The corporate social responsibility (CSR) arena has been greatly impacted over the past few years. This has happened through both innovation of programs and also through the implementation of more useful tools to monitor organizations participation and the growth of their efforts. Several platforms have emerged that cater to different needs dependent on what programs your charity arm is looking to track and cultivate.
One that is well established based on its tenure in the marketplace and its successful partnerships with nonprofits is Volunteer Match. As the name insinuates Volunteer Match, focuses on engaging, educating and tracking the volunteer efforts of your workforce. This platform can be used gratis by individuals to find a cause in their area that would meet their interests and serves as a conduit in connecting them to the right point of contact. Additionally, this tool also has a dedicated platform that can be purchased by companies to communicate with and track their employee’s involvement in the communities where they operate. This platform is well respected because of the wealth of nonprofits engaged as options for those who log in.
A second option, Bright Funds, caters strictly to the organizations that are willing to pay to have a dedicated platform with access to volunteer options. This option combines the volunteer directory with the opportunity to track donations, including dollars for doer’s (DFD) employee volunteer grant allocations and any matching programs supported by corporate funders. The deterrent with this option is a higher price point then other similar tools and a more limited library of charity organizations to select from. While causes can be added this can be tedious and time consuming.
Taking things to the next level where CSR tools are concerned is Causecast. This tool cleverly partners with Volunteer Match to leverage their already healthy directory of charity organizations with an easy to use donation tracking component that also allows for automatic DFD and matching allocations. The beauty of this platform is the manner in which it combines these vital CSR program components into one beautiful, custom tool. This option allows team members to create profiles that speak to their individual interest in particular cause areas and even combines the option to track donation drives; making this a great all in one option for those mature CSR programs.
Whatever resource you select, CSR is a quickly moving, ever evolving discipline and just as new programs are constantly being created the tools that serve to enhance them must also be upgraded to allow for the needs of the organizations it serves. Dependent upon your goals any of these options could be the right selection for your organization.
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