Agenda
You’ve got it all – inspiring keynotes, curated peer-led sessions, dedicated networking opportunities, the Goodie Awards, and so much more.
The in-person agenda will be updated weekly and is subject to change. Sessions marked with a pink dot are available to online attendees.
Session times are PDT.
Dive right into the good stuff with a workshop! In a single afternoon, you’ll absorb best practices, craft strategies and create action plans you can put to work as soon as you leave the conference. Workshops are available exclusively with the All Access Pass.
Contact us benevitylive@benevity.com to upgrade! Registration to select your workshop will open in mid-April.
Building a Best-in-Class Volunteering Program
Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Focus Area: Employee Engagement
Discover approaches to unleash the power of volunteering for your people and the communities they serve.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Leverage an intuitive framework to build and optimize your volunteering program.
- Create a 12-month plan to activate your people and inspire more volunteering at your company.
- Use Benevity’s off-the-shelf tools and resources to execute your plan effectively.
Takeaways: A workbook with strategies, best practices and plan to build an effective volunteering program.
Taking Your Program Participation to the Next Level
Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Focus Area: Employee Engagement (Spark)
Participation is a key indicator of program success. Inspire more people to take more action to create even more impact for the causes they care about.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Take a holistic view of your program to identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth.
- Leverage the best practices of program participation.
- Get best practices and brainstorm strategies to increase participation across your company.
Takeaways: A workbook with strategies, best practices, and a plan to drive more program participation.
Aligning Your ERG and CSR Programs
Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Focus Area: Employee Engagement
Leverage your greatest resource — your passionate employees — to influence employee engagement and DEI.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Set goals and objectives that align your ERG and CSR programs.
- Identify the best opportunities to collaborate with ERGs
- Build successful ERG partnerships that are mutually beneficial for your people, your communities and your company.
Takeaways: A workbook that helps you align your ERG and CSR programs.
Leveling Up Your Program Communications
Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Focus Area: Employee Engagement
Get the skills to communicate like a pro to drive more awareness of your initiatives, encourage participation and achieve your program goals.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Leverage an intuitive communications framework.
- Build an effective communications plan that drives more program awareness.
- Integrate useful marketing tools, resources, tips and templates in your program.
Takeaways: A workbook with a 12-month communication plan for your own program that focuses on reach and frequency.
Designing and Optimizing Your Granting Program
Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Focus Area: Community Investment
Create an effective granting program that’s inclusive and impactful by using the right strategy, establishing partnerships and showing value.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Develop a grants strategy that’s built on best practices.
- Support internal and external relationships.
- Better align your impact and reporting.
Takeaways: A workbook with strategies and best practices you can apply to your program.
NEW! Spark Program Manager Essentials
Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Focus Area: Spark - Employee Engagement
If you’re just getting started in your role as a Spark program manager or want to go back to the basics, this comprehensive workshop is for you. You’ll get hands-on with Spark, and discover valuable tips and tricks you can use right away.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Be an effective program manager.
- Use the Spark product to perform common tasks in your role.
- Make the most of Benevity’s resources to support you.
Takeaways: A workbook with best practices and recommendations to be effective in your role.
*Laptop Required
Is this your first time at Benevity Live!? Join us for the scoop on how to get the most out of your experience. Then, head over to the opening reception with a few new friends.
Enjoy some drinks and locally inspired food in the warm desert air under the palm trees. You’ll make connections and have the chance to volunteer with Give To Get to support a great local nonprofit.
Awaken your body, focus your mind and start your day with intention. Suitable for all levels, this yoga practice will relieve muscle tension and allow energy to flow through your entire being. Modifications will be provided throughout so you can tailor the practice to your needs.
Benevity’s CEO, Kelly Schmitt kicks off our week of inspiration, connection and insight with a look at the impact created over the past 12 months, how we’re tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges and what’s on the horizon for our collective social impact.
Benevity's Chief Impact Officer and host Sona Khosla will welcome Brian Tippens, SVP and Chief Social Impact Officer from Cisco for a conversation about Cisco's social impact across communities around the world, creating tangible business value, and their goal to power an inclusive future for all.
Join Jodi McDermott, interim Chief Product Officer at Benevity and our product team to learn about the future of Benevity’s corporate impact platform and how we’re making it even easier to do good across our platform — challenges, giving, community investment, affinity groups, reporting, the nonprofit experience and more. Expect to hear about upcoming enhancements, new products and the future of volunteering in this roadmap session.
With a mission to change the world through the power of food, José Andrés has dedicated himself to not just feeding the few at his award-winning restaurants, but to feeding the many as well. Alongside his non-profit organization World Central Kitchen, Andrés works to find smart solutions to hunger and poverty around the world, focusing on health, education, and jobs. Beginning with his experience volunteering in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Andrés realized that food can be used to empower communities and strengthen economies. Andrés will share uplifting and inspirational stories from his travels, including the work he has done in promoting clean cookstove technology, improving kitchens in urban and rural schools, and launching culinary projects to create jobs and increase opportunities for families in Haiti and around the world.
Inspired by the Benevity Community, these Huddles are a chance to connect in smaller groups on topics that matter most to you, like growing a global program, impact reporting, ambassador programs and more! Topics to come, these will be available to in-person attendees.
Community Investment: A look into what's next
Benevity's community investment solutions have supported over 19B in sponsorships, in-kind giving and grants across the globe. Join this session to see how we’ll continue to evolve our platform through next- level reporting, efficiency improvements and more.
*Session available to online audience
Inspired by the Benevity Community, these Huddles are a chance to connect in smaller groups on topics that matter most to you, like growing a global program, impact reporting, ambassador programs and more! Topics to come, these will be available to in-person attendees.
How to supercharge your ERGs with Affinity Groups
ERGs are crucial to an inclusive social impact strategy that engages your employees. But how do you give these groups the tools they need and encourage more participation, all while helping your ERG leaders avoid burnout? In this session, you’ll discover how Benevity clients are using Affinity Groups to power impactful ERG programs , and how our product roadmap will help you reach your ERG and DEI goals more easily and efficiently.
Volunteering is skyrocketing: See what the future holds
There’s no doubt volunteerism is on the rise. Benevity clients alone are seeing volunteer activity increase over 50%, and more than 65% of volunteering hours were logged by first timers. Join this session for a glimpse into how we’re evolving our volunteering platform to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s opportunities — on a global scale.
*Session available to online audience
Inspired by the Benevity Community, these Huddles are a chance to connect in smaller groups on topics that matter most to you, like growing a global program, impact reporting, ambassador programs and more! Topics to come, these will be available to in-person attendees.
Leading with impact — The new standard
“What’s the impact?” Like many of you, we’re constantly asking ourselves this question. The answers have traditionally been inputs (e.g. total donations, number of grants given, etc.) but as Benevity aims to inspire over 100M acts of goodness in the next five years, we’re looking to social impact as our new standard of measure. Join this session to learn about this shift and what to expect as Benevity grounds its platform in corporate social impact.
All-In-One, 101 - Leveraging all of Benevity to drive the most impact
Volunteering, giving, granting, ERGs and more — your social impact strategy involves a lot of (essential!) moving parts. In this session, you’ll learn how Benevity can bring them all together in a single, cohesive experience that’s designed to maximize your impact. See why hundreds of the world’s leading brands are going ‘all in’ on one solution.
*Session available to online audience
Feel like going downtown to Palm Springs or to El Paseo for dinner with your fellow attendees? We’ll have shuttles (and a list of recommended restaurants)!
Start your day off with a meditative sound bath experience under the palm trees. The sound bath is a combination of crystal healing bowls and a gong played to lull your body and mind into a space of relaxation. The vibrations from the bowls and gong help to calm the central nervous system, allowing the body to release stuck energies, resulting in a deeply relaxing experience.
A Goodie-award winning approach to granting
As one of the first companies to fully embrace trust-based granting, American Family Insurance makes unrestricted, multi-year grant commitments that focus on relationship building and joint accountability. Winner of the 2023 “Bestie” Goodie Award, learn how their innovative approach to granting is changing the landscape of philanthropy to create huge community impact.
Noah Salata
Community and Social Impact Advisor
American Family Insurance Dreams Foundation
From local to global: Z Zurich Foundation’s journey to unprecedented growth
Gaining global program success is a mighty challenge. Z Zurich Foundation tackled it by turning a local goodness program into a highly recognized global one in less than three years, reaching record highs in donations and volunteering.
Dirk Gawronska
Digital Transformation Lead
Z Zurich Foundation
We’ll hear from these nonprofits about how they’re navigating the most pressing global challenges to continue to make an impact.
Sandra M. Clark, CEO, StoryCorps
Hervil Cherubin, Senior Country Director, Heifer International
Africa Stewart, President, US Board of Directors, Doctors without Borders
Join Benevity’s Chief Impact Officer, Sona Khosla, for a look at the trends and insights from the 2024 State of Corporate Purpose report.
In a historic first, there are now up to five generations in the workforce. Generational differences in giving and volunteering have added complexity to how we engage our employees, from Boomers to Gen Z. Join Benevity’s Founder and Chief Enthusiast Bryan de Lottinville as he leads panelists in a conversation on how to create a shared experience across generations — one that maximizes impact in our communities.
Panel guests:
Maceo Owens, CEO & Founder, The ERG Movement
Cathy Scott, Vice President, Social Impact & The UPS Foundation at UPS
Hear from courageous brands from a mix of industries and company size on how they’re powering purpose, growing stakeholder engagement and finding new ways to grow their impact.
One client-led breakout available to our online audience.
Infusing trust-based philanthropy into volunteering
Join eBay to explore trust-based practices that empower community partners. You’ll learn how to implement the co-creation mindset into volunteering opportunities that deeply impact employees and their communities. Walk away with a best practices tip sheet for employee giving and volunteering.
Tiana Austel
Sr Manager, Employee Engagement
eBay
Building creative strategic partnerships for impact
Vancouver Airport Authority has become an expert in building strategic partnerships. Learn from their 2023 Goodie Award winning strategy in this session that will outline how they developed their most strategic partnerships with purpose, tangible examples of the initiatives they undertook and the outcomes and impact they had.
Jody Armstrong
Senior Social Impact Strategist
Vancouver Airport Authority
Driving employee engagement through virtual volunteering
Join Discover in this session on virtual volunteering for strategies to keep remote and on-site employees engaged and excited about virtual volunteering. You’ll learn how to align virtual volunteering programs with key business objectives, and how to expand the definition of virtual volunteering from “only online” to meaningful actions.
Alyse Perkowitz
Senior Manager of Community Affairs
Discover
*Session available to online audience
Driscoll’s approach to growing its impact by empowering local teams
Learn how Driscoll’s combined its corporate giving and grantmaking with its employee giving program to maximize the company’s positive impact in its berry-growing communities on four continents. You’ll leave with a better understanding of how flexibility and decentralized decision-making can enhance community relations and drive employee engagement.
Matthew Quinlan
Director of Community and Social Impact
Driscoll's
Rosaura Berrelleza
Employee Giving Manager
Driscoll's
How to supercharge your ERGs with Affinity Groups
ERGs are crucial to an inclusive social impact strategy that engages your employees. But how do you give these groups the tools they need and encourage more participation, all while helping your ERG leaders avoid burnout? In this session, you’ll discover how Benevity clients are using Affinity Groups to power impactful ERG programs , and how our product roadmap will help you reach your ERG and DEI goals more easily and efficiently.
Hear from courageous brands from a mix of industries and company size on how they're powering purpose, growing stakeholder engagement and finding new ways to grow their impact.
One client-led breakout available to our online audience.
Embracing Affinity Groups for impactful change
Through Benevity reporting and dashboards, DPR Construction has been able to tell its formation story for employee resource groups (ERGs) and showcase the growth they’ve experienced month-to-month. Join this session to learn more about how DPR celebrates its ERG members and makes the case for Affinity Groups.
Victor Villegas
Regional DEI Manager
DPR Construction
*Session available to online audience
Attracting top talent and boosting your brand with purpose
Learn how RBC pivoted their HR employer brand and employee community engagement strategy to focus on “Purpose, Impact, and Belonging” through a multi-channel marketing campaign to engage existing employees and prospective talent and boost the RBC employer brand. Join in to get the specifics on how they pivoted their strategy, view the content created for internal and external audiences and discover the impact on RBC’s brand as a top employer.
Nicole Garrison,
Senior Director of Global Employer Brand & Workplace Marketing, RBC
Tanya Bell
Director Citizenship Engagement, RBC
Challenges and learnings on cross-border giving
World Bank will share their approach for sustainably scaling up their program to include campaigns supporting local NGOs in 60+ countries. Learn more about the decentralized structure they created to maximize their reach, communication and data best practices, and lessons learned about the challenges in collecting and disbursing donations across borders in the constantly changing landscape of international giving.
Lindsey Buss
Senior External Affairs Officer,
World Bank Group
Kelly Sullivan
External Affairs Officer, Community Outreach,
World Bank Group
Unlocking global impact through data and inspired service
Discover how The UPS Foundation is making data-driven decisions by leveraging Benevity reporting to inform volunteering, giving, and grantmaking strategies! They’ll share their Measurement, Evaluation, & Learning (MEL) framework alongside the powerful tactics they’re implementing to foster global engagement across 65 countries.
Lacey Lanker
Operations Manager
The UPS Foundation
Community Investment: A look into what's next
Benevity's community investment solutions have supported over 19B in sponsorships, in-kind giving and grants across the globe. Join this session to see how we’ll continue to evolve our platform through next- level reporting, efficiency improvements and more.
Volunteering is skyrocketing: See what the future holds
There’s no doubt volunteerism is on the rise. Benevity clients alone are seeing volunteer activity increase over 50%, and more than 65% of volunteering hours were logged by first timers. Join this session for a glimpse into how we’re evolving our volunteering platform to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s opportunities — on a global scale.
Hear from courageous brands from a mix of industries and company size on how they're powering purpose, growing stakeholder engagement and finding new ways to grow their impact.
One client-led breakout available to our online audience.
Volunteerism refreshed: How to amp up your volunteer program
Join iconic beverage brand, Coca-Cola, as they share how their ‘Kindness is Refreshing’ campaign inspired employees across North America to bring kindness to their communities. During this session,you’ll discover how they revitalized a stagnant program on a nimble budget and built a strategy that captured leadership support and reached 101% growth in tracked hours.
Stephanie Riordan
Director of Community Impact
The Coca-Cola Company
Building a strategic disaster response strategy
Walk through TC Energy's journey to create a measured disaster assessment matrix that enables timely and strategic response within their communities. Participants will leave with an understanding of where to start building their disaster response strategy, major considerations and key internal partners they can consult.
Trevence Mitchell
Manager, Social Impact
TC Energy
The Deal Team model: Engaging employees to lead grant partnerships
The Apollo Opportunity Foundation currently partners with 22 nonprofit organizations across the globe providing yearly grants and assigning each an employee-led Deal Team. Deal Teams are curated groups of 5-10 Apollo employees who volunteer as relationship managers, engagement leaders and thought partners. Learn about the Deal Team model and how the Apollo Opportunity Foundation has inspired over 100 colleagues to show up for this work, outside of their primary roles at the firm.
Marshall Moore
Associate Director
Apollo Opportunity Foundation
*Session available to online audience
Prioritizing employee choice alongside your signature cause
As AIMCo’s company expanded globally, so did their employees’ desire for locally relevant giving opportunities. Join this session to learn how to find strategic alignment and integrate an open program with a corporate foundation. AIMCo will share how internal communication, continual engagement and intentional campaign planning led to a seamless balance between the recently launched grassroots AIMCo Invested social impact program and the narrow Alberta-based mandate of the AIMCo Foundation for Financial Education.
Shayenne Selleck
Manager, Employee Giving & Executive Director, AIMCo Foundation
Alberta Investment Management Corporation
Leading with impact — The new standard
“What’s the impact?” Like many of you, we’re constantly asking ourselves this question. The answers have traditionally been inputs (e.g. total donations, number of grants given, etc.) but as Benevity aims to inspire over 100M acts of goodness in the next five years, we’re looking to social impact as our new standard of measure. Join this session to learn about this shift and what to expect as Benevity grounds its platform in corporate social impact.
All-In-One, 101 - Leveraging all of Benevity to drive the most impact
Volunteering, giving, granting, ERGs and more — your social impact strategy involves a lot of (essential!) moving parts. In this session, you’ll learn how Benevity can bring them all together in a single, cohesive experience that’s designed to maximize your impact. See why hundreds of the world’s leading brands are going ‘all in’ on one solution.
A Benevity client once called the Goodies “The Academy Awards of Goodness” and we couldn’t agree more! Let’s celebrate the outstanding companies and people who are changing the way we do good in the world and driving awe-inspiring impact.
Join Benevity’s Chief Data Officer Jane Moran and two-time Academy Award winner and author Geena Davis over brunch for a conversation about data-driven advocacy. When Geena became a mother, she found the lack of female representation in media for children impossible to ignore, and so the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media was founded. With a mission to increase representation of marginalized groups, the Institute's data-led research drives their advocacy and empowers content creators to systemically reimagine and measure their content in order to create inclusive representation for our diverse society.
This is the full, in-person agenda. Sessions marked with a pink dot are also available to online attendees. All session times are PDT.
- Wednesday, June 1
- Thursday, June 2
- Friday, June 3
Program Maturity
Content Focus
Join us for a half day of hands-on workshops to start the conference off right! Choose one workshop, and in a single afternoon, you’ll glean valuable best practices, build tangible strategies and create action plans you can put to work when you’re back at your desk. (These are available exclusively with the All Access Pass. If you’re interested in upgrading your pass to attend one of these workshops, contact goodnessmatters@benevity.com.)
Registration to select your workshop will begin in May.
Pitch 101: Accelerate Your Idea Into Action!
Even the most mature programs have opportunities for change. Whether you’re new to the industry or a seasoned pro, this workshop covers it all! Together we’ll look at proven ways to create a successful business case, pitch your program and manage all the change that comes with launching a new idea. By the end of our time together, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to create program goals that align with company goals and how to align your stakeholders so you can get to the good part — putting your plan into action!
Bonus: You’ll walk away with resources and confidence to help accelerate your goals.
Takeaways: You’ll understand how to get stakeholders aligned with your impact initiatives and why it needs to be a priority for your company.
Creating a purpose-driven culture is a journey that takes thoughtfulness, creativity and cross-company collaboration. In this workshop, you’ll work with other leaders in the Benevity client community to brainstorm ideas for making meaningful connections with your people along their employee journey — from recruitment all the way to retirement. You’ll leave this hands-on workshop with a solid action plan and a deep understanding of the existing Goodness levers you have at your fingertips, going beyond the usual approaches to giving, volunteering, matching, incentives, Missions and grants.
Takeaways: You’ll walk away with a plan to engage employees across your company in every stage of their career.
Want the blueprint to creating a comprehensive internal community strategy that supports broader business goals, while bolstering your employee engagement, ESG and DEI efforts? In this hands-on workshop, Benevity’s community and ERG experts will share their insights and lead you through goal setting, stakeholder identification, measurement planning, communications tactics and more. You’ll walk out of the workshop with the framework and building blocks necessary to launch an amazing internal community. You’ll also be some of the first to see Benevity’s new ERG product and how it integrates with Spark!
Takeaways: You’ll receive hand-outs to help you shape your ERG program.
Forget analyzing data and sifting through piles of spreadsheets on your own — we’ll take you through Benevity’s data analytics and reporting software to help you transform complex data into trends and insights that deliver impact to your program and your company. We’ll also explore opportunities for improvements across a variety of data points, so you can optimize your program even further and tell a compelling story!
Takeaways: A workbook and set of techniques to get insights from Spark data using Benevity Reporting.
Be sure to bring: A laptop to follow along using your own environment in Benevity Reporting.
You’ve worked hard to set up a best-in-class employee engagement program to engage your people throughout the year. Don’t let a lack of program and campaign awareness hold you back from achieving your program’s true participation potential! This hands-on workshop will guide you through the basics of how to build an effective communications plan using an intuitive communications framework designed to drive awareness and participation success for your program. Learn the components of what makes up a great communications plan and why taking a 12-month calendar approach that focuses on communication reach and frequency can help you deliver better awareness outcomes for your program.
Takeaways: You'll walk away with useful marketing tools, resources, tips, and templates you can use for your own program and have the opportunity to connect with your peers to share ideas.
If your goal is to build a best-in-class volunteering program, this hands-on workshop is for you. We’ll guide you through the tactics of producing impactful campaigns at the global level. And, through action-oriented exercises, you’ll learn practical approaches to sourcing relevant opportunities within local communities of dispersed teams. You’ll leave the session with insights from leading companies on how you can build a network of ambassadors who can champion your program in their respective locations. You’ll also get an opportunity to learn from CSR pros who have implemented global programs, and get creative ideas to increase engagement.
Takeaways: You’ll receive tips on adapting your program to a diverse, global audience.
Is this your first time at Goodness Matters? Join us for this session to get the inside scoop on how to get the most out of your GM experience, and meet your Goodness buddy, who’ll show you the ropes!
Let’s come together under the palm trees to enjoy some cocktails and locally inspired food, make connections and support a local nonprofit.
Welcome to Goodness Matters 2022! Join Benevity's CEO Kelly Schmitt for an update on our community's incredible impact, and be some of the first to take a look at our vision for what's next in corporate purpose. Our Chief Impact Officer Sona Khosla will take you through the highlights from our State of Corporate Purpose Report, hot off the press for Goodness Matters!
Have you ever experienced a moment that ended up shaping the course of your life or career? For Maya Chorengel, co-managing partner of TPG’s The Rise Fund and Benevity board member, it was trips to the Philippines to visit family that led her on the path to becoming an impact investing powerhouse. Seeing inequity firsthand stirred a passion, but how exactly did that fashion a career as a pioneer and leader in impact investing? Join Maya to hear her story, followed by a fireside chat about how “impact” is measured, and how we can truly deliver on the S in ESG.
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
We’re kicking off Goodness Matters 2022 with curiosity, self-love and a healthy dose of optimism with Jonathan Van Ness – activist, co-star of Queer Eye, NYT best-selling author, and host of the Getting Curious podcast and Netflix series.
Who better to share what true belonging feels like, living your truth and finding inspiration to make the world a better, more equitable place?
We’ll chat about all of that, plus some gems of wisdom from their new book, Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life. And hopefully we’ll all learn a little about how to practice self-care so we have more to give – both in life and throughout our corporate purpose journeys.
Advancing Equity in Corporate Societal Engagement
CSR professionals are at the center of corporate responses to the growing community needs and calls for racial justice that have arisen over the past two years. As social impact leaders, their expertise and innovation has been critical in driving impact both within and outside their organizations during these extraordinary times. This session will draw from lessons learned through CECP's daily interactions with its 220+ companies and data from CECP's Giving in Numbers report to illuminate how commitments made in 2020 translated to action in 2021. We’ll revisit the compelling peer learnings from a partner-led Racial Equity Summit in 2020 that informed 10 concrete actions for companies to move promise to action and highlight examples of companies that have enacted high impact programs and initiatives. The session will close with insights on where corporations can continue to focus resources and intention to further advance this timely and important work.
Want to learn how to use Spark to streamline your program management and onboard new employees faster? In this session, you’ll get proven strategies to help you bring more scale, automation and efficiency to your day-to-day program management. We’ll delve into the world of Spark and showcase all its innovative features available at your fingertips. Plus, we’ll walk through specific recommendations for streamlining and automating your existing CSR program so you get the most out of the platform.
Whether you’re granting locally, nationally or all over the world one challenge persists: managing your granting lifecycle! We’ll show you how the right tools and processes can boost your efficiency, so you can achieve all your goals and have peace of mind understanding the magic behind the scenes of automation. Together, we’ll determine if automation is right for your program, how to create an automation and how to leverage automation based on your existing application forms.
Despite a global pandemic, organization-wide transformation and a shift in the way we all show up at work, UPS’s BRG program has continued to thrive and provide a space for global inclusion and engagement. In this session, you’ll learn how the UPS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team helps BRGs drive growth, innovation and community impact.
Build a Culture of Goodness through your CSR Program
New to CSR or looking to deepen your understanding of how to run an industry-leading program? In this session, you’ll learn how to use your purpose program as a key business differentiator to attract, retain, and develop top talent. Join Benevity’s Aneil Rajaram and Isha Varma as they walk through the key principles of program design and ideas on how to infuse Goodness into each step of the employee journey, from onboarding new hires to creating regular engagement. Along the way, they'll share inspiring examples and tips from Benevity clients.
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
Open Space, Peer-led Sessions
Open Space is your opportunity to make meaningful connections with kindred spirits who share your goals or challenges. Jump into a conversation about a topic that resonates most with you — and then move on to the next topic whenever you’re ready.
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
Open Space, Peer-led Sessions
Open Space is your opportunity to make meaningful connections with kindred spirits who share your goals or challenges. Jump into a conversation about a topic that resonates most with you — and then move on to the next topic whenever you’re ready.
Show Me The Money – Growing Your CSR Budget
The pandemic accelerated business trends in tech, work, entertainment, health, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Social pressures pushed companies to figure out how to respond to a new landscape in ways that empathized, propelled the brand forward, and had real impact. Everyone knows they must take their brands in a purposeful direction, but not that many know the pitfalls or dynamics of such a thing in their own companies.
During this session, you will:
- Learn how to work with colleagues from marketing, human resources, and operational departments to grow your social impact budget
- Understand the needs of colleagues in these roles to set — and reach — everyone’s goals
- See case studies of these topics in action
Did one (or all!) of your conversations during Open Space reframe the way you’ll approach one of your challenges? Do you want to hear great learnings from the other conversations you weren’t able to attend? Let’s get together and share our “aha” moments and insights.
The Corporate Goodness Awards (aka the Goodies) Gala
Get ready for one big night of inspiration and celebration as we recognize gamechangers in the Benevity client community who are boldly leading a new era of purpose.
Goodies Celebration Dinner and After Party
If there’s one big headline we can all agree upon from the last couple of years, it’s the indisputable rise of the stakeholder. Businesses are shifting from focusing on shareholders to a much broader set of stakeholders, including employees and customers. Hearing from all stakeholders has many benefits, including culture co-creation, and inclusive organizational strategy and employee programs. This discussion will tackle the what and how of making the shift, bringing in the voice of employees and customers, and community boards or beneficiaries for grants. Panelists:
Patrice Thramer, Nike
Shannon Sinunu, Apple
Aisha Thomas-Petit, AMC Networks
Get a firsthand look at the specific (and unexpected!) things companies are doing to create more impact and bring their purpose to life. Hear from changemakers who have worked through executive alignment, helped their people find a sense of personal purpose and even engaged their consumers in creating more social impact. Sharing their story:
- Atlassian
- Pfizer
- CSAA
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
We’ll hear from nonprofits about how they are navigating the most pressing global challenges to continue to make an impact. Sharing their story:
- The Trevor Project
- Count Us In
With rising interest in ESG, more leaders are bringing enhanced focus, alignment and action to business aspects that used to be considered the realm of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or sustainability — but are now core to every company’s strategy. In this session, Jason will share with us the opportunity and importance of raising the bar on social impact measurement, creating better S data and addressing market demand. He’ll be joined by Jane Moran, Benevity’s Chief Technology Officer, for a discussion on data, analytics and measuring your impact.
When the pandemic launched us into a virtual world, LinkedIn’s Social Impact team found themselves struggling to engage new employees in their signature volunteer mentorship program: LinkedIn Coaches. Learn how they ignited internal community (and a sense of camaraderie!) while providing employee volunteers with the training needed to become valuable mentors to professionals facing barriers. Like a book club for creating impact, the refreshed community (called Coaches Crews) groups 5 to 10 employees under a Crew Leader to prepare for and take part in impactful volunteer events with colleagues from across the company.
If you have a newly hybrid workforce, Discover has all the tips and ideas to help you revamp your volunteering program and engage everyone. They were quick to redefine volunteerism at the start of the pandemic, expanding their program to reward small Acts of Goodness and offering virtual, drive-through and socially distanced events. They also used Missions to promote social causes and matched participation points with volunteer rewards. The results? Overall participation grew 12% year over year, with 86% more people participating and 115% more volunteer hours tracked.
The Power of Letting Your Employees Lead
How does one small shift in mindset lead to a 550% increase in employee donations? Just ask Twitter! For its first two years, the company’s employee giving program was seen as an extension of their corporate giving program —a way for employees to support causes that mattered to Twitter. In 2020, they flipped that approach, so what mattered to Twitter’s people was what mattered to Twitter. Employees could now donate to causes they personally cared about and, as you can see, the results were pretty incredible.
Activate Your Employees to Scale Your Impact
PagerDuty wasted no time launching a 100% virtual volunteer program in May 2020, kicking off with a full week of 20 activities over five days and engaging 17 partners focused on advancing equity in our communities — all via Zoom. And it’s still going strong. They wrapped 2021 with 87% volunteer engagement, 5,200+ volunteer hours (nearly double from 2020) and partner-centric programs that leverage technical pro bono and skills-based volunteering. Learn how they did it through a combination of engaging ERGs and social impact champions, doubling down on reporting and reducing program friction.
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
The John Deere Foundation launched its Bold Commitments in March 2021, with plans to invest $200 million over the next 10 years to ensure all their stakeholders prosper. The funds will support their home communities, farmers and their greatest asset — their employees — through equitable access to resources and education, improved sustainability and employee volunteerism. Their vision for these integrated programs is to unlock economic, social and environmental value for everyone John Deere serves.
Prior to 2021, only U.S. employees had access to the Intel Foundation donation matching program, creating a sense of inequity among employees. Using inclusion as their North Star, Intel’s small team embarked on a journey to model a global program that delivered maximum impact with minimal administrative burden — and they did it! Within a year, they launched donation matching in every country where they have employees. Hear all about their wins, challenges and lessons learned along the road to success.
With service as a core value, AAA was proud to have benchmark-surpassing volunteer rates, but even they weren’t spared by the pandemic-induced engagement drop. Like all of us, they had to rethink everything. Enter ERGs + Missions. AAA leveraged ERG communities to share their passions with their coworkers and get them involved in easy, integrated ways — from Missions challenges to virtual volunteering events to customized giving opportunities. Learn how it led to increased participation across the board, with Missions participation up 116% and volunteering up 42% year over year.
Within four months of launching their program in September 2021, Hootsuite was blowing Benevity benchmarks out of the water! Learn the tactics they used to accelerate their success — including increasing their matching limit by 10x during their first-ever HootMatch event. Plus, they’ll share tips on how they launched the program to their people in a way that got them excited and ready to participate.
While advancing opportunity and building thriving communities are values that drive many CSR programs, corporate philanthropy can sometimes work counter to these values by imposing restrictive, compliance-oriented practices on nonprofits. Trust-based philanthropy flips the script so that nonprofits have the agency and support they need to innovate, grow, and achieve impact. In this session we’ll explore what it looks like to embody trust-based philanthropy, and the benefits when grantmaking practitioners invest the time and energy to fully embrace this approach.
The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization
How do you feel about those who vote differently than you do? Surveys show that Americans have become more fearful and hateful of supporters of the opposing political party, and imagine that they hold much more extreme views than they actually do. In this session, Dr. Coleman explores the partisan divide in the U.S. and how conflict resolution and complexity science can provide guidance for dealing with seemingly intractable political differences.
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
Employee resource groups (ERGs) are employee-led groups driving positive action and some of the world’s most successful companies rely on them to create a community of culture and belonging. Vital to DEI initiatives, ERGs often work hand in hand with CSR teams. In this session, we will introduce Benevity’s new ERG product and explain how it will empower your teams to come together in support of the issues that matter most to them. You’ll leave the session understanding the power of ERGs and how expanding your ERG program can boost your overall impact.
In 2021, Excellus launched their Health Equity Awards to use their privilege and resources to create change. More than 150 nonprofits applied through Benevity for awards up to $30,000 each. And, since inclusivity was the goal, they shifted their application review to bring in their ERGs and clinical team. They gathered more inclusive feedback and selected 18 recipients, investing more than $388,000 in total. Excellus is now partnering with award recipients to engage employees in aligned volunteer opportunities and using PR to educate their communities on health disparities, the investment and its impact so far.
With two years of crises still negatively affecting nonprofits globally, RBC stepped up their skills-based volunteering program to help employees and communities work together to find actionable solutions for long-term change. Partnering with their Leadership Development team and Taproot Foundation, they created a 12-week virtual program and four-day hackathon focused on BIPOC communities leveraging Benevity as their home base. The initiative brought together 275 global employee volunteers to provide $3.9 million in services to their charitable partners. Learn why and how they’re now exploring expanding the program even more.
How did Jacobs go from sporadic pockets of employee giving to major global activism? By upping their global game in a big way, expanding their program to include 55,000 employees in 39 countries and coming out of the gates with special matching, payroll giving, Missions, user-created content, exec support and the secret sauce — their worldwide Ambassador Network. Now, 18 months in, they have three grants workstreams, paid time off to volunteer, open matching and volunteer rewards, too. And it’s paying off. Learn how all of this led to three periods of participation growth and a best-in-class ambassador program.
Liberty Torchbearers: Moving from Programs to a Culture
Five years ago, Liberty Mutual Insurance ran two highly successful episodic employee engagement programs— Give with Liberty, an employee giving match program— and Serve with Liberty, corporate service days with curated projects around the globe. These programs were executed as separate efforts on two different platforms. However, they did not reflect the broader cultural statement that Liberty was looking to make about its support of employees giving back to the communities they called home. With a commitment to building a best-in-class employee volunteering and giving program, Liberty Torchbearers was launched adding another program Volunteer with Liberty and three years ago moved the programs to a single platform. The Torchbearers’ identity offered a broader meaning linking the company’s values with a synergistic integrated employee engagement program that embodies Liberty Mutual values. Sylvia Stevens-Edouard will share this story and how Liberty Mutual continues to drive connection and inclusion as integral to culture and brand.
Web3 101 and the Future of Good: The Blockchain’s Effect on Social Impact
Wondering what is web3? What’s the deal with NFTs? What do tokens and blockchain actually do? This session provides an overview of web3's various elements including tokens, NFTs, decentralized finance, DAOs, blockchain and more. Then we dig into how these new technologies and digital assets can influence social impact now and into the future. Whether you already have a wallet with crypto, or you’re new to the space and ready to learn, you’ll walk away with some new nuggets of information!
Take a break and connect (or reconnect!) with your fellow attendees, visit the Speakers’ Corner or check out one of our demo stations to explore Benevity’s solutions.
If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . .
If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . .
If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . .
Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind.
It’s a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death — bitter and sweet — are forever paired.
Joining us online, New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Cain will share how she employs a mix of research, storytelling and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, connection and transcendence.