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Do you support a favorite cause or charity in your spare time?
You may not realize that your employer may be willing to support it as well -- and all you have to do is ask. Try these tactics to get your company to put its money where your heart is.
Matching-Gift Programs
"Many companies and almost all large corporations have a matching-gift program," says John Giuliano, a New York- and Florida-based development and marketing consultant who specializes in corporate sponsorship. This means a corporation will match every dollar an employee donates to a cause with a matching-gift dollar of its own. "Some programs donate double or even triple the amount of an employee contribution," he adds.
While matching programs often cover a wide variety of causes, they often will not support schools that employees or employees' children attend, notes Giuliano. Consult your HR department to find out if your company has a matching-gift program and what it covers. Companies with matching programs often have a form for employees to fill out and enclose with their own contribution. The paperwork tells the nonprofit how to contact the employer for its matching donation.
Challenge Grants
If your company is not willing to give a cash gift outright but is interested in your cause, you might suggest "conditioning the gift" by proposing a donation in the form of a challenge grant. A challenge grant is a "gift advanced only when an agreed-upon sum is raised from others toward the same purpose," explains Reynold Levy in Give and Take: A Candid Account of Corporate Philanthropy. For example, if your nonprofit does a direct-mail campaign and raises $5,000, your company may be willing to meet that challenge with some sort of matching grant.
Nonprogram Resources
If your company doesn't have a gift program, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't engage in some kind of corporate philanthropy. "Most corporations try to give something back to the community and make that a part of their annual expense planning," Giuliano explains. "Most companies will have a department of corporate giving, as well as published guidelines -- usually available in their HR departments -- which describe how and what a company will fund."
If the mission of the nonprofit organization you would like to support fits into your company's giving guidelines, the first thing to do is contact the department of corporate philanthropy or the president's office. Either of these sources can tell you how to request a grant.
"When someone contacts me about approaching their company, I usually write a formal 'ask letter,' which I address to the employee, as well as the person in charge of corporate giving," Giuliano says. It's best if you personally hand this letter in and make the introduction so the request doesn't come in as a cold call. "In-house contacts make my job much easier, as I already have a relationship in place and someone on my side within the company," he adds.
Remember: Your company may gladly support the causes that matter to you, but you'll never know unless you ask.
