Workplace Campaign Toolkit
Your Guide for Doing Local Good

Think your co-workers are a super talented bunch just waiting for their moment to shine?

Host a virtual talent show and ask them to record and upload a 2-3 minute video of themselves showcasing their talent (think singing, playing an instrument, doing a magic trick, juggling fruit or body contorting into a pretzel!). Encourage people to vote for their favourite act by donating, where every donation is a vote towards selecting a winner. The act with the highest dollar amount raised wins! To raise even more money, consider asking for a registration fee from all the contestants, or asking executive leadership to sponsor a contestant, and have it count towards their total money raised.

How to do it:

• Pick a start and end date for the contestants to register and submit their talent video
• Assign the duration of the event—an appropriate length of time you know will keep everyone engaged and inspired to support the cause
• Use free, reliable platforms to upload contestant videos such as YouTube, TikTok or Google Drive
• Choose the prize the winner gets, such as being featured in your next all staff/team e-mail, getting an extra vacation day, lunch with an executive, or simply all the bragging rights!
• Encourage contestants to reach out to coworkers, friends and family and ask for support
• Use appropriate ways to communicate updates and activities throughout the event and encourage more votes/donations, e.g. intranet, Facebook for workplace, email

Colleagues are more likely to make a donation when they know that their impact will be doubled by your company or the boss.

To make this possible, seek out a corporate partner or major gift donor who’d be willing to match gifts up to a certain amount. Promote this match in all of your online fundraising channels – website, emails, social media, etc.

You are essentially asking your company or major donor for one large gift, but the impact it will have in increasing the number of individual donations will well exceed the efforts it requires.

Many employers have a corporate matching program and will match their gift to your organization: all you have to do is ask.

Get your colleagues active while raising funds to show your local love by hosting a fitness challenge.

Create a series of short workouts, perhaps partner with a fitness coach and challenge participants to a live-streamed demonstration over a set number of days.

Show your colleagues that they don’t do squat(s) while you raise the barre!

Sometimes a little competition and a great cause is all it takes to talk to the core motivation of people.  Have participants ask family & friends for sponsorship or donations; get creative while you get moving!

As with the virtual run or walk, remember to live-stream an opening and closing ceremony and provide your participants with everything they need to fundraise successfully.

Celebrate without leaving your house with an un-gala.

An un-gala is the exact opposite of a gala. People simply buy tickets to stay home and not go to an event (you’d be surprised how many people actually prefer that).

Organizing an un-gala could not be simpler. Set up registrations and promote your event and that’s pretty much it — how the attendees choose to spend their time on the day of the event is entirely up to them.

Simple ask you colleagues to make a donation and make a night out of it – socially distancing at home.

How to Un-gala

• Support a local restaurant and order takeout
• Wear your PJs – or get dressed up!
• Make a one-time or monthly donation to the United Way at uwgv.ca
• Enjoy the evening safe at home with your family knowing you have shown your local love.

Have fun & share your Un-gala photos on social media and tag United Way so we can share them out, too!

The game is on!

Invite your colleagues & families to join you virtually for one evening. They can play board games at home, on their phones, online games with their friends remotely, or even their favourite video games.

The key with an event like this is to get your registrants excited about participating and encourage them to spread the word to their friends and family.

Invite participants to make donations upon registration, provided ideas of games to play, and shared impact stories to remind them why their participation is vital and greatly appreciated.

Donate your social media account to the United Way

For a day or even just a few hours, post content on UWGV’s behalf; share stories about the community we serve, share examples of the great things your employees are doing to show their local love and why more funds are needed, as well as prompts to donate.

This is a great way to showcase your social corporate responsibility program and elevate your brand while doing good. Your customers and clients may be more than willing to support your support of local love.

One idea is to run an 8 hour takeover where you post stories from 8 of our community funded partners sharing personal stories in a series of Tweets or Facebook, Instagram posts for an hour each to raise awareness & funds.

Looking for more event ideas? CLICK HERE for further inspiration.

Write a Note to an Isolated Senior or Frontline Community Worker

Helping to reduce social isolation for vulnerable seniors or to make someone feel cared for can be done right from your home office or desk. Writing a note is a small gesture that can have a big impact.

There is an increased need for mental health support especially for vulnerable seniors as well as Frontline community workers at many United Way agencies – who also faced unprecedented challenges responding to the skyrocketing needs of the community.

We might not all be expert writers but all of us can write a note from the heart to make someone feel that they are cared for, thought about or appreciated.

To write a note to a senior, and to write a note to a frontline community worker.

More Than Meals Delivery

Groups of volunteers can help seniors that are having difficulty covering all their essential costs and paying for basic healthy food by providing access to high-quality, affordable, nutritional, and culturally appropriate foods.

Volunteers report to a designated location at a specified time, assist with food packing and help to deliver hundreds of meals to vulnerable seniors, in neighbourhoods that need it the most.

Take a Virtual Community Tour

Community Tours are an excellent opportunity to learn firsthand about the people, programs and services that are offered across Greater Victoria. Gain a deeper understanding of the community agencies that UWGV invests in and the critical work that is helping to address issues in our community.

Behind the Door Video

Hear from agency representatives and learn how COVID-19 has impacted them, the people they serve and how UW’s partnership has been part of supporting their work. Behind the Door replaces pre-pandemic agency bus tours and offers a new behind the scene glimpse into our community through video.

DIY (Do-it-yourself) Guides: Volunteer from Home

United Way’s DIY guides is a fun, creative and flexible way for you and a group of your colleagues, family, friends and neighbours to show some local love for community from the comfort of home. The guides provide a list of required supplies, instructions to put the products together and directions how to donate them to a United Way agency in your community. The following activities will help address critical community needs that have grown due to the pandemic. To learn more about any of the activities listed below, click here 

Put together a family meal kit

Everyone deserves a wholesome meal. Caring for our neighbours is key to a strong community. Show someone you care by gifting a meal to a family in need. Create a dinner basket to supply all the ingredients needed to make a home cooked meal.

Make homemade masks for community frontline workers

The need for personal protective equipment for frontline workers and agency clients is critical, especially as agencies begin to transition back to work. You can help supplement agencies’ limited supply by making much-needed homemade masks.

Create COVID-19 Protection Kits 

Hygiene kits are always in high-demand, are one of the biggest needs of our agencies and shelters, and the need has grown during the crisis. You can help to ensure the most vulnerable in our communities are protected and maintain good hygiene with supplies of new hygiene products.  Examples of kits items: toothpaste, tooth brushes, shampoo/conditioner, shave foam, razors, deodorant, menstrual products and more

Kits for Kids

An over represented group living in poverty is children and youth. Evidence shows that there are gaps in cognitive skills and behaviours between low-income children and children who are not low income, even before they begin school. Assembling activity kits for kids can help to keep them engaged, active and learning, from home and throughout the summer. Some kit ideas include early reader books, markers, pencil crayons, early reader activity books, craft kits and more.

Baby Essentials

Baby essentials are one of the biggest needs for mothers and families experiencing poverty. You can help take that stress away for families during this challenging time by putting together a kit to be donated to support women and their children. Kit items might include: diapers, wipes, teething aids, soft books, nursing pads and many items you will find in the family aisle at your local drug store.

Can You Make the Month?  

Raise empathy and awareness about poverty in our local communities through the experience of living on a limited budget by trying MaketheMonth.ca, the first online poverty simulator in Canada.

Do this activity on your own, with your family or colleagues at work and see if you can make the month; follow the activity with a discussion to share learning and thoughts about how living in poverty is a real challenge making the month the is tough.

Impact Calculator

Use our Impact Calculator to see the difference your donation makes in our community. When you show your local love you help ensure we live in a place where everyone has access to housing, a warm meal, a job, an education, and a safety net to call upon in times of need.