Get employees involved
Safelite’s record of charitable giving dates back to when its headquarters moved to Columbus 18 years ago and has come in a wide
variety of formats.
The $760 million company has pledged corporate funds to the
American Red Cross following natural disasters. It has sponsored
numerous charity golf tournaments. It has entered employees in
various walks, runs and even a London triathlon to raise money for
charity. Its own charitable arm gave more than $230,000 in grants
to Central Ohio organizations in the past year. And, Wilson says, hundreds of its employees volunteer their time on charitable
boards and committees.
“We’ve encouraged our associates to participate and contribute
their time,” Wilson says.
“We give them time off to do it without deduction from their
compensation.”
In addition, if an employee wants to support a cause and there’s
an event associated with that cause, Safelite will post bulletins
throughout the company inviting other employees to participate,
as well.
“We don’t attempt to put those kind of things down,” Wilson says.
“We attempt to promote them.”
Safelite also supports employees’ philanthropic efforts through
grants from the Safelite Charitable Foundation for the causes supported by employees.
“That’s a key driver for us,” Wilson says. “If you’re involved and
you’re committing your time and it makes sense, we’re going to
bend over backward to support you as one of our associates.”
Employees have responded in kind. This past year, for example,
the push for fostering a philanthropic culture at Safelite netted a
staggering increase in giving to the United Way campaign at this
7,000-employee corporation. A full 71 percent of Safelite’s 1,523
Columbus-based employees enrolled in the campaign for 2008.
That’s up from a 15 percent participation rate during 2007.
“This was one of our very best years in terms of both participation and dollar contribution for United Way,” Wilson says. “A lot of
our people are front-line people, call center people. They may not
be able to afford very much, but it wasn’t how much they gave. It
was that they did give. That’s what we were after.”
Wilson credits the huge jump in participation to a number of
incentives that helped make giving more fun. For example, there
was a cornhole tournament, a putt-putt golf tournament, a White
Castle-hamburger-eating contest and a silent auction with items
donated by Safelite executives. The company also made use of
friendly competition to motivate giving, pitting employees on different floors of the company’s three largest Columbus facilities
against each other to raise participation rates. The winning floor
— which recorded an 82 percent participation rate among its 500
employees — won the right to wear jeans once a week for two
months.
“It’s amazing to see how our associates respond to a challenge,”
Wilson says. “We try to set the vision and provide the right setting,
and they’ll climb to the top of the mountain and go well beyond
anyone’s expectations to contribute.”