Skip to main content
Good Practice Guide

Enabling Community Engagement

Organisations can shape the meaning of work by enabling workers to build relationships and ties to the community.

Research suggests that creating the opportunity for employees to contribute to the community through their work, allows employees to develop an enhanced sense of purpose, agency, and impact, which can lead to work being experienced as more meaningful.1

Corporate volunteering – donate time

For example, if you are a small to medium enterprise (SME) wishing to develop a partnership with a community organisation, there is a toolkit on ‘Partnering with Community Organisations’ by Social Compass (an Australian Government Initiative) that provides a simple eight step guide to establish a successful partnership. The toolkit includes case studies from a range of different SMEs across industries, sizes and locations with different partnership arrangements and experiences.

If you are wishing to support your employees volunteering by implementing a corporate volunteer leave program within the organisation, Volunteering WA has created a “Corporate Volunteering Toolkit” which provides a practical overview on how to develop a successful and relevant corporate volunteering program. The toolkit includes case studies from a range of organisations implementing corporate volunteer programs.

Resource

The Australian Prime Minister’s Community Business partnership has authored a guide on Partnering with community organisations: a toolkit for small to medium sized businesses.

Resource

Volunteering WA has produced a toolkit for Corporate Volunteering – including how to get started, plan, find support and partner with a community organisation.

Workplace giving – donate funds

Workplace giving is an optional, simple and effective way for employees to regularly donate to charities or organisations that are entitled to receive tax deductible donations. Employees in Australia can do this through their organisation’s payroll as a pre-tax donation.

If you decide to start a workplace giving program, you will need to select the charities you want involved in your program – you can choose one or several charities. To participate in the program, each charity or organisation (such as a library or university) must have deductible gift recipient (DGR) status.

Workplace giving is a win-win-win for business, employees and charities.2

  • Employers enjoy greater staff engagement, retention, productivity, reputation and social impact.
  • Employees give in a smarter, tax-effective way and build a sense of pride in their employer
  • Charities get low-cost, regular funds, access to valuable skills and strong partnerships.

Further reading

The Australian Tax Office has guidelines around the implementation of a workplace giving program.

References

  1. Grant, A. M. (2007). Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Academy of Management Review32(2), 393-417.
  2. The Australian Charities Fund. What is workplace giving? Retrived from http://australiancharitiesfund.org.au/workplace-giving/