How to use the Sustainable Development Goals in corporate giving programmes

Read our guide on incorporating the United Nations SDGs in your corporate giving and social impact programmes.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

In 2015 the United Nations called on governments, businesses and citizens to collectively tackle the biggest issues in the world, from ending hunger and poverty to fighting climate change and reducing inequalities.

They set out the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to meet by 2030.

  1. No poverty

  2. Zero hunger

  3. Good health and wellbeing

  4. Quality education

  5. Gender equality

  6. Clean water and sanitation

  7. Affordable and clean energy

  8. Decent work and economic growth

  9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure

  10. Reduced inequalities

  11. Sustainable cities and communities

  12. Responsible consumption and production

  13. Climate action 

  14. Life below water

  15. Life on land

  16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

  17. Partnerships for the goals

Why are the SDGs helpful for purpose driven businesses?

The SDGs are useful for businesses that want to increase their environmental and social impact because they provide a framework for strategies and activities.

For charitable giving programmes, this might be to steer employee volunteering, corporate donations and partnerships and they can also be used to shape how the business operates in other areas, such as for production, supply chains to distribution. 

In addition, they are an opportunity for employee engagement. The SDGs explain clearly and fundamentally why it’s important for every country, organisation and employee at every level to come together to solve the biggest problems facing our world.

According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, 60% of people choose a place to work

based on their beliefs and values. An October 2022 report from Porter Novelli reveals 84% of people think companies should demonstrate how they are following through on their promises to people, the planet or society. Most importantly, 81% of millennials expect their employers to act on the SDGs, according to this WP Corporate Citizenship Report.

In short, if you can give your employees clear objectives in working toward one or more SDGs, then it’ll be easier for your business to engage and measure your social impact activities.

Six ways the SDGs can be used in corporate giving programmes

1. Make sure the SDGs are incorporated into your giving strategy.

Many organisations share the ideas and ethics behind their giving programmes with their employees as part of a company strategy. This can be useful to both encourage and educate employees on the work of charities and nonprofits, the benefits of charity partnerships as well as how they can provide support through donations and volunteering. Making sure that the SDGs are incorporated into policies and strategies, and that a clear alignment can be made between company goals and one or more SDG, will help your organisation and workforce to meet those goals and help you to report on the outcomes of their activities in a way that’s helpful and useful.

2. Focus on the goals that speak to your employees.

With 17 goals to choose from, it can seem a bit overwhelming. Though charitable giving programmes should be long-term and give you the opportunity to focus on one or a few SDGs per year, and change focus according to what feels most critical at the time. Giving your employees the choice of which SDGs to focus on annually can be a key tool for both engagement and to make a giving programme successful. Why not send out surveys or ask your employees to vote? You might also set up discussion groups internally to organise and strategise, inviting employees from all levels of the organisation.

3. Encourage wider participation that feeds into the SDGs.

Once you’ve identified the causes that your employees feel passionate about in line with the SDGs, give them an incentive to act on that passion. How? By offering to match their donations to charity, either through the payroll each month or by offering a financial match for the time they spend volunteering for a charitable organisation or non-profit. Although you probably offer this for most charitable giving activities in your business, you could consider supercharging the incentives associated with the SDG you’re currently focusing on, perhaps offering to more than match or to match up to a higher sum annually per employee. Find out more about company matching in our guide.

4. Organise campaigns to drive participation among your employees.

Whether you want your employees to focus on reducing hunger or joining the fight against gender inequality, it can help to choose one SDG to focus on and launch a campaign around it that may last a week, a month or even longer. It can sometimes be useful to tie these in with calendar events, such as awareness days or months. For example, you might launch a campaign to encourage employee participation in the 10th SDG, “reduced inequalities”, around Black History Month. Or, if there is a focus on the news children not having enough to eat due to the cost-of-living-crisis, you might choose to support a local food bank or charity organising breakfasts for children, in line with the 2nd SDG.

5. Share the great work you’re doing with SDGs.

One of the key drivers of engagement in social impact activities in the workplace is encouragement from the business leaders. Share the positive stories and experiences with those at all levels both via internal communication portals and externally, then others will feel inspired to take up the challenge. As part of the communication around these successful fundraising or volunteering activities, you can use language relating to the SDGs and so help raise both awareness of them and inspire further activity in this space.

6. Use technology to track your company’s impact.

While you can absolutely do great work for its own sake, making that work sustainable over the long-term often relies on being able to report on it effectively and justify it. This is especially true when it comes to activities which are not profit-driving. SDG data is monitored globally by the UN, but critical data gaps remain.

Moreover, if businesses collect important data on the impact of their activities in line with the SDGs, they can report effectively on it to internal and external stakeholders.

Simplify reporting on SDGs for your company

When it comes to reporting against your company’s achievements, it’s helpful to introduce reporting from the very beginning of a year or period if time so that it can work alongside your corporate programmes and give you transparency of your company’s social impact.

GivingForce Impact Reporting gives companies the tools to track their corporate giving activities against the SDGs. For example, the time employees spend volunteering, donations that are made using payroll giving and corporate donations made can all be assigned to particular SDGs. Using this approach, companies will have access to auditable data and reports that can be used for a range of purposes including monitoring programmes, quarterly and annual reporting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes and Environmental and Social Governance (ESG).

Book a consultation for your company to find out more about GivingForce Impact Reporting.

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