Promotional Tips and Staff Motivation

To make your Payroll Giving scheme a success, run regular promotions to maintain awareness and continue to recruit new donors. 

• Promote well and often - a constant, steady flow of information through a variety of channels is crucial.
• Set an internal target based upon how many people you would expect to sign up, why not Go for Gold and aim for 10%?
• Consider matching your employees’ donations and, if you decide to do so, publicise this to your employees as it can be a powerful incentive.
• Organise promotional days where your staff can find out more information about the scheme and can sign up then and there.
• Use a Professional Fundraising Organisation, charity or charity consortium to help with your promotion.
• ‘Tell’ rather than ‘sell’ the scheme to staff. Charitable giving can be very personal, so actively promote the positives of the scheme, but don’t force it.
• Try to recruit a committed group of staff volunteers; they can be invaluable in promoting schemes to their peers.
• Enclose promotional material in induction packs ensuring that new staff are aware of the scheme.
• Package Payroll Giving with any other community investment initiatives.
• If possible, use emails and the company intranet to enable staff to donate at the ‘touch of a button’.
• Thank your employees and celebrate their contributions. Use your success stories as a positive PR opportunity.

Practical Ideas For Promoting Payroll Giving

Payroll Giving promotion should always be active and where possible include an element of fun or innovation.

Some ideas which work are:

• Presentations – invite staff to attend group presentations about Payroll Giving. The presentation could be given by a representative from a PFO, a charity, charity consortium or a member of your own staff who is keen to encourage regular charitable giving.
• One-to-one desk promotions where each member of staff gets a chance to learn about the scheme and the process involved.
• Newsletters – include information in internal publications such as in-house bulletins or magazines.
• Emails and intranet – both easy ways of getting across the Payroll Giving message but also highlights the ease of giving especially if the necessary form can be filled in online.
• Flyers and promotional materials – always helpful in drawing attention to any planned campaign or promotional period.
• Bulletin boards – ensure that Payroll Giving is visible in the workplace with regular bulletin board promotions keeping employees up to date with how much is being raised and where to get a Payroll Giving form for completion.
• Screen savers – upload information about Payroll Giving to feature as employees’ screen savers.
• Canteen tray liners – if your staff eat together in a canteen, why not print off some promotional sheets to be used as tray liners.

For further information and to download a Payroll Giving Guide for Fundraisers click here.

Motivating Your Employees To Become Payroll Givers

There are many ways to help generate enthusiasm towards Payroll Giving amongst your workforce.

Some good ideas are:

• Remind your employees about what they already do for charities and how much they collectively raise each year.
• Highlight the benefits of making those gifts regular and tell employees that Payroll Giving is a very simple way to make it happen and save charities the cost of raising the same money each year.
• Set a goal to challenge employees to achieve new levels of participation.
• Publish cross-department/division/location league tables showing how much each has raised through payroll donations.
• If you don’t do it already, match or add to employees’ donations or pay the nominal administration fees charged by the PGA.
• Make the whole process fun. Tie your campaign in with a ‘dress down’ day, give away cups of tea, free sweets or buns, competitions and badges.
• Put up posters, tell everyone what’s going on and when your promotion is going to happen.
• Pick a time when levels of motivation are likely to be high, before holidays, after ‘good news’ announcements and pay rises.
• Organise a free draw for everyone filling in a Payroll Giving form during the promotion –an extra day’s holiday is always popular.
• If you have a close relationship with a charity or local group of charities invite them into the workplace to tell people about the difference that their donations will make.
• Remind your employees that they will get tax relief on their gifts (including higher rate tax relief) as the amount they choose to give is deducted from pay before tax is calculated.
• Get your senior managers to set an example and be the first to fill in a Payroll Giving form.
• Tell employees about how easy the whole process is, they just need to fill in one form and can specify any