How to Increase CSR Employee Engagement & Participation

After all the planning, implementation, and execution of your corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, you find your coworkers are not in a rush to sign up for events. Weeks and months later, the participation rate remains well below what you want.

Why?

Without knowing the specifics of your company and its CSR programs, the lagging participation rate likely stems from multiple factors. But here’s the good news: your company would not be the first to deal with this issue. 

More good news: you can turn things around. Keep reading for Groundswell’s tips on improving CSR employee engagement at your company.

Table of Contents:

• Where & Why CSR Employee Engagement Rates Drop Off
• Common Obstacles That Limit Employee Engagement in CSR
• 4 Strategies for Increasing Engagement in Your CSR Programs
• Make Engaging Employees in CSR Simple with Groundswell

Where & Why CSR Employee Engagement Rates Drop Off

Data on employee participation rates is not as abundant as other CSR metrics, but a 2025 report from CECP (Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose) provides some illuminating information.

In 2024, companies offered gift-matching programs at an impressive rate of 93%. A solid majority of companies also offered volunteering opportunities, including:

• Virtual volunteering (82%)
• Pro bono services (66%)
• Volunteer time off, dollars for doers, and flexible scheduling (each 63%)

Despite the growing number of available programs, many companies find themselves struggling to drum up the engagement rates they need to justify CSR. The participation rates for employee volunteer program engagement and gift-matching programs, for example, were just 25 and 21%, respectively. 

So, where’s the disconnect happening? For most organizations, the issue isn’t a lack of programming: it’s programming that fails to reach or resonate with teams. In other words, if your CSR programs aren’t designed to be accessible, interesting, and scalable, they’re probably not capturing as much employee attention as they could.

Common Obstacles That Limit Employee Engagement in CSR

Unfortunately, you probably don’t have one quick fix in front of you that suddenly activates a large percentage of your coworkers. You’ll probably have to contend with a multitude of small factors and obstacles before seeing the CSR participation rate rise.

Lack of Promotion and Awareness

At the risk of sounding too obvious, it’s worth determining whether employees know about your company’s volunteering and gift-matching programs in the first place. 

If the HR department doesn’t inform new hires about CSR programs during onboarding, it’s missing a crucial opportunity to immerse personnel in your company’s culture and purpose. Even employees who have been working at the company for a long time need periodic reminders about extra programs and benefits.

Deskless Employees and Telecommuting

It would hardly be worth going over the statistics concerning the increase in remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic. Your company is probably accommodating more telecommuters and hybrid workers than ever before.

It’s not feasible to put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to deskless and remote work arrangements, so you’ll need to find ways to keep them engaged in CSR. For starters, a CSR platform with a highly rated mobile app can ensure that every frontline and deskless employee has easy access to all program capabilities, no matter where they are.

Complicated CSR Software

Speaking of purpose-built software, it’s more important than ever to have the right platform supporting CSR engagement. Because of the increasing complexity of today’s corporate social responsibility programs, many companies do not have the internal resources to manually track every CSR data point or dollar moved. 

Software should make your employees’ lives easier, but that’s a surprisingly tall task with most of the legacy CSR software options. Disconnected tools, hefty distribution fees, separate logins, limited client support, and non-intuitive dashboards are common complaints with many of the leading platform providers. And all of those issues are participation killers.

Lack of Flexible Volunteer Options

The fewer choices your employees have, the less likely they are to participate in CSR volunteering. Offering only weekday or in-person volunteering opportunities won’t work with workers whose days are filled with appointments out in the field. If the only volunteer opportunities involve manual labor, then you also run the risk of shutting out a portion of your workforce.

Having a Large Workforce

As the CECP report details, larger companies simply have a more difficult time with CSR employee engagement than smaller ones. Companies with more than 100,000 employees reported a median participation rate of 16 percent. Conversely, businesses with fewer than 10,000 workers had an average rate of 31 percent.

4 Strategies for Increasing Engagement in Your CSR Programs

Before you completely scrap your company’s CSR initiatives, it’s worth trying one or more of the following strategies. Remember that improvement will take time, just as it took time to set up the programs in the first place.

Offering Multiple Volunteer Opportunities

Meeting your employees where they are is priority number one for fine-tuning the participation rate. That means allowing employees to volunteer in ways that fit their schedules and capabilities.

Per the CECP report, employees will engage in volunteering initiatives when companies offer flexible scheduling; its 43-percent participation rate is well above the 25-percent average. Virtual volunteering and pro bono work are also good for increasing CSR employee engagement.

Include Employees in Planning and Execution

Grassroots initiatives almost always beat out top-down programs. Engaging employees early on in the CSR planning process will make them feel included and valued. Letting your natural leaders shine helps ensure that employee enthusiasm is genuine and sustainable.

At the same time, your employees need assurances that they’re supported by the C-suite. No matter how your company is structured, corporate leadership will set the tone for the success of your CSR programs.

Mention CSR Programs More in Emails and Company Communications

Another priority should be boosting awareness of the CSR programs your employer supports. It’s good to send a reminder at the beginning of each year that details the programs and the benefits of engaging in them. Designate a point person at your company to answer coworkers’ questions about the programs. 

Recognize High-Performing Employees

If you need more excuses to mention the CSR programs to your coworkers, why not give shout-outs to the highest performers? 

We know that younger workers crave recognition from higher-ups at much higher rates than their older peers. Combine that with their appetite for meaningful work, and you’ve got a perfect opportunity to cultivate a positive workplace culture that prioritizes CSR programs and difference-makers.

Make Engaging Employees in CSR Simple with Groundswell

In the modern workplace, optimal CSR engagement rates hinge on having the right digital tools. CSR software should be all-in-one, easy to use, and affordable for companies of every size.

Groundswell checks all of those boxes. We exist to support employees who want to make a positive impact in their communities. 

Our software supports:

• Corporate philanthropy
• Gift-matching
• Volunteering
• Corporate grants
• Employee assistance groups (EAGs)
• Donor-advised funds (DAFs)

Groundswell’s platform provides a wealth of data and reporting features so your team can monitor the impacts of CSR programs and make improvements. We do so while reducing the overall administrative burden.

All of that is possible with our purpose-built software, and we’d love to show you how it works. Schedule your personalized demo to learn how to optimize CSR employee engagement.