Recently, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal recognized twelve companies with the Jefferson Award for Public Service. The selected businesses found similar benefits from contributing to their communities: it allowed them to use their own talents to make a difference, address issues important to the company, and helped their employees feel good.
For corporations where corporate giving is on a much larger scale, and has been institutionalized in the form of a foundation or other office, evaluating their corporate giving will extend beyond an informal analysis of these benefits. They may want to assess whether different funding strategies lead to specific community impacts; for example, Target has set very specific goals for putting more U.S. kids on the path to graduation, reducing its environmental impact and helping Target team members and their families live healthy, balanced lives.
At the Improve Group, we use a three-step approach to evaluating our own corporate giving.
- First, we are clear about our goals. At the Improve Group, our goals are: (1) make a difference on the causes that touch our hearts; (2) use both talent and money to make a difference; (3) give our employees meaningful experience as we make a difference; and (4) find and nurture new business opportunities.
- The scope of our giving is fairly small, so the second step – gathering data about these goals – is pretty informal. We gather stories about how our work was used, ask our pro bono clients to evaluate our services, and ask our employees to share feedback about their preferences.
- Finally, we use the information to reflect and strategize. We work on an annual cycle, and use our annual retreat (usually in late Fall) to discuss our experiences over the previous year.
