More than a third (37%) of people would stay at a company longer if it supported charities or local community projects, a survey by price comparison website Give as you Live has found.
Younger people were the most likely to look favourably on corporate charity initiatives. Nearly half (48%) of 35- to 44-year-olds said they would stay at a company longer if it supported charitable causes, while 56% between the ages of 25 and 34 believe that their workplace could do more for charity.
Bake sales emerged as one of the most popular forms of fundraising, with 28% citing it as their favourite charitable effort.
Regarding how much respondents' employers already did for charity, 51% said they hadn’t participated in any form of company fundraising in the past year, and 48% were unclear how much their workplace had given to charity recently.
Greg Hallett, managing director of Give as you Live, commented: “In our experience there’s a few key components that are important to encouraging people to fundraise: it can’t be too time intensive, it has to be fun, and it has to be something personal to the individual donating time and money.
“Businesses should encourage their employees to come up with fundraising ideas; ideas that come from those who will be doing the fundraising are inherently more likely to be popular and team-building than something forced upon staff.”
He added: “In terms of engaging workers, charitable activities need to be ingrained within the company culture. A good way to do this is to find charities that are personally meaningful to the staff, and to take the time to listen to what causes employees value. Why not have each department raise for a different charity close to them each month and turn it into a game with an active leaderboard?"