Business:
Cargill, Inc.
Contact: Ms. Susan Tolbert
E-mail: susan_tolbert@cargill.com
Phone: 937-497-4821
- We are very lucky at Cargill to have great corporate support. For every dollar donated, the Cargill triples the donation. We emphasize this point to our employees and show them for every $1 donated United Way receives $3.
- In the past we have hosted many different activities during campaign week to generate donations. What we concluded was these activities take a lot of time to plan and although fun, don’t really generate a lot of donations. These activities do boost our overall participation percentage so we didn’t want to do away with them all together. We have scaled back our activities and now just do a couple raffles outside of campaign week. By holding the raffles outside of the campaign we keep United Way on people’s minds.
- Starting in 2007 we started sending monthly emails highlighting a local Shelby County United Way Agency. We also shared a story about how that Agency helped someone with in Shelby County. We used these stories to show our employees their donation dollars at work. This also keeps United Way on their mind and is talked about more than just during our Campaign.
- In 2007 we are sending mailers to employees homes asking them if they or a family member have been helped by a United Way Agency. With their consent, these stories will be broadcast to all employees during the campaign. If the employee is willing we will ask them to talk about their story during our campaign meetings.
- Before our campaign begins we have a short meeting in which all employees attend. During this meeting we educate them on United Way and explain our campaign. All employees receive a pledge card at the meeting and a few hand- outs about United Way.
- Our Campaign runs for a 2-week period. In 2006 we ran an ‘Early Giver’ campaign 1 week before our kickoff. Early Givers are entered into a department drawing for $50. During our 2006 ‘Early Giver’ campaign we had reached our donation goal before our actual 2-week campaign even began.
- We hold a Participation competition between our 5 on site departments. The department with the highest percentage of participation wins: Bragging rights for 1 yr and our ‘Bucket of Generosity’ Trophy. We post results daily to spur the competition.
- We offer 3 All-you-can-eat meals during the campaign: breakfast burrito, loaded fries and lasagna dinner. These are quite popular, every employee who pledges at least $2/pay period eats all the meals for free.
- Generous Leader Lottery: We solicit local businesses and Cargill Suppliers to donate items to put into a raffle for all Generous and Leadership Givers. Stereo, DVD player, Night stay at hotel, Cargill shirts & jackets, Bengals football tickets, Gift Certificates to Outback, Applebee’s, Culver’s, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Staples, Lowes, $100 and $50 cash donations and many other items.
- We concentrate our campaign on pledges. We have 3 levels of pledges
Givers: donate $2/pay period or $48/month
Generous Givers: donate 1 hr of pay/month
Leadership Givers: donation of $500 or more
Each level has different prizes and raffles for givers in those groups.
Givers: (donators $2/pay period or $48/month)
- Entered into a $50 department drawing
- All-you-can-eat meals for free
Generous Givers: (donators of 1 hr of pay/month)
- Entered into a $50 department drawing
- All-you-can-eat meals for fee
- 1 week vacation raffle
- 5- 1 day vacation raffle
- Generous Leader Lottery
- Thank you letter from Site Leadership
Leadership Givers: (donors of $500 or more)
- Entered into a $50 department drawing
- All-you-can-eat meals for free
- 1 week vacation raffle
- 1 day vacation raffle
- Generous Leader Lottery
- $500 Leadership Raffle
- Free car wash by Site Leadership team member
- Master Chef dinner drawing.
- Thank you letter from BU/Platform Leader
Business:
Copeland Corporation, Sidney
Contact: Ms. Gwen Wilker
E-mail: Gwen.Wilker@Copeland-Corp.com
Phone: 937-498-3471
1. Competition - we
broke all of Corporate into nine teams, trying
to keep departments together. Our top
three team prizes were a breakfast buffet,
pizza buffet, and dessert buffet. The
formula to win was based on % of 1-hr givers
and % of people giving anything.
2. Upper management
support - each of the teams had a team leader
from management. They were responsible
for cheering their teams on and providing
their own incentives, getting people to come
to meetings, etc.
3. Make meetings fun.
Each year we have a theme and the teams do
something fun in the meetings to encourage
employees to come to hear the United Way message.
Last year we did an Olympic theme and ran
Olympic games during the meetings. We
also give away an attendance prize at each
meeting.
4. Raise the 1-hour
bar. Last year, we tied in the Olympic
theme and had a Gold-level giver spot on the
pledge card. A gold-level giver was
an hour and a half per month. We had
so many people switch to gold-level givers
that we had our biggest dollar increase of
pledges ever.
5. Have a few theme-based
bigger giveaways rather than giving away a
lot of little token gifts.
6. Encourage employee testimonies for
meetings. We had a few employees give
a testimony of a family member or friend that
was helped by United Way. We've had
many first-time givers and people raise their
gift based off of employee testimonies.
7. We have a United
Way agency rep come in during each meeting
to tell about their agency. We try to
match agencies to the group of employees we're
meeting. For example, an older group
of employees may want to hear about what United
Way is doing for seniors.
Business: US
BankCorp, Sidney
Contact: Mr. Andy Counts,
E-mail: andy.counts@usbank.com
1. What works for us
is that I personally lead the campaign. We
ask for a copy of the UW Video and each office
views it with their staff. I make a visit
each office (10 total), thanking our employees
for their past donations and asking them to
help in the coming year. We discuss our previous
year’s contributions and our bank matching
gift program. We usually give each employee
a gift, T-shirts, beverage cups, coffee mug
etc and hand out the UW campaign information
from the local UW office. We also have an
individual letter from me and their UW form
in their personal information packet. We do
not tell our employees they have to give.
However, I do ask each employee to consider
giving and I also ask the managers, assistant
managers, admin team and commercial lenders
to consider being a leadership giver. I believe
the video helps make our case for the reason
to give.
2. We strongly believe
in incentives for our campaign. We have three
categories: 1 - Whoever is a leadership giver
($500 or more) receives one extra day of vacation.
2 - Whoever is a generous giver (1 hour pay
per month) gets their name in a drawing to
win a number of prizes from Reds tickets,
Dragons Tickets or 5 one day vacations. 3
- We also have a prize drawing for anyone
who gives at least $3.00 per pay period…..This
drawing has Reds tickets, Bank merchandise,
Visa gift cards, and two one day vacations.
4 - Last, we have a reward for any branch
with 100% participation that they may have
up to 5 blue jean-tennis shoes dress down
days during the year. (View
USBcampaign.pdf)
We have also had a parking
space raffle in the past to raffle off special
parking for those who participate. (View
USBraffle.pdf)
3. Finally we believe
a key for our campaign is to show our employees
what is given in each of their communities…..We
have to show the branches in the other communities
outside of Sidney that the UW helps those
in their communities and the handout from
the UW that shows the dollars given by community
is key.
If anyone would have any questions about our
campaign or why we do what we do, please feel
free to send me an email at andy.counts@usbank.com
. Our campaigns are successful because of
our employees and their willingness to support
a campaign that is important to their community.
Business: Mechanical
Galv Plating, Sidney
Contact: Mr. T.J. Baker
E-mail: tjbaker@mechanicalgalv-plating.com
Phone: 937-492-3143
1. A company raffle
of a television or DVD player.
2. "Digging the Pit"
- Setting a goal and if the goal is met the
administration/upper office workers agree
to do the dirtiest job in the plant. This
was, by far, our most successful idea.
3. Our company matches
dollar for dollar donation equal to the total
amount raised by the employees.
Business: Choice One Engineering,
Sidney
Contact: Ms. Sharon Maurice
E-mail: ssm@choiceoneengineering.com
Phone: 937-497-0200
Here are some things we've
done to make our campaign successful:
- We have management support
(very important!) and they set the pace
with leadership giving as well as set
goals for the campaign.
- Our company matches dollar
for dollar equal to the amount pledged
by our employees. This truly reflects
to our employees management’s commitment
to the United Way.
- We don’t drag the
campaign out. We try to have our pledge
cards back the same day as our presentation,
or absolutely no later than the same week.
- We educate our employees
on what the United Way is all about. We
also reflect what community services are
available and accessible to our employees.
We make sure and inform our employees
that administrative and overhead costs
are kept low to maximize their dollars
given. We also preview the United Way
video all together, at one time.
- We try to have a personal
testimony from employees that have benefited
directly from the United Way. It really
hits home what a difference the United
Way can make to someone you know who is
in need. This has been a very effective
tool for us.
- We encourage all of our
employees to participate no matter how
large or small the giving.
- We make it easy to give
by encouraging payroll deductions. Generally,
employees who give through payroll deduction
do not miss the money and statistics show
they give more.
- We always make a big
deal about reporting our results and give
lots of THANKS for the giving.
- We show examples for
how giving up something small can give
big rewards to the needy. (i.e. packing
your lunch one day a week could feed a
family for a day…)
- Most of all have
lots of FUN with your campaign. Be creative
and make sure your campaign matches your
company culture. Nothing would be worse
than having incentives no one is interested
in! Some of the fun things we have done
in past campaigns include:
- Employees had their
choice to either smash a pie in the
face of their favorite owner, or have
the owner bake a pie of their choosing.
- Breakfast personally
cooked and served to all employees by
the owners of the company, complete
with individual orders taken.
- Friday afternoon euchre
tournament with food catered in and
prizes given.
- Paid time off
Every year we try to keep
our enthusiasm high with new and innovative
ideas. Yes, it is a little work to come
up with new ideas, but the rewards are extremely
high, not only for the employees, but also
for their families, the company they work
for and the people they share their communities
with.
Feel free to give me a call
at 497-0200 or e-mail at ssm@choiceoneengineering.com.
I wish you lots of luck and much success
with your campaigns!
Business:
Dickman Supply, Sidney
Contact: Doug Borchers
E-mail: dborchers@dickmansupply.com
Phone: 1-800-835-7872
- Most importantly we found
that... getting THE PEOPLE involved is
the key!
- We heard about “pie
in the face” contests, fun skits
at kickoffs, campaign themes – all
great ideas, but not enough staff to pull
these kinds of things off.
- Decided to focus on the
one or two things that could make biggest
impact in our company, knowing we wouldn’t
be able to pull off a full launch with
skits, games, and other fancy propaganda.
- For our company,
it came down to a few things…
- Company logo-wear
is valued – it means you have
accomplished something (a part of
our historical reward system).
Employees wear company polo or oxford
shirts with pride because there’s
a story behind every one of them.
- We offered company
shirts to all of those who exceeded
a pre-determined gift level.
- We also offered
company jackets for those who
hit an even higher level.
- Many gave for
the first time because they wanted
a company shirt, others gave a
little more than the past to get
up to the jacket level.
- We had an employee
that went thru hardship with a son
in a major car accident, and another
son of hers who had just gone thru
a house fire.
- She didn’t
want to talk in front of the group,
but did not have a problem with
us using her situation as an example
to share with others, and how
different UW agencies helped her
family.
- People started
thinking about their families
and the blessings they have, and
how tremendous it was that someone
was there to help when a co-worker
needed it.
- Also had a single
mom talk about what Big Brothers /
Big Sisters had done for her son.
- CEO got more involved
in our kickoff meeting and encouraged
participation.
- Now have 5 people from
our company as campaign volunteers
- They talk to their co-workers
and inform them of good things UW is doing.
- Familiarity breeds more
success – we’ve gone from
many wondering what UW was to most everyone
having a good grasp on what they do for
us in the community, and the giving level
went up accordingly.
These
are but a few of the many, many ideas local
campaign managers have come up with to get
their employees involved in our United Way
campaign. If you would like to share your
company's ideas on this page, please e-mail
your comments to iandrews@shelbycounitedway.org.
Please
stop back and visit this page periodically,
as we intend to add new Campaign Tips as we
receive them!
