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The Season of Giving is celebrated during the holiday-packed months of November and December.
Holidays that are generally associated with the Season of Giving include Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.
Happy hours and catered lunches are popular ways corporations can celebrate their employees during this time.
But many forward-thinking corporate social responsibility professionals are pairing these holiday gatherings with engaging team activities that make a community impact and foster positive relationships among employees.
Adding a social impact or volunteering experience to your Season of Giving celebrations enables teams to bond over an impactful shared experience, which provides employees a deeper connection to their company and wider community.
Here’s how Visit.org helped corporate partners honor the Season of Giving in 2022. Hopefully, these miniature case studies provide a few creative ideas so that you can host your own effective Season of Giving social impact experience this year.
1. Reach end-of-year corporate volunteering goals
Season of Giving programming is an important time of year for CSR professionals, as it’s one of the last opportunities for teams to reach their volunteer goals for the entire year.
Optimize the last few weeks of the year with hands-on in-person or virtual volunteering experiences that encourage high employee participation rates. For example, last year in 2022, Visit.org helped our corporate partner, Twilio, celebrate the Season of Giving with seven social impact experiences created in partnership with global nonprofits.
Together, Twilions around the world participated in people-centered volunteering opportunities such as working in soup kitchens, mentoring young professionals, supporting homeless populations, and more.
By planning multiple experiences during the holiday season, Visit.org helped Twilio employees donate 7,600+ hours of their time in 2022 to support worthy missions.
2. Engaging remote and in-person employees
Many social impact leaders contend with planning holiday programming that can engage both remote and in-person employees. In 2022, Visit.org helped a Boston-based corporate partner solve this problem by hosting a toy drive designed to cheer children and families experiencing homelessness and poverty.
At the start of the toy drive, representatives from the nonprofit hosted a call to share more about their work and mission, and how the toy drive would positively impact people experiencing homelessness. Both in-office and at-home teams tuned into the same kickoff meeting.
Then, volunteers collected toys, gift cards, and "stocking stuffer" items (such as crayons, markers, coloring books, small stuffed animals, etc.) at their office or home. Items were then collected and distributed to families in need by the nonprofit.
3. Enjoy live music that also makes an impact
Live music enables team members to bond over a shared artistic experience. That’s why several Visit.org corporate partners chose to incorporate live music into their 2022 Season of Giving programming that also supported an important mission.
One popular Visit.org experience is a “Zoom-bopping” caroling experience by young singers. The performers masterfully sang seasonal, festive songs to support music education programs for young people — regardless of their socio-economic background. Our corporate partners particularly loved how they could customize this experience by requesting certain genres or songs.
4. Add a quick-and-easy volunteering activity to your holiday event
Many corporate partners host multiple end-of-year holiday events which range from company all-hand meetings and potluck lunches to happy hours and large-scale, in-person holiday parties. Incorporating a quick-and-easy social impact experience into these gatherings is a great way to get colleagues from different teams talking and collaborating together.
Top-rated activities include building winter kits for under-resourced community members, writing holiday greeting cards to seniors, and building holiday “love boxes” for foster families and children.
These easy volunteering activities can infuse social impact into any corporate event or party.
Season of Giving is ripe for social impact experiences
The holiday season is an ideal time to activate your employees around important community missions. From live performances that harness the joy of music to experiences that can engage every employee regardless of work environment, Visit.org has helped hundreds of corporations around the world achieve their end-of-year volunteering goals.
Explore Visit.org’s extensive library of social impact experiences. Schedule a call with a member of our team today.