The Humana Foundation utilizes the Benevity platform for managing employee programming, like matching gifts for employee donations to nonprofits, logging volunteer hours, and enabling employee donations to support communities in times of disaster. To stay abreast of news and current trends in the industry and learn from colleagues who leverage Benevity in their daily operations, Humana Foundation Professional Nicole Heuker and Senior Corporate Social Responsibility Professional Ali Swann recently attended the annual conference, “Benevity Live!” from May 13-16 in Palm Springs, California.
Nicole and Ali participated in sessions throughout the week and connected with peers working in philanthropy and employee engagement. In pursuit of leading the thinking and actions in these shared spaces, they shared several important learnings and takeaways from the “Benevity Live!” conference:
Storytelling is a powerful way to build trust. The presentation opened with an impactful quote: “Markets respond to signals. But people – employees, investors, customers – respond to stories.”
While it’s common to focus on metrics around community impact (ex. participation rates and volunteer hours), sharing stories brings us back to our “why” behind our dedication to the work. Our work in philanthropy and volunteerism matters because it makes a real difference in the lives of our teammates and communities. Social impact stories can also be a way for companies to build trust externally. The presentation shared that 56 percent of Benevity clients stated their companies are increasing social impact statements and commitments this year. In addition, 70 percent of Benevity clients emphasized that the demand for impact stories from nonprofits is increasing.
New product enhancements are coming to our internal volunteerism and giving platform: Upcoming optimizations to Humana and the Humana Foundation’s internal giving and volunteerism platform will make it easier for our teammates to create volunteer opportunities and have more visibility into where their donations are in the disbursement process. The easier the platform is to use, the greater the impact on the nonprofits most important to our employees.
Listening intently, acting swiftly, and communicating at the right volume are key to effective engagement (From session titled “Navigating New Challenges: Risk, Trust, and Communication” with Karen Bergin from Microsoft Philanthropies and AJ Jordan with Vanguard Group Foundation): Good communication directly impacts participation in employee programming and volunteerism. It’s important to know how to frame complex issues in a way that is succinct and also to listen intently to what our teammates and nonprofit partners really need. The worldwide landscape is rapidly changing, and our job is to serve up as many opportunities as possible that will actually mean something for our teammates. People still want to give back, especially during hard times.
One of the most important skills we can flex in the AI era is learning (From a session titled “Future-proofing Impact: AI, Work, and Social Good by presenter and futurist Sinead Bovell”): AI will become a general-purpose technology like the internet and electricity and will take time to adopt and embed into our lives. Since opting out isn’t a viable choice for those who want to remain successful, it’s important to have a learning mindset. From the session, we learned new ways to incorporate AI usage into daily work, for example, condensing meeting notes and interpreting trends in data. However, we also discussed the importance of using our real-world, human context and judgement when using this technology. A key takeaway is that AI can be biased, and we must remain aware of its limitations.
The session also shared that roughly one third of nonprofits are leveraging AI – mostly in donor communications and grant writing. Many nonprofits report seeing value in the practical aspects of AI but have concerns about the loss of human connection and local context, as well as bias and equity. This just highlights our responsibility as a foundation to be mindful of how we adopt and use AI and to continue centering the nonprofit experience in all we do.
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On behalf of the Humana Foundation, thank you, Nicole and Ali, for sharing these learnings from the “Benevity Live!” annual conference.
This article and accompanying insights are part of the Humana Foundation’s continual growth journey where we share learnings to expand our knowledge in philanthropy to better serve our communities.