Corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are rising priorities for businesses everywhere. Key stakeholders, including employees, customers, and shareholders, no longer define a successful company by its turnover or profits but by how strong its purpose is.
Whether it’s to strengthen its work culture or work for the community’s betterment, purpose-driven companies are fuelled by employees, their strongest allies and committed corporate volunteers.
This makes a corporate volunteering platform an essential investment. But it can get confusing to choose one from a plethora of choices available. In this article, we narrow down your search by comparing the 3 most popular corporate volunteering platforms – KindLink, OnHand, and YourCause.
Platform Profiles
KindLink
KindLink is a dedicated UK-based CSR platform designed to make CSR and corporate philanthropy accessible and simple for organisations, irrespective of their size. It positions itself as an all-in-one CSR solution catering to corporate giving, donation matching, volunteering, ESG & SDG reporting, impact tracking, and sustainability. It also seamlessly connects corporate volunteers with charities and non-profits through its marketplace, featuring over 4000 charities vetted by its sister concern, KindLink Foundation.
Its integrated marketplace, volunteering engagement tools, social sharing, and zero donation commissions make it a standout choice for corporates looking for a user-friendly and unified platform.
OnHand (BeOnHand)
A corporate volunteering and CSR platform, OnHand offers ready volunteering solutions, with campaigns, micro-volunteering, gamified employee engagement, and local and global volunteering events.
OnHand’s USP lies in its ready campaigns that support a quick start for teams looking for volunteering and engaging employees.
YourCause
Part of BlackBaud, YourCause is a global CSR software platform that focuses on employee giving, volunteering, grant making, and impact reporting. It manages corporate volunteering and giving activities through CSRconnect®.
Comparison Table
| KindLink | OnHand | YourCause | |
| Key Strengths | All-in-one system for volunteering, payroll giving, reporting and tracking | Strong features for engagement and flexibility | Strong data analytics and reporting |
| Scale of Use | Domestic and Global | Global | Global |
| Volunteering Programme Management | Support for event management, tracking, and integration with CSR & fundraising activities | Support for logistics, campaign launch and group volunteering | Volunteering is a small part of a broad CSR suite |
| Potential Limitations | Can seem less complex for some enterprises | More focused on micro actions and volunteering alone | More expensive as a large platform |
| Pricing | Premium plans start at £11/month | Tiered pricing | Custom pricing depending on scale and modules |
Key Consideration Factors
Volunteer Opportunities
KindLink
KindLink believes in connecting those in need with those ready to offer help. Its corporate platform lets your corporate volunteers seamlessly connect to a dedicated non-profit marketplace, where they can explore opportunities and choose the cause to connect with. The user-friendly platform has registered cause profiles verified after a meticulous two-step process.
Employees have the opportunity to choose which cause they can pledge time and talent to, going beyond one-off event sign-ups. This is important if your organisation is keen on encouraging employees to volunteer all year round rather than only on volunteering days. An approach like this can not only build strong charity-volunteer relationships but also build long-term interest and trust.
OnHand
OnHand offers a wide range of volunteering actions, along with a focus on micro-volunteering opportunities. Although it’s built for deploying quickly, it tends to be more event and campaign-focused.
YourCause
YourCause offers global volunteering opportunities; however, it is a part of a much larger CSR suite. Although it has an international reach, the platform is less focused on its UX.
Employee Engagement
KindLink
KindLink allows employees to share their volunteering contributions and actions through a visually appealing social media-style activity feed. This can build into a personal impact portfolio for every employee, with a clear history of the causes they’ve engaged with and the actions they’ve taken, promoting employee-led storytelling and helping increase engagement for the long term. KindLink’s volunteering platform also integrates with calendars and other internal HR tools.
OnHand
OnHand thrives on strong gamification features, including leaderboards, badges, and team missions. It also drives sustainability initiatives like carbon emission reduction challenges.
YourCause
YourCause offers engagement features but is more focused on the philanthropic initiatives of large enterprises. It has fewer employee-led storytelling features when compared to KindLink.
Volunteer Impact Tracking & Reporting
KindLink
KindLink offers corporate teams easy-to-use features to enter volunteer hours, calculate participation rates, understand skill-based contributions, and collate fundraising and giving efforts, all in the same environment. It also supports clarity and transparency, where both contributing employees and their managers can view activity histories.
Using KindLink’s tools, corporate teams can easily record and collate data for ESG reports, annual impact statements, DEI initiatives, and board reports.
OnHand
OnHand offers multiple features to track micro-volunteering and group volunteering. It exhibits strong impact tracking options, but it may be less ideal for in-depth impact and CSR reporting.
YourCause
YourCause’s platform supports comprehensive reporting features for corporate volunteering, giving, grants, and collecting data across geographies. This can be ideal for multinational corporations but may exceed the needs of organisations in the UK or EU who are only focused on volunteering.
Ease of Use for CSR/HR Teams
KindLink
KindLink eliminates the need to switch between multiple CSR platforms, with HR and CSR teams managing volunteering, fundraising, donation-matching, payroll giving, reporting, and tracking all in one place. Further making it easier are its simpler workflows for creating, promoting, and approving volunteering opportunities.
Its design lowers the administrative burden for companies with limited HR and CSR teams.
OnHand
Pre-designed campaigns make it easy for teams to get started with volunteering without much admin overload. However, you need to access donations, funding, and matching outside the platform.
YourCause
While YourCause offers strong enterprise-grade back-end tools, it may seem complex for small teams to manage without dedicated CSR staff.
Summing Up
Each of these three corporate volunteering platforms has its own set of features that let it stand out as a popular choice. But when it comes to choosing the perfect platform for your organisation, it’s all about how it contributes to your volunteering efforts and what value it can bring to your volunteering, CSR, and corporate philanthropy goals.
