Thoughts

Our Reason

We all remember feeling like the world was more-or-less falling apart in 2020. With the myriad of needs–pandemic medical needs, social justice causes, struggling industries–it was disappointing when my company chose to support just a single cause with its corporate philanthropy…worthy as that cause was. I wished I would have had some input on where some of that contribution went. Coincidentally, around the same time I found myself with nothing but a sincere “thank you” to offer a colleague who put in extra effort to support a project of mine. While it may fall short of what anyone would call a stroke of genius, tying together corporate giving and colleague recognition was the lightbulb moment that led to Employee-Directed Giving (EDG) and Gruntled’s purpose of finding simple ways to improve the employee experience.

I could try summarizing the data that suggest links between common corporate-employee purpose and employee engagement, between employee engagement and corporate financial performance, but the data are almost irrelevant in my mind: Gruntled wasn’t created to find a savvy new way to improve the bottom line; it was created because I think it is a good thing to do. Simple as that. We all spend as much of our time working as we do on almost anything else, so we are setting out to find ways for companies to make that time better for its employees.

EDG puts control of corporate giving in employees’ hands, allowing them not only to designate recipients but also use corporate giving to acknowledge colleagues, providing an easy tool to

• Align corporate values with employee values, building a sense of shared purpose and identity while still enabling companies to place guardrails on giving;

• Build a collegial culture that increases recognition and appreciation among employees;

• Expand the corporate giving footprint to small and local nonprofit organizations that might otherwise miss out on corporate philanthropy;

• Empower employees by giving them influence of decisions that previously may have been made by a small number of executives in a top-down philanthropy program.

Corporate giving plays a crucial role in supporting great nonprofit work being done, and we appreciate the companies of all sizes that make philanthropy part of their mission. Now that giving can be leveraged to support not only nonprofit organizations but also the employee experience. As an employee, my 2020 work experience certainly would have been a bit better had I had input into my employer’s giving program.