to set up corporate fundraising with easyfundraising.

Registration Process

You’ll have our registration process completed in minutes. First we’ll need a few details about you, including your:

Name
Work email

You’ll then need to set up a password to access your account. You can do this online or via our easyfundraising app.

Finally, just give us the name of your business and a contact telephone number. And that’s it, just click on “Register My Business” and you’re all done. By creating an account, you’re also confirming you’ve read and agreed to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Selecting Causes

We already mentioned that we have more than 190,000 good causes to choose from. You have to pick one each time you shop online with one of our retailers and you can’t support more than one with the same spend. But you can change your cause each time you shop if you want, it’s up to you.

We find that many of our corporate supporters choose to select one cause to support over a sustained period of time. This could be a month, a quarter or even a year. This way, you can ensure that your business is really making a difference to one particular cause – you can also track how much you’ve raised for that charity in your easyfundraising account.

So, which cause do you pick? It really is up to you.

Picking a cause that aligns with your business values is super important. It highlights how you’re thinking about your corporate social responsibility (CSR) and gives your employees something to get behind.

Are you trying to be a more sustainable business? Could you then give to an environmental charity? Are you based in a city centre with a growing homelessness problem? Can you give to a charity that works with homeless people in your city? Are you looking to enhance your links with local community groups in your area? You can select one or two as your chosen good causes.

Whichever cause you pick is up to you, but it helps to think carefully about it to showcase your business values and get your employees onboard.

Best Practices for Corporate Fundraising with easyfundraising

Signed up and chosen your cause? Here’s how to boost your corporate donations with easyfundraising.

Employee Engagement

Do you have a number of employees who regularly buy things online on behalf of your business? You’ll need to keep them informed of your easyfundraising account and how simple it is to use it, to make sure you never miss an opportunity to donate when they buy business essentials online.

But what about your wider employee base?

They can get involved in easyfundraising initiatives too. It all comes down to your communication. At the start of your fundraising cycle when you pick your charity – whether you’re supporting it for a month, quarter or year – detail what the charity is and why it is important to your business. Next you’ll need to explain why you’ve chosen easyfundraising to donate and how it works.

Your employees can also set up their own easyfundraising accounts to use with their personal online shopping. If they select the same cause that the business is supporting, they can do their bit for the chosen charity every time they shop online with one of our online retailers (they probably shop with many of them already).

To keep your employees engaged with your ongoing fundraising efforts, you can:

Keep track of the donations made by people across your business and have a leaderboard of the top donators.
Offer prizes for the people that donate the most, whether an extra day off or a paid-for work lunch.
Run a poll to nominate and vote for the next charity that you’re going to support.

Regular Communication and Updates

Your communication is crucial at the start of your fundraising drive as it gives people an opportunity to buy in to your chosen charity and also to understand easyfundraising and how it works. But you’ll also need to keep your communication ongoing with regular updates throughout your fundraising period. Make sure you:

Set a goal at the start of your fundraising drive.
Regularly communicate your progress as a business and detail how close you are to your goal.
Shout about individual employees who are going above and beyond.
Showcase the people at the top of your leaderboard, if you choose to have one.
Keep communication consistent about the fantastic work the charity is doing.
In the lead up to the final stage of your fundraising period, send regular reminders about how close you are to your goal and how simple it is to raise funds to hit or exceed your target.
Provide regular updates about how to use easyfundraising and why it’s your chosen fundraising platform.

Making Corporate Fundraising Effective with easyfundraising

So, there you have it. Just how easy it is for your business to sign up to easyfundraising and to start boosting your corporate fundraising today. By using easyfundraising, you’re tapping into a simple and effective way to bolster your charity donations every day. You can use us as your sole fundraising initiative or to supplement your existing fundraising efforts. It’s completely up to you and your business. And most importantly, you can make a real difference to your chosen good cause.