Let Your People Define How You Give Back

Employees are invited to participate in corporate giving, but rarely to decide. Organizations are right to be proud of their philanthropy, which funds important work in communities around the world. But when I look at how many giving programs are designed, I see a familiar pattern. Decisions are made at the top, and priorities reflect the interests of a few executives.

Good intentions are running on an outdated design. In the age of personalization, people want their work to reflect what they value. That includes how their organization shows up in the world.

Why Giving Belongs to Everyone

A big reason efforts to make people feel included fail to produce lasting results is that organizations are not committed to embracing differences as opportunities. Instead, they strip employees of their identities and ask them to assimilate to the needs of the organization.

Philanthropy is one of the clearest places this happens. When giving priorities are handed down, employees are asked to care about what leadership cares about. When employees help define those priorities, giving becomes an expression of who they are. That difference shapes how connected people feel to the organization, and how long they choose to stay.

Employees are constantly looking for signs that their organization sees them as more than a job title, especially when times are uncertain. Few signals are more powerful than asking people what they believe the organization should stand for, and then acting on their answers.

What I Learned From an Employee-Centered Foundation

Looking for insight on how an organization can evolve to let individuals define the business of giving, I interviewed the executive director of a large corporate foundation. What was fascinating to me was that creating a new strategy was not her original intent. She simply wanted to understand what employees cared about.

Her team engaged more than 1,000 employees across two dozen countries over four months, at multiple levels of the organization. Only after listening did they begin designing. And despite the size and variety of the workforce, clear common themes emerged: hunger relief, food security and protecting the environment.

Listening to her, it was clear three things defined the approach.

1. Employee voices came first. The foundation shifted from designing programs for employees to designing them with employees. No strategy was drafted until people had been heard.
2. The status quo was disrupted, not preserved. Rather than fitting new perspectives into existing practices, the team let what they heard reshape the strategy itself.
3. Engagement was sustained. Meaningful change required ongoing dialogue, not a single round of feedback. The conversation continued after the strategy was set.

The most important lesson was this: even in a large, global workforce, people share core values. You only discover them when you treat employees as individuals with unique knowledge and perspective, not as job titles.

Philanthropy as a Growth Strategy

When employees define how an organization gives, several things happen at once. Engagement deepens because people see their values reflected in the organization. Collaboration improves because people across functions and locations discover what they have in common. Leaders gain insight into what their workforce truly cares about, which informs far more than philanthropy.

It also strengthens trust. People believe leaders who listen, and they notice when leaders ask for input and then ignore it. An employee-centered giving strategy is a visible, practical demonstration that the organization means what it says about valuing its people. That is a form of loyalty that lives in the experience, not in a policy.

How to Put Employees at the Center of Giving

• Listen before you design. Invite employees at every level and in every location to share what causes matter to them and why. Use surveys, conversations and small groups.
• Look for common ground. Individual passions vary, but shared themes will emerge. Build your priorities around them.
• Share ownership. Give employees real roles in choosing partners, allocating resources and measuring impact.
• Connect giving to skills. Let people contribute their expertise, not just their time or donations. It honors what makes each person valuable.
• Keep the dialogue going. Report back on what was heard, what changed and what comes next. Then ask again.

Before your next giving cycle, ask your leadership team who currently decides where the organization gives, and whose values that choice reflects. Ask when you last invited employees to say what they want the organization to stand for. Then imagine how your culture would change if they owned part of the strategy.

Giving That Reflects Everyone

Philanthropy should reflect the collective identity of the people who make an organization what it is. When you let your people define how you give back, you don't just strengthen your communities. You strengthen the individuals who make your growth possible, and you give them one more reason to bring their full identity to work every day.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.