Employees can now donate to charity and book volunteer shifts without leaving Microsoft Teams, as Benevity rolls out an app aimed at lifting participation in corporate giving programs.
Benevity for Microsoft Teams launched Oct. 1 and is available in the Microsoft Teams Store. The Calgary-based social impact software company said it will add integrations with other workplace collaboration tools and plans a QR code access point for workers who don’t sit at a company computer.
“For decades, workplace giving has lived one click removed from where employees actually work: another tab, another login, another thing to do later,” said Soraya Alexander, chief executive officer at Benevity. “We’re bringing participation inside the tools people already rely on.”
Alexander said Benevity for Microsoft Teams and Benevity for Slack bring purpose to the heart of work. “Taking action no longer has to wait for later, it happens now,” she said.
The app works through Teams channels. Any employee with a linked Microsoft and Benevity account can publish giving campaigns and volunteer opportunities in a channel. Other employees can then complete the whole transaction in a private chat with the Benevity bot, from browsing an opportunity to confirming a donation or reserving a volunteer shift.
The app supports several payment methods, including company rewards, personal balances in an employee’s giving account and payroll deductions. Benevity said eligibility and matching rules are applied automatically and checked in real time against each organization’s program setup. Volunteer shifts can also sync to employees’ calendars.
Benevity for Microsoft Teams comes at no extra cost to clients with active Donate or Volunteer modules, the company said.
Low participation in volunteering
The company points to low participation as the reason for the move. Benevity Impact Labs’ State of Corporate Volunteering report found that participation averages 10.8 per cent to 13.6 per cent across corporate programs, even as employee volunteering reaches record levels overall.
Benevity said the gap reflects a structural problem, since every extra step lowers the odds that good intentions turn into action.
Reaching deskless workers
Benevity also plans a QR code experience for employees who don’t have a company laptop. Roughly 80 per cent of the global workforce is in frontline or deskless roles, according to Benevity, which puts the number of deskless workers at about 2.7 billion.
The company said a simple scan would give these employees, or guests, a fast and secure way to find a giving opportunity and act on it. Benevity has not said when the QR code access point will launch.
Benevity is a certified B Corporation. The company said it has supported more than $36 billion in giving to more than 560,000 nonprofit organizations since 2008.
