At UWATX, we work with more than 400 companies locally helping them run Employee Giving Campaigns – giving employees the opportunity to invest a portion of every paycheck in the community. Each August, we put our money where our mouth is and run our very own campaign.
The UWATX Employee Campaign is different every year, but we work to model the best practices that we encourage in our business partners:
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Recruit a cross-functional team: Our team included 4 staff members representing our fundraising, finance, IT and strategic programs teams
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Define your timeline: Our campaign ran for a week from Aug. 12 through the 16. Since our staff is ramping up for our busiest season, a short campaign works best for our needs.
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Plan volunteer events: We kicked off our campaign with a volunteer project at Webb Middle School!
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Have fun with activities that fit your culture: At the start of campaign, each employee was greeted with a hand-written note welcoming them and half-way through, we held a UWATX Spirit Day where employees wore UWATX colors to show off their spirit.
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Engage different teams in the way that works for them: Our Employee Campaign team coordinate a rally or meeting for each department, including five for our Navigation Center staff who have less flexibility because they stay on the phones all day connecting callers to community resources. We also incorporated both an electronic and paper pledge system to accommodate more ways to give.
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Consider your wrap up: On Friday, gift cards, gift baskets and a paid day off were raffled away as staff enjoyed games, pizza and each other – a good way to spend a Friday afternoon and to wrap up an Employee Campaign.
All in all, our staff came together to raise $26,000 for our community and 98 percent of our staff participated in the campaign.