Virtual Charity Team Building Activities for a Good Cause

Creating a Culture of Giving

Are you looking for a way to make your virtual charity team building activities more impactful?  To put some Fun in FUNDrasing?  Well look no further my friend.  We’re here to show you how virtual team building activities can become online charity events.  We will dig into all the fun and engaging ways to give back while working remotely and find out which games work best as online charity events for your employees.

How to Host Virtual Charity Team Building Activities

Team building and community involvement go back decades.  Many in person team building events centered around activities like building bicycles for needy kids, volunteering at a local food bank, or helping plant trees.  Today it can be challenging to have a direct impact on a worthy cause when employees are spread around the country or around the world. 

Virtual charity team building activities come in all shapes and sizes.  The key is to be creative.  We have all had to adapt to the new normal of remote work and there are tons of perks.  Personally, I have not worn pants in three years.   But there can be drawbacks.  People feel less connected, and companies must work harder to build a cohesive workforce.  Team building is a great way to do that and leveraging the power of play is a fantastic way to combine fun with giving back. Virtual charity team building activities need to be accessible to everyone. When choosing an online charity event for your remote team remember these three important points:

• Make it accessible.  Games should be scheduled well in advance and be considerate of times zones and project deadlines to maximize attendance.
• Make it affordable.  Asking employees for money should not be a burden.  Give them options to make small donations or opt out entirely.  The goal is to give, not to see who gave the most.  According to Catherine Pisco, Director of Goodness Solutions at Benevity, employees who are able to use payroll giving programs donate four times more on average.
• Make it acceptable. Choose your charity wisely.  Avoid causes that are associated with religion, politics, or benefit a very small demographic.  Stick with well-established charities that everyone can get behind.

Before starting a charitable campaign ask your employees to nominate nonprofits or causes that they would like to support.  It will help you narrow down what is important to your team and you might even find a few you had not considered.

Pro Tip – When offering competitive games like a poker tournament as your online charity event let the winners choose who they want to donate to.  Provide a list of several pre-approved charities they can select from.  Because they direct the funds, they will feel empowered and more involved.

Why is Virtual Team Building a Good Thing?

If you have not done any team building before don’t worry.  It is not that hard and there is a huge upside.  Virtual team building, online team building, remote online activities, whatever you call it, the process is the same.  Bring everyone together via video chat and let them play a game instead of working.  That sounds simple on the surface, but taking part in play can have a significant impact on how coworkers relate to each other and to their managers.  For a deeper dive on the power of play check out our post on Team Building Activities for Leadership.

Virtual team building can be leveraged to benefit the community at large but it always starts with benefiting the community of employees who participate.  Studies show that companies that hold regular team building activities:

• Have less turnover.  People stay where they feel valued and that reduces job hopping.
• Have more effective team outcomes.  People who know each other well have better communication, better problem-solving skills, and are simply more productive as a result.
• Have more experienced people.   Effective teams who stay together longer have more long-term experience in their individual positions. 

An early 2023 Gallup Poll showed that companies with a strong culture that included regular team building performed almost twice as well as their competitors.  While every company is unique, engaging in routine team building activities like virtual games, hybrid experiences, or other regularly scheduled non-work activities can help companies stay in business longer and make more money. 

How Do I Engage Employees Through Online Charity Events?

Now that you know why virtual team building is essential for keeping a remote staff happy and engaged you will need to start putting together your event.  To make the most of your efforts you may want to consider a longer campaign with several activities and options.  This way your entire outcome is not dependent on who shows up to one virtual charity activity.  The key is to get them involved before the first card is dealt in your charity poker tournament or question is asked in team trivia.  There are several ways to get employees to open up about what a certain charity means to them.

• Make it personal. Ask for personal stories to include in companywide newsletters.  Perhaps an employee trains guide dogs or another volunteers at a food bank.
• Make it profitable.  Match donations.  Set goals and let your team know that the company is stepping up to the plate as well.
• Make it playtime. Associating your giving with a game lets people have fun too.  Setting aside time in the workday to play poker together shows that not only does the company value the donations it can help raise but it values the experience it brings to employees.

Your people are your greatest resource.  When you’re asking them to participate in a virtual charity team building activity, they will be your best guide on what nonprofits to seek out and to support.  The fun part about making your virtual team building activity into a charity team building event is that you can choose something unique and fun.  People are more willing to get out of their comfort zone with a game like Texas Hold’em poker when you are playing for a good cause.  Participants will give something new a chance with the added dynamic of it being an online charity poker tournament. 

Virtual Charity Poker Tournaments: Combining Fun and Giving Back for Team Building

Okay Mr. Smarty Pants, you know what team building is and why we do it but what is the best virtual charity team building activity?  Texas Hold’em poker.  Yes, poker.  Gone are the days when poker was only played in the back rooms or basements.  Poker is mainstream and expected to grow by 12% in the next 6 years with women leading the way in many parts of the world.

Millions of people play for fun on their phones without ever setting foot in a casino or spending a dime.  Hoodies and sunglasses are no longer the uniform for poker players as celebrity endorsements and easy access to play-money sites take down cultural barriers.  The game is exciting, easy to learn, and offers a level playing field for everyone to enjoy.  Poker is perfect for online team building because:

• It has a very low barrier to entry.  Almost anyone can learn to play in just a few minutes. 
• Anyone can win.  Because there is a luck factor, you never know who will come out on top.  The new intern might take down the CEO. 
• It reflects business concepts.  Poker and business overlap in so many ways. Leadership, strategy, and decision-making skills are part of the rhythm of the game.

Poker skills ARE business skills. There are so many ways that strategic thinking, emotional control, and other deep business concepts some into play. (See what I did there?) If you want to dig deeper into how poker can be used to teach business skills check out our post on Building Stronger Teams with Online Strategy Games.

What are the Benefits of Online Charity Events for Corporate Social Responsibility and Team Building?

The majority of fully remote companies are in the tech industry and that can be one of the most difficult spaces to grow a business.  Adding social responsibility both internally and externally has to be a deliberate task in order to get results.  Sponsoring events and making donations to the community are a great way to build brand awareness and customer loyalty to the outside public but it works internally as well. A loyal employee base can boost a company from the inside.

In order to be successful in today’s competitive landscape corporations need their employees to buy in to the mission.  That old line about people working only hard enough to avoid getting fired and companies only paying enough to avoid people leaving is outdated and a recipe for disaster.  Creating a company culture that makes employees feel valued is key to ultimate business success. The key to building social responsibility internally comes through:

• Creating an awareness campaign.  Hosting a series of games as part of an awareness campaign for a specific cause, or set of causes, will give you several opportunities to not only bring the team together but promote the companies commitment to giving.  Adding a charitable component to your quarterly or annual event improves the company image to its most valuable assets, its employees.    
• Making programs personal.  We mentioned this before but when an employee feels they have an impact they are more likely to participate in an online charity event.  I recently heard on The Social Impact Show podcast that employees are five times more likely to participate when they feel like the cause is one that they can get behind.  That’s quite the ROI on giving.
• Working from the inside.  Employee Resource Groups exist in many companies, and they generally have the inside track on what employees need and where they want to see a company go.  Use their guidance to create long term awareness campaigns that peak around the holidays or the annual company meeting.  This shows that the company is committed to a culture of giving all year.

Focusing on your own team members is part of an overall corporate culture of caring.  When companies demonstrate that they are willing to invest in their public persona AND their people they are set up for success. 

What are the Best Virtual Charity Team Building Activities for Remote Teams?

We have already mentioned playing poker as our top choice.  It combines business skills and luck into an easy to learn game that anyone can play.  We have also told you to have a regular schedule of virtual team building games, so it makes sense to bring up a few more. 

Charity activities are probably best associated with games that an individual or small group can win.  This will allow them to direct the charitable donation to a cause of their choosing.  With a little planning just about any game can be part of a regular online team bonding schedule and even part of a charity campaign.

Here is our list of great virtual team building games that can be played by teams of any size. Some are good for a fun distraction before a meeting and others you will likely want to bring in a professional to run and make it the featured game of your entire charity awareness campaign.

In Conclusion:

I hope that I have shown you ways to make your virtual team building events more impactful. Taking some time to plan virtual charity team building activities like poker tournaments is worth the investment.  The team will be happier, the company will benefit, and the community at large will too.

Frequently Asked Questions about Virtual Charity Team Building Activities

Here are the top questions that come up when talking about online team building games. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.