Founder and Head of the international IT recruitment company Lucky Hunter.




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In recent years, you can observe a fairly positive trend in the business environment: More and more companies are starting to engage in charitable activities, making partnerships with various volunteer organizations, helping foundations and holding special thematic events. 

Despite the fact that this trend has existed for quite a long time, the growing interest in companies giving back makes me very happy. In this article, I discuss how businesses can engage in charity work based on my experience leading my IT recruiting agency, Lucky Hunter. 


Business, Activism And Customer Relations

Today, my organization is partners with a foundation dedicated to helping children with disabilities, as well as organizations working with homeless people. In the near future, we are planning on launching an eco-campaign with the goal of planting trees in our city. Many of our regular customers have expressed a desire to join our efforts, so each tree we plant will have a sign next to it with the name of the organization responsible for it.


By developing campaigns that aim to spark change in your local community, you have the opportunity not only to do a good and useful act of service but also to work together with partners or clients on a common goal. You get the opportunity to communicate in an informal setting and get to know them from the other side. 


Also, it stands to reason, when we do something together for the benefit of society, it motivates us and brings us closer. When thinking about options for charitable activities that you might be interested in, choose formats that will also help attract customers and partners to such events so you can act together. 


Make Opportunities Voluntary 

Participation in charity processes should be purely voluntary—various charity events and fees should not be mandatory for all employees. It is important that everyone decide for themselves whether they want to do this or would prefer to abstain. 



Everything should be built on a voluntary basis, allowing each employee to determine for themselves if they want to engage in a certain charitable activity. But in my experience, making charitable opportunities voluntary builds more consensus, meaning team members feel comfortable engaging in such work.

Many employees at my company conduct charity auctions themselves. For example, one of our lead IT recruiters organized online auctions to sell hand-made jewelry, with all the proceeds going to an organization working with homeless people. We always encourage initiative, so everyone can share their ideas or suggestions. For example, we have a tradition of arranging charity donations for the New Year: We bring canned food, hygiene items and various necessary things to the office. Those who want to participate also financially can do so. 

Choose, Discuss And Help

Now there are a lot of opportunities to make the world a better place. Before deciding in which direction to take your company, discuss the available options with your team. This approach will inspire and motivate your employees because they will do what is valuable to them and feel how they contribute. This will also have a positive impact on the relationships within the team. 

Let me share some tips from my personal practice that may be useful to HR specialists who are planning to implement cooperation with various charitable organizations in their companies:

1. Conduct a survey among your employees. Find out who is already helping various charitable institutions—sometimes these colleagues can offer an interesting idea that can be used.

2. Invite all the team members to share their opinions on which organizations they would like to help. It is important that the institutions and foundations you choose to partner with and campaigns you create are approved by your team.

3. Make a short list of variants that will get the most votes.

4. Determine your budget. Maybe you will have enough financial resources to help several organizations at once.

5. Create a project group within your company. This will include those employees who will be ready to deal directly with the establishment of processes and the organization of events, fees, etc.

6. Hold general meetings where you share information about these campaigns (i.e., what you managed to do for those you helped, what events you held, any relevant numbers, etc.). You can discuss with the team in advance to decide what frequency they'd prefer to have these meetings. Such events give a sense of community. 

Moreover, such actions will make your employees understand that their opinion matters, they can take part in important decisions of the company and help make the world a better place. So don't be afraid to try. Hitch your wagon to a star.


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Source: Forbes

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