Giving at Work: Exploring Connections Between Workplace Giving Campaigns and Patterns of Household Charitable Giving in the USA

This research addresses an area of philanthropic study that is becoming an increasingly important revenue source for the nonprofit sector: workplace giving campaigns. We used Independent Sector’s Giving and Volunteering (Giving and volunteering [United States] [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.3886/icpsr35584.v1, 2001) data to explore patterns of household philanthropy. We found that exposure to a workplace giving option increases the odds that a household will participate in formal philanthropic giving. Additionally, we found that household demographic characteristics correlate with whether a household participates in workplace giving; specifically, we found that some minority groups have higher odds of giving through the workplace mechanism. Further, there were differences in overall patterns of giving, both in gift recipients and in concentration of gifts, between those households that utilize workplace giving as one of their charitable giving outlets and those who give formally by other means. Our findings suggest that workplace giving campaigns may be a particularly powerful mechanism for encouraging household donative behavior.