We’re excited to roll out Everyday Actions—a feature that turns daily activities into real impact. Everyday Actions works by providing administrators with a simple tool to create accessible, relevant activities that align with employees’ daily lives and interests, that translate into real impact. Employees can engage in Everyday Actions challenges by taking part in activities that resonate with them, fostering a more personalized connection to company programs.
Organizing events that align with diverse schedules, interests, and locations can be overwhelming, especially for small CSR teams within large organizations. Everyday Actions tackles this by allowing companies to set up customizable actions that align with company goals, empowering employees to make a difference and earn rewards through the activities they’re already doing.
How does the Everyday Actions tool work?
Everyday Actions boosts employee participation by turning everyday tasks, like walking to work or composting leftovers, into impactful contributions. Employees can track all kinds of activities and watch as all their small actions turn collectively into something bigger. Whether they are working towards an award or encouraging their fellow employees to participate, each action contributes to the larger community impact. Employees can track their own points and each other’s through a leaderboard and build connection through shared experiences and collective action
With Everyday Actions, employees are given multiple ways to make a difference, which don’t require additional time or money. For those who haven’t connected with typical volunteer events, Everyday Actions offers a fresh approach that meets employees where they are, making it easy and flexible for everyone to get involved.
How Bright Funds customers are using Everyday Actions today
Everyday Actions is super simple to set up and use, helping you make an impact right away, and Bright Funds customers are already loving it. Fetch, a technology company, uses Everyday Actions right now. Jenny Rodgers, the senior manager for talent at Fetch, describes the experience as “seamless.” Let’s dive into why it’s working so well for her and her coworkers.
Integrate Everyday Actions into existing programs
Rodgers shares, “[Everyday Actions] has worked to our advantage [because] we already have our employees in Bright Funds. They [are] used to going in there to make their donations or to sign up for their different volunteer events. People know where to go to log into Bright Funds. So that part has been pretty seamless.”
Everyday Actions complements existing giving and volunteering programs within Bright Funds because Everyday Actions is built right into the platform. Employees are already familiar with using Bright Funds to donate or volunteer, and now they can seamlessly integrate Everyday Actions into their giving-back activities. As employees log in to donate and record their volunteer time, they can now track their actions that ladder up to larger company initiatives.
Easy setup
Setting up Everyday Actions is quick and straightforward. As Rodgers describes it: “The setting up process is pretty intuitive. It’s been pretty easy on my end.”
With the Everyday Actions tool, you can set “Action Categories” that align with your company’s core pillars or cause themes. For example, if your organization emphasizes health, you could create categories like mental health, physical health, and emotional health. Each everyday action you define will then link back to one of these overarching categories, ensuring it reflects and supports your larger goals.
Rodgers highlights the ease of aligning programs with company cause areas, saying,
“I recently started utilizing the different categories as well, which has been helpful. We focus on a model of holistic well-being or the eight dimensions of wellness. So now I’m able to directly make the tie of this activity supports intellectual wellness. This activity supports emotional wellness. And I use those categories in that way when I’m going in and setting up the challenges.”
When creating challenges, curated templates are available to simplify the process. Whether starting from a template or building from scratch, the tool is fully customizable to meet your specific needs and CSR strategy. Rodgers shares “[Everyday Actions has] cut down definitely some admin time for us, and we’ve also gotten some feedback from some of our employees that it’s so much easier to use. They’re not having to keep track of the different spreadsheets. So it’s been overall pretty positive for us”
You can set up a new program in just a few simple steps. Create as many Everyday Action challenges as you want, offering choice all year long.
Continuous engagement
Everyday Actions boosts continuous engagement by providing employees with fresh, flexible ways to give back. Beyond traditional options like donating or volunteering, employees can join wellness or sustainability challenges that fit their interests, earning points as they go.
This ability to participate in ways outside of donating time or money opens the door for team members who may not have participated before, giving them new paths to engage and contribute meaningfully. Rodgers shares, “I have seen a slight increase in the number of people that are going in and participating and then also a different group of people that weren’t participating before.”
Employees can log their activities, earn points, and see the impact of their contributions. They can browse actions that align with their interests, join activities, and track their progress. As employees engage in these new opportunities, they can earn donation credit, which they can donate back into the system upon completing their actions, leading to a bigger impact in their communities.
Donation credits are an optional outcome set by administrators but can be a great way to engage employees who may not have had the funds to donate regularly because they can now make an impact by using company-provided credits.
Lastly, as employees participate in Everyday Actions challenges, they can comment on and react to their colleagues’ activities. More than 35% of employees volunteer because of the social connection they feel while participating. This desire for connection shows up across all types of engagement opportunities. Everyday Actions provides employees with ways to not only engage themselves but also support each other, which fosters motivation and friendly competition.
How will Everyday Actions help my team?
Asking employees to donate their time or money over and over again can be hard, especially with limited time and financial constraints. Everyday Actions allows employees to turn things they already do every day into meaningful contributions.
Build community
Everyday Action challenges create real connections by uniting employees around common causes. These challenges make giving back accessible and help leaders cultivate an inclusive, purpose-driven culture.
By creating and promoting group challenges with easy-to-complete action items, employees can connect through shared experiences and collective action. A leaderboard is built right into the platform, allowing employees to view their colleagues’ participation. This makes it easy to motivate each other with comments on their challenge progress, fostering a supportive community as well as friendly competition.
Simplify reporting
According to the 5th Annual CSR Insights Report from ACCP, “Expectations for measuring the impact of corporate social initiatives have surged.” Within the Everyday Actions tool, administrators have access to a dashboard to track employee participation and activity performance. Additionally, integrated reporting allows you to see how Everyday Actions relate to all giving and volunteer programs, providing a comprehensive view of all employee engagement activities, which helps make it easy to get continued executive buy-in.
Prior to using Everyday Actions, Rodgers says, “[the system I built to track participation and report on engagement] was a very manual process with, of course, some human error at the end of the day. Different activities had different point values associated with them. It was kind of either on me or on the spreadsheet that I created to make sure that was all being tracked accurately.” But after she started using Everyday Actions, she shared,
“Everyday Actions kind of takes care of that for me. And I just get that report at the end of the month, which has been really cool.”
Bright Funds’ reporting makes it easy to access the necessary data, eliminating the need for multiple reports and extensive data synthesis. This allows you to quickly prove ROI to your team and leadership.
How can I add Everyday Actions to my account?
Everyday Actions is now available for Bright Funds customers. Reach out to your Relationship Manager to learn more about adding it to your account.
Madi is a product marketer at Submittable focused on CSR and helping companies align their goals with their employees and their communities. When not working, Madi is exploring the PNW or hanging with her dog and two cats!