Employee giving campaign ideas are ready-made themes for a time-bound fundraising drive: a cause, a goal and a deadline that give the whole company a reason to give together. Below are 12 you can run this year, each mapped to the Uncommon Giving feature that runs it.
Set a goal, pick a nonprofit from more than 1.8 million, add your company match and announce it in Slack. Uncommon Giving runs every one of your employee giving campaigns from one dashboard.
From $5,000 a year, implementation starts at $0, live in as quick as 48 hours. See pricing
Each idea below is a complete campaign: when to run it, why it works and the part of Uncommon Giving that runs it. Pick one, set a goal and you can publish it the same day.
Pick one week and turn on matching for every eligible gift. A deadline plus a company match is the simplest way to lift participation, because every dollar an employee gives goes further that week.
Run a one-day or one-week drive around GivingTuesday, the global day of giving after Thanksgiving. Schedule it in October so the announcement goes out the morning it starts.
When a hurricane, fire or flood hits a community where you have people, open a campaign the same day for a vetted relief nonprofit. Speed matters more than polish here.
Employees are already thinking about year-end gifts. Give them one company goal to rally behind and show progress toward it every week until December 31.
Tie a campaign to a month employees already recognize. Build the next few in draft now and publish each one when its month arrives.
Let each employee resource group run a campaign for a cause its members choose, with the group lead named as campaign manager. It turns the program into something employees own.
Give each office its own campaign for a local food bank, shelter or school foundation. Employees see their gifts land where they live.
Give each department the same goal and its own campaign, then share milestones in Slack. A little friendly competition does most of the promotion for you.
Open a campaign to people outside the company so employees can invite friends and family to give. Your company match still counts toward the shared goal.
Run a donation campaign and a volunteer event for the same nonprofit in the same month. Employees who cannot attend can still give, and dollars for doers grants can reward the hours.
Mark a company milestone with a goal tied to it, such as $100 for every year in business. It gives leadership a reason to announce it and employees a reason to join.
Use the campaign window to invite employees to set up recurring payroll giving, so the generosity keeps going after the campaign ends.
The best incentives make giving feel shared rather than asked for. Three are built into every campaign on Uncommon Giving. The other three are simple plays you add yourself.
The strongest incentive there is. Matching tells employees the company is giving alongside them, and every matched gift moves the progress bar twice.
People give when they can see the finish line. A live progress bar and an end date create the urgency a standing giving program never has.
Gifts and milestones show up in the Generosity Feed and in Slack, so giving becomes something the team sees and celebrates together.
Ask an executive to give on day one and say so in the announcement. Participation follows visible leadership.
Hit a participation target and unlock something for everyone: a team lunch, a casual Friday or an extra hour of volunteer time off.
Let employee resource groups or offices pick the nonprofit. People give more to causes they chose.
Six habits that separate the campaigns people remember from the ones they scroll past.
A campaign with a single nonprofit and a single number is easier to explain in one sentence, and easier to share.
Start from last year’s total or a participation target, then set the goal a little above it. Beating a goal is good news; missing one is not.
Two to four weeks is long enough to build momentum and short enough to keep it. A one-day drive works for GivingTuesday and disaster relief.
Send the announcement email and the Slack post the moment the campaign goes live, then remind people at the halfway point.
Celebrate 25%, 50% and 75% of the goal. Each milestone is a fresh reason to post and a nudge for people who have not given yet.
When it ends, share what was raised, how many people gave and what the money will do. Results feed straight into your reporting.
Every idea above runs on the same tools. Admins launch, promote and close campaigns without a ticket to IT.
Set a fundraising goal, a date range, and a target nonprofit. Employees see real-time progress toward the goal, which creates the urgency and shared motivation that make campaigns work.
Enable match contributions directly inside the campaign. Every eligible employee donation can trigger an employer match under your match policy, and the combined total counts toward the shared goal.
Open campaigns beyond your company walls. When external users are enabled, friends and family can join a public campaign, make direct gifts, and have your org's match count toward the overall goal.
Launch announcements, progress updates, and campaign reminders post directly to Slack, to your workspace notification channel or a dedicated campaign channel you create right from the setup form.
Build campaigns in draft mode before they go live. Publish when you're ready, monitor progress, then mark complete to archive results. Full campaign history keeps your CSR reporting tidy.
In partnership with DonateStock, employees can fund their giving wallet with cryptocurrency, a fast, modern way to contribute to campaigns for employees who prefer digital assets.
Admins see every campaign (draft, published and completed) with live progress bars, start and end dates, campaign type, and quick-action icons. Managing employee giving campaigns is simple: create a new one with a single click.
The campaign creation form is self-contained: title, description, campaign type, goal amount, date range, supported nonprofit, and Slack settings all configured in one screen. Your employee giving campaigns can be live with no developer involvement.
When you publish a campaign, announcements post automatically to Slack. Route updates to your workspace's default notification channel or create a dedicated campaign channel directly from the campaign setup screen.
No IT tickets and no developer work. Build a campaign in minutes and publish it when you are ready.
Set the title, goal amount, date range, and target nonprofit. Choose whether to include employer match, allow external participants, and enable Slack notifications.
Hit publish and the platform automatically sends an announcement email to all employees and posts to your configured Slack channel, so there is no separate comms work.
Watch the progress bar fill in real time. When the campaign closes, mark it complete. Your giving history is archived automatically and available for CSR reporting.
The Generosity Feed surfaces each campaign contribution in real time, turning individual giving into a shared experience that drives peer-to-peer momentum and pushes campaigns across the finish line.
"Our first campaign on Uncommon Giving raised more in two weeks than our previous year-end drive raised in a month. The Slack integration meant employees saw it constantly, and the progress bar made it feel like a team sport."
Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, Enterprise Technology Company
Employee giving campaigns are time-bound, goal-based fundraising drives that rally employees around a shared cause. Admins set a fundraising goal, a start and end date and a nonprofit. Employees give during the campaign window, and real-time progress tracking builds momentum. Campaigns can include a company match and Slack notifications to lift participation.
Twelve that work well: a match week, a GivingTuesday campaign, a disaster relief fund, a year-end giving drive, cause awareness months such as Earth Day, employee resource group campaigns, hometown and office campaigns, a department challenge, a friends and family campaign, a give and volunteer campaign for one cause, a company milestone campaign and a payroll giving enrollment drive.
The most effective incentives are a company match, a visible goal with a deadline and public recognition. All three are built into Uncommon Giving campaigns. Leaders giving first, a small team reward for hitting a participation target and letting employees choose the cause also help.
Two to four weeks suits most campaigns: long enough to build momentum and short enough to keep it. A single day works well for GivingTuesday and for disaster relief, where speed matters.
Yes. When creating a campaign, admins can turn on Include Matches, so eligible employee donations trigger a matching contribution under your existing match settings. Both the donation and the match count toward the campaign’s progress bar.
Yes. With Allow External Users turned on, friends, family and community supporters can give to a public campaign. Your company’s matches still count toward the overall goal.
When you publish a campaign, Uncommon Giving can post an announcement to your Slack workspace notification channel. You can also choose a dedicated campaign channel for updates and reminders. The channel is set in the campaign creation form, so there is no separate setup.
Once your program is live, a campaign can be built and published in minutes from a self-serve form. If you are new to Uncommon Giving, the platform itself can launch in as quick as 48 hours, and implementation starts at $0.
Employee giving and volunteering starts at $5,000 a year, and implementation starts at $0. Donations disbursed to nonprofits through employee giving carry a standard disbursement fee of 2%, capped at $100 per disbursement. Full details are on the pricing page.
Pick one idea from this page and have it live this month. Uncommon Giving can be up and running in as quick as 48 hours.
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