Logo & Brand Identity Guidelines

GIVES BACK

What’s inside3579

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ConceptTeam

ProgramGoals

Research and RationalePartnershipsRenewership

IncentivesProcedures

CommunicationEvaluation

Budget Appendices

1 Concept

Giving back to move forward. Renewergy Gives Back is Renewergy’s philanthropy initiative that will be implemented over the course of the 2017 fiscal year. This initiative grants employees the opportunity to actively live out Renewergy’s eco-friendly mission via volunteering in the community, with the collateral effect of establishing a more vibrant presence in the greater Ithaca area. Additionally, we assert that Renewergy Gives Back will create stronger bonds among employees and, in turn, a more enriching company culture.

Renewergy Gives Back encourages employees to volunteer at one or multiple of our three partnering philanthropic organizations: Ithaca Children’s Garden, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Habitat for Humanity. That said, this initiative is employee-centric; in other words, if an employee is passionate about getting involved with another organization or organizing their own volunteer day, Renewergy will support their efforts and build on their interests in the Renewergy Gives Back program. Employees who choose to take advantage of the fantastic opportunities the program provides will be rewarded with paid time off and the chance at winning vacation time and other perks.

Let’s start giving back!

2 Team

BIANCA ESPOSITO SABINA LEYBOLD DANA PIEPER ANDI WOLLIN

Bianca is our Marketing and Communications

Specialist with experience across the platforms of

web, print, and social me-dia. She takes pride in her

ability to develop business strategy by

creating clear messages that reach vast audiences.

Sabina is the chief writer and editor for Renewer-gy’s philanthropy team.

Her creative approach to management and atten-tion to detail has made

this program communally accessible. With her help Renewergy Gives Back

has become an invaluable addition to our company.

Dana is a multi media content creator based in Ithaca, NY. She specializes in creative direction and art production. She has worked for many non-profits in the past and

has enjoyed the sense of community here at

Renewergy.

Andi is a web designer who has been with

Renewergy since the beginning. She has made this program a success by digitizing all related

content. She has a great depth of knowledge

about the company and is excited to see the

Renewergy Gives Back program flourish.

3 Program

Renewergy Gives Back is a three-tiered program designed to fulfill the mission “Giving Back to Move Forward.” The first tier, Partnerships, includes the creation of community partnerships in which Renewergy fosters strong connections with outside volunteer organizations and their initiatives. The second tier, Renewership, allows employees to volunteer in many capacities: semi-annual volunteer days, affinity groups, and individual philanthropic efforts. These opportunities provide numerous options and resources so that each employee can tailor the program to best fit their schedules, abilities, desires, and needs. The third tier of Renewergy Gives Back is our Leadership program which includes our Day for a Day offer and prize packages. With a rewards system and recognition process in place we hope to get every employee on board and build excitement around our philanthropic efforts. This multifaceted plan includes a strategically developed communications procedure that entails a website, weekly bulletin, and vlog.

www.renewergygivesback.weebly.comMore information at . . .

An Overview

4 Goals

The primary goal of Renewergy Gives Back is to make philanthropy a top priority among Renewergy employees in order to foster a more connected and giving organizational culture. As a company, Renewergy works to create a greener, more sustainable world, and we want our employees to have the opportunity to live out that mission firsthand. As such, Renewergy employees are our principal audience for Renewergy Gives Back. By working together to achieve a greater good outside of the office, employees grow more familiar with each other and with the community, resulting in positive relationships and a sense of purpose in the office.

We know that making a positive impact starts in our own neighborhood, which is why we have created partnerships with local and environmentally-focused organizations. A secondary goal of Renewergy Gives Back is to establish a more visible company presence in the greater Ithaca area. Employees will be required to wear their Renewergy Gives Back t-shirts (see Appendix D) at all Renewergy Gives Back events. This makes the community and our partners a additional audience for the program. By serving locally, we will enhance our public image as a community leader for renewable energy, utilizing the concept of cause marketing.

We are confident in the concept and initiation of this program backed by our analysis of several businesses who have successfully executed corporate philanthropy programs. The next section will provide insight into our rationale behind the program.

5 Research &Rationale

We sent out an initial company-wide survey in order to better understand the type of service work our employees are currently involved in and/or the opportunities that interest them. The results came back with positive and promising figures. Over 75% of our employees showed interest in volunteering in general; over half said they would volunteer monthly, even during weekend time off. 87% indicated that they would be more inclined to volunteer with a group rather than individually. When provided a list of local philanthropic organizations, many employees were drawn to working with the Ithaca Children’s Garden and Cornell Cooperative Extension. (See Appendix B for the survey and its results).

With the knowledge that Renewergy employees are interested in local volunteering opportunities, we were assured that the implementation of a philanthropic initiative would be received positively. With the results of the survey in mind, we reached out to Ithaca Children’s Garden, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Habitat for Humanity and they agreed to partner with Renewergy Gives Back on a monthly basis. The survey also showed that our employees’ philanthropic interests span beyond green energy projects, so we chose to extend the plan to include more autonomous options. More detail as to how these findings will be implemented in Renewergy Gives Back will be detailed in the following pages.

Primary Research

Secondary ResearchRenewergy Gives Back is inspired by our secondary research into the positive effects of company-wide philanthropic efforts and analysis of several businesses who have successfully executed corporate philanthropy programs. Research highlights revealed that corporate social responsibility and volunteer initiatives would help to achieve the goals we detailed earlier : increasing brand visibility, improving the public’s perception of the company, and strengthening internal corporate relationships.

According to Brønn and Vrioni (2001), corporate philanthropy is best defined as “an activity above and beyond what is required of an organization and which can have a significant impact on the communities in which a company operates...Corporate philanthropy is likely to enhance the image of companies that have high public visibility (84% of American adults believe that CSR creates a positive company image).”

Additionally, a study from Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) revealed the positive financial profits that can arise from investing in volunteerism. The study showed that “companies that increased total giving between 2013 and 2015 by 10% or more had higher median growth rates between 2013 and 2015 in terms of revenue (8.3%) and pre-tax profit (2.6%)” (CECP, 2016). In other words, initiating programs that give back to the community can result in increased profit margins, even before tax breaks.

As mentioned previously, we also studied and drew inspiration from other businesses with successful volunteer programs. For example, Mars, Inc. (the company

behind brands like Wrigley’s and M&M’s) has fostered a strong philanthropic corporate culture through their Mars Volunteer Program. The Mars Volunteer Program pays up to 16 hours per year for associates to volunteer in their communities (Gay, 2016). Mars, Inc. associates logged more than 90,000 volunteer hours globally in 2015 (Gay, 2016). According to Gay (2016), this program is not only successful at getting employees to volunteer, it has also helped to establish improved employee collaboration, augmented self-awareness, and increased revenue. Gay (2016) also writes, “Collaboration improves when people trust others more, and volunteer opportunities are a great way to strengthen trust.” Our primary goal is to strengthen employee bonds and this research supports that a philanthropic program will help to achieve that.

Monetizing volunteerism is a tactic that we also plan to utilize throughout each tier of our program. According to Ford (2016), “Volunteerism is a difficult concept to monetize because the myriad ways volunteers contribute are not always measurable.” However, calculating the value of volunteer time based on hourly wages can change the way companies think about and report their philanthropic efforts. For example, “instead of reporting that your company volunteered 400 hours, you can share that your company’s volunteerism provided approximately $8,856 worth of volunteer time to that nonprofit. That’s a significant business contribution to the community, and a value your Board and other important stakeholders are more likely to comprehend and appreciate” (Ford, 2016). We can communicate the value of Renewergy Gives Back in the same way. This will show how we have helped the economy of our local community in a way that displays the amount of time and monetary value we have provided. This innovative way of measuring our communal impact will help to motivate employees more deeply,

satisfy executives’ focus on the bottom line, and prove the impact of our efforts to the Ithaca community.

Corporate social responsibility is a strategic move when recruiting and retaining employees. According to Cone Communications (2016), 79% of people prefer to work for a socially responsible company (Cone Communications, 2016). Ford (2016) also asserts, “When strategically integrated with your company’s business goals and values, involving employees in a mix of volunteer work, skills giving, workplace giving programs, and matching gift opportunities gives employees a sense of purpose, and makes them feel more connected to the community and your company-wide social responsibility efforts.” This statistic plays a large role in the development of our volunteer incentive program, which is backed by data that proves that offering incentives drives employee engagement, motivation, and business.

Retention of both customers and employees is key for financial success of a business, and philanthropy initiatives can help boost job satisfaction to keep employees in the Renewergy family for longer durations. Cone Communications (2016) showed highlights of employees’ opinions on engagement and involvement in their Employee Engagement Study: -“58% consider a company’s social and environmental commitments when deciding where to work” -“71% want their company to provide opportunities for them to help make a positive impact on the company’s social and environmental commitments” -“77% say it’s important their employer provides them with hands-on activities around environmental responsibility”

Renewergy is based in a college town with a youthful demographic, which means that we need to consider the opinions of younger employees in creating our philanthropy program. Among Mature Millennials (ages 27-35), 88% feel their job is more fulfilling when they are provided opportunities to make a positive impact on social or environmental issues, 76% would choose a socially responsible company over one that offers a higher salary, and 83% are more likely to be loyal when they feel they can make a positive impact on issues at work (Cone Communications, 2016). Referring back to our initial survey results (See Appendix B), employees had neutral to negative viewpoints on Renewergy’s current company culture. With Millennial employees more mobile than ever, engaging this group of employees in philanthropy efforts is crucial for saving money on recruitment and training. Additionally, this serves as a necessary change agent for our corporate culture. Tailoring our priorities to the needs and interests of demographics who will age with the company is a long-term investment in our retention strategy.

According to Mitch-Stuart Inc. (n.d.), a company that offers travel programs for non-profits and for-profit businesses, “Well-run incentive programs help increase employee and customer retention by 20% to 40%, while boosting sales productivity by 15% to 35%” (Mitch-Stuart, Inc., n.d.). These statistics tell us that our Renewergy Gives Back program has the power to reap the same rewards and positive responses from our employees and the community. Along with analyzing successful volunteer programs, such as the Mars Volunteer Program, our secondary research on corporate philanthropy in general has allowed us to develop the most interactive and effective program with similar goals and values.

Let's take a closer look at... Renewergy Gives Back!

6 Partnerships

As mentioned earlier, partnerships are the first tier of the three-tiered Renewergy Gives Back program. We want to serve locally and encourage employees to volunteer at organizations that focus on environmental awareness, green building, and giving back to the community. Accordingly, we have established partnerships with three local charities that will have volunteer opportunities available for Renewergy Employees at least once every month. The charities are:

Ithaca Children’s Garden

Cornell CooperativeExtension

Habitat forHumantiy

Ithaca Children’s Garden: Employees will have the

opportunity to participate in the drop-in volunteer corps, which takes place every Wednesday

from the spring to the fall. Projects include helping with gardening work and building obstacles/facilitating the annual Tough

Turtle Race.

Cornell Cooperative Extension: Employees can get involved in CCE’s programs Energy

Navigators and 4H Environmental Appreciation Days. The former involves educating community

members on how to achieve their energy-related goals. The latter involves teaching children about

sustainability at State Parks.

Employees will have the opportunity to build sustainable

houses for low-income individuals and families at different locations in the greater Ithaca area. Habitat for Humanity encourages group over 20 people to apply for a build at least two months in

advance.

7 Renewership

The Renewership tier of Renewergy Gives Back offers three volunteering options for our employees. They are as follows:

Renewergy’s semi-annual volunteer days are centered around team building and giving back for a greater collective impact. These two days allow employees to volunteer during their work day by engaging in an organized volunteer effort hosted by the Renewergy Philanthropy Team. This day is optional, but will be compensated as it occurs during a regular work day. With multiple volunteer sites, employees are assigned to a location for a large day of service. Lunch, snacks, and transportation will be provided.

Semi-Annual Volunteer Days

Affinity Groups

Individual Philanthropic Efforts

Regardless of department, groups of employees can self-organize into an affinity group and register with our Philanthropy Team. Official affinity groups can file for a grant that would cover the logistical costs as-sociated with volunteering together, such as transportation to a service site, lunch for an all-day service event, or supplies to complete a service project. Affinity groups can be up to 50 people and grants can be submitted up to $1,000 per group per year.

Employees can also choose to volunteer on their own and log their participation hours to reap the re-wards. We have made it simple by organizing events with our partnering organizations or they can choose to volunteer with an outside nonprofit organization.

8 Incentives

Our secondary research, as explained previously, shows that incentive programs are effective in motivating employees to give back to the community. In turn, employees will become more engaged in a culture of giving back, sparking a natural desire to prioritize philanthropic acts. Having employees from Renewergy use their time to work at various volunteer sites will also help to develop a positive company public image and reputation.

Our two-pronged incentive program is attractive to employees because it rewards them for putting in the time and energy to community service and is scalable to match compensation to direct efforts. The two incentives are as follows:

As employees volunteer independently or with their affinity

groups, they can log their hours with the Renewergy Philanthropy Team. When an employee logs 24 hours of service work (the equivalent of a full day of volunteering), they will receive one paid day off of work. Volunteer work for any charitable

organization is eligible to be logged and compensated, and employees can receive up to a maximum of 5 paid

days off annually.

All employees who log volunteer hours will automatically be involved in the Renewergy-wide philanthropy competition.

At the end of the year, the three employees who have volunteered the highest number of hours will receive big-ticket prizes. The third-place prize is a gift basket valued at

$250. The second-place prize is the employee’s choice of an Apple Watch, valued up to $550. The first-place prize for the employee with the most volunteer hours is an all-expenses

paid 10-day trip for two to Santorini, London, Paris, or Florence. These prizes help to reward our most involved and contributive employees for their efforts above and beyond

providing compensation for volunteer time.

Day for a Day Company-wide Competition

9 Procedures

In our initial survey (see Appendix B), employees showed enthusiasm for de-voting time to giving back to the community, even if it meant sacrificing free time on the weekends. We have confidence that given the pre-established partnerships (with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Ithaca Children’s Garden, and Habitat for Humanity) and proper contact information at each respective organization, our employees will be able to self-organize their volunteer opportunities and hours. As explained earlier, employees are welcome to volunteer individually or with teams from Renewergy. It will be their responsibility to organize those teams, volunteer times, and transporta-tion logistics. In return for their autonomous creation of affinity groups, Renewergy will provide grant opportunities to subsidize lunches or other resources (equipment, technology, etc.) on volunteer days. After an employee creates a volunteering event, they must email our Market-ing & Communications Specialist with the date, time, individual limit, and any perti-nent event logistics, so she can put it on the event calendar. This way, other employ-ees can choose to join the effort. There will be a primary contact at each of our partnering organizations, with whom our employees will check-in when they arrive for pre-determined volunteer hours. This contact will report to our Marketing & Communications Specialist to confirm attendance. Employees who wish to volun-teer at outside organizations will be required to provide a contact to the specialist. Volunteer hours will be logged and maintained individually by each employee, but they will be double checked at the end of each quarter by our Specialist. The exception to these requirements are the semi-annual service days, for which Re-newergy will provide full planning, transportation, food, and compensation. In our budget, we have allowed opportunity for 2,000 employees to participate in our semi-annual service days.

10 Communication

Employees will first be notified of RenewergyGives Back by way of the following memo.

MEMOTO: ALL EMPLOYEESFROM: RENEWERGY PHILANTHROPY TEAMDATE: 9 MARCH 2017SUBJECT: RENEWERGY GIVES BACK

After working for weeks on this initiative, we are very excited to announce our new philanthropy program entitled Renewergy Gives Back. The mission of Renewergy Gives Back is “Giving Back to Move Forward.” It is designed to integrate community service into the culture of our company, making it easy and rewarding to be a good neighbor by getting involved in efforts that aid the Ithaca community. We hope that this program will also strengthen the connection between employees and allow all Renewergy employees to deepen their personal connection with our company mission of creating a more sustainable world.

Renewergy Gives Back has created a three-tiered program to encourage volunteerism. The first is partnerships. We have arranged partnerships with Ithaca Children’s Garden, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Habitat for Humanity that make it simple to give back to sustainably-oriented causes. They will have events available to you on a monthly basis. Since green living is an important value at Renewergy, we encourage taking advantage of these partnerships when considering ways to contribute to our larger community.

We do, however, value all forms of philanthropic service, and we support employees who want to give back to other causes. The second tier of Renewergy Gives Back is titled Renewership. This tier offers three volunteering options for our employees: Semi-Annual Service Days, Affinity Groups, and individual philanthropic efforts. We are currently planning for our first semi-annual service day, a company-wide event where employees can opt to spend a workday with their coworkers participating in larger-scale community projects. Employees who choose to participate in these service days will be compensated equally to a typical workday. Regardless of department, groups of employees can self-organize into an affinity group and register their event with our Philanthropy Team. Official affinity groups can file for a grant that can cover the logistical costs associated with volunteering together, such as transportation to a service site, lunch for an all-day service event, or supplies to complete a service project. Employees can also choose to volunteer on their own and receive credit for the hours. We have made it simple by organizing events with our partnering organizations, but employees can choose to volunteer with an outside company.

The third tier of Renewergy Gives Back is Leadership, in other words the opportunity to receive paid time off in exchange for involvement in community philanthropy. The second way to receive monetary compensation for service is by participating in our Day for a Day program, which allows employees who log 24-hours of volunteer work for any charitable organization to receive one paid day off of work (up to a maximum of 5 days annually).

Logging volunteer hours will have other benefits too. The three employees who volunteer the highest number of hours in a year will receive big-ticket prizes like a gift basket, Apple Watch, or an all-expenses paid trip. We aim to reward our most involved and contributive employees for their efforts beyond providing compensation for volunteer time. While we believe that a rewards program is important to honor your achievements, our primary effort is to instill a giving and charitable culture within Renewergy. We want you to give back because you want to give back.

We are excited to roll out the Renewergy Gives Back program to connect more deeply with our mission, em-ployee teams, and greater Ithaca community. You can find more information on Renewergy Gives Back at www.renewergygivesback.weebly.com or contact the Philanthropy Team with questions or program ideas.

RENEWERGY PHILANTHROPY TEAMBiana Esposito, Sabina Leybold, Dana Pieper, and Andi Wollin

Informing Employees

As a form of continued communication, a bulletin will be emailed to employees every Monday, notifying them of the volunteer opportunities available for the upcoming week in a calendar format. These will include events at our partnering organizations, upcoming semi-annual volunteer days and affinity groups. In addition to the information provided in the bulletin, a calendar is available on http://renewergygivesback.weebly.com/. At the bottom of each weekly bulletin there will be a comment/suggestion section available where employees can submit and ideas they have to improve Renewergy Gives back and to encourage continual feedback

Bulletin

Vlogs

With the implementation of vlog, it is our hope that we can showcase Renewergy’s volunteering efforts in a cohesive and genuine way. We encourage employees to send in videos and images displaying their volunteer experiences as a way to highlight individuals and our work in the community. The Philanthropy team is also available to edit video clips together if needed. This is a great way to get other employees on board with Renewergy Gives Back and will act as a link amongst our multiple and varied efforts.

Implementation Matrices

Matrix 1s Matrix 2s

11 Evaluation

According to CECP (2016), collecting data about volunteerism is important “to demonstrate outcomes to internal stakeholders” and “to report public what compa-nies’ giving achieved.” Renewergy Gives Back aims to address both internal and exter-nal audiences, so evaluation of the program is crucial. To evaluate the success of Renewergy Gives Back, the philanthropy team will collect a variety of data from multiple sources:

SurveyThis survey will go out to all employees in six-month intervals after the start of the program. A copy of the survey questions is listed in Appendix () and includes top-ics such as employees’ involvement with Renewergy’s mission, their perceptions of company culture and coworker relationships, and their opinions about the program’s elements. CECP (2016) explains that surveys that measure job and volunteer satis-faction, connection to employees’ well-being/retention/leadership, and “benchmarking between employees who volunteer and those who don’t” are all effective for measur-ing the business value of philanthropy initiatives.

Attendance/Hours LoggedThe philanthropy team will have access to attendance numbers at semi-annual ser-vice days and the number of volunteer hours logged per employee and per depart-ment. This is tracked via the form that all employees must fill out in order to receive credit for their hours. This will gauge the level of engagement in community service initiatives company-wide. CECP (2016) also asserts that measuring hours logged is an effective way to measure the business value of volunteering.

Web AnalyticsOur philanthropy-focused website can provide insight into the impact that Renewer-gy Gives Back has on the company as a whole. Between search terms used to land on the website, visitors’ paths and actions on each page, and location information of users, the philanthropy team can evaluate the interests, priorities, and backgrounds of the website’s audience. Social media analytics, such as traffic on philanthropy-related posts and geographic information of engaged users, can also indicate metrics of brand recognition and external interest in Renewergy Gives Back programs.

Media MentionsAs Renewergy Gives Back begins to make a large-scale impact in the Ithaca commu-nity, it is likely to garner some attention from local media outlets. The philanthropy team will also note these media mentions and their reach to assess public opinion about the program.

Monetary EvaluationRenewergy Gives Back is an investment into the external image and internal culture of the company, and the return on that investment may be difficult to see at first. The most direct measurement will come from a slow decrease in spending on hiring and training processes: as our secondary research shows, philanthropy programs can help to improve employee retention and satisfaction, leading to greater loyalty, decreased turnover, higher productivity, and increased output. It is important to point out that while the total project cost is nearly $5 million, this is our estimation of Renewer-gy Gives Back’s critical path. Without accounting for compensation for the Day for a Day program, the program cost is less than $574,000. Our “realistic outlook” number, based on research on actual employee engagement in corporate responsibility ini-tiatives, is just 35% of that amount and thus is a reasonable cost to invest in positive corporate culture and its outcomes.

12 Budget

13 Appendices

On the website for Renewery Gives Back, you will find information on:

Appendix A WEBSITE

www.renewergygivesback.weebly.com

-The grant application-Our team biographies-A calendar of upcoming events-Vlogs from other volunteers-Contact information

-An overview of the program-Information on our partnerships volunteer opportunities program benefits affinity groups semi-annual volunteer days

Appendix B INITIAL SURVEYRESULTS

1. Did you participate in Renewergy Gives Back this year? Yes or No2a. If no, why not?2b. If yes, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being negative and 10 being positive), how would you rate your experience with Renewergy Gives Back?3. This year I volunteered with… (select all that apply)a. Cornell Cooperative Extension b. Ithaca Children’s Garden c. Habitat for Humanity d. Other4. If you selected “d. Other” in the previous question, where did you volunteer?5. Did you participate in either of the Semi-Annual Volunteer Days?6. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being negative and 10 being positive), how would you rate your experience with the Semi-Annual Volunteer Days?7. Did you participate in vlogging while volunteering? Yes or No8. In a few words, how would you describe Renewergy’s company culture?9. Would you say your experience giving back strengthened your relationship with your coworkers? Yes or No, please elaborate.10. If you have any comments or recommendations for Renewergy Gives back, please detail them below.

Appendix C EVALUATION SURVEY QUESTIONS

The Renewergy Gives Back Program will supply employees with company t-shirts that will be required to wear when attending volunteer sites. By having our employees wear t-shirts with our company logo and philanthropy program name while volunteering, Renewergy will become a more visible presence in the community and become associated with charitable efforts. The t-shirts will work to foster a deeper sense of community and togetherness amongst the employees while enhancing Renewergy’s public image throughout the community.

Appendix D T-SHIRTS

Brønn, P. S., & Vrioni, A. B. (2001). Corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing: an overview. International Journal of Advertising, 20(2), 207-222.CECP (2016). Giving in Numbers: 2016 Edition. Retrieved from http://cecp.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/GIN2016_Finalweb-1.pdf?redirect=no.

Cone Communications (2016). 2016 Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study. Retrieved from http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2016-employee-engagement-study.

Ford, S. (2016, March 16). The business case for employee volunteer & skills giving programs. America’s Charities. Retrieved from https://www.charities.org/news/business-case-employee-volunteer-skills-giving-programs.

Gay, W. (2016, November 3). 4 reasons why a corporate volunteer program is a smart investment. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/wesgay/2016/11/03/4-reasons-why-a-corporate-volunteer-program-is-a-smart-investment/amp/.

Mitch-Stuart, Inc. (n.d.) Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from http://www.mitchstuart.com/business_faq.php.

Appendix E References

Let's start Giving back tomove forward!

2017