If charity begins at home, take a look around your office and see who can use a helping hand. Support your team members by donating sick leave to them if they need to take extended time off for an illness or to care for a loved one. You could also help send a co-worker's child to college or participate in a walk or run in their honor.
Wear Jeans for Education
Support a beloved staff member's dream to send her child to college with a Jeans Day Scholarship Donation fund.
College costs are through the roof so run this campaign for six months to a year and simply ask for weekly donations to help send the co-worker's child to college. Keep your minimum amount fairly low so that everyone at the office can participate, such as $2.00. In exchange for a weekly donation, allow employees to wear jeans on Friday.
Collect the money by Wednesday, close of business and then post a list of employees who donated on Thursday somewhere visible, such as the employee break room.
Create a large barometer that you can hang in the break room and color it in every week so show it rising toward your goal.
A nice touch would be to take the child's photo and ask her to write a short essay about why she wants to go to college and what she plans to do study.
Run or Walk for Your Co-worker
Participate in a charity walk or run to support your co-worker. For example, if one of your co-workers or boss has breast cancer, sign up for Relay for Life.
Encourage other co-workers to participate and create your own office team. For example, if co-worker Mary has breast cancer, your team could purchase T-shirts that say, "I'm running for Mary today."
Another way you can support an office mate is to participate in a local or national race but tell people you are running for a cause that impacts that office mate.
Drum up donations that can be either given directly to that person or donated to the cause or charity of their choice. Ask for a dollar amount to be donated per mile you run or walk and be clear on the total number of miles involved in the race.
Contact a national organization and inquire about race donations. Most charities and nonprofit organizations have programs that will assist you with your fund raising efforts.
Donate Sick Leave
If one of your co-workers or boss should become ill and need to take an extended amount of time away from the office, ask human resources about rallying the team to donate sick leave to their co-worker in need.
Send an e-mail to staff members urging them check their annual leave bank and donate whatever left over sick days they have to their co-worker or boss as they fight an illness, recover from surgery or take care of a loved one.
Once you've gathered the days and weeks from your co-workers, purchase a large card that you can circulate amongst your team members who donated time to sign and wish your co-worker or boss well.
Depending upon the circumstances, arrange for lunch or a private time to meet with the employee, along with a human resource representative, to present him with the card and an official document telling them how much time was donated.
Tags: child college, your co-workers, your team, your team members, break room