How to get your manager to approve a team volunteer activity

You found an activity the team would like. Now someone else has to approve the budget, and they’ll have a few questions before they say yes. If your request answers them up front, you skip a round of back-and-forth and get an answer sooner.

What your manager will want to know

Start with the total. Your manager will multiply the price per person by the headcount anyway, so do it for them. If a kit is $65 per participant and 15 people take part, the number is $975. Add that U.S. shipping is free both ways and that sales tax may be added at checkout.

Then the date, and how much time it takes from work. If it fits into a slot you already have, like a team lunch or the last hour of a Friday, say so. It makes the request easier to approve.

Name the cause. “A volunteer activity” is vague. “Teddy bears for children facing hardship” or “food packs for neighbors facing food insecurity” tells your manager exactly what the money does.

Say what the team gets out of it. Everyone works on the same thing at the same table, and the finished kits go to a nonprofit partner that supports the cause.

Mention the organizer’s time, because your manager will think about it. With a kit, the materials arrive in one box with instructions, and the finished kits go back with a prepaid label. Nobody has to buy supplies or deliver anything.

Finally, give a date to reply by. Kits ship within three weeks of your order, so you need an answer about four weeks before the activity.

If they ask why it’s worth it

Sometimes the question is less about the money and more about the point. In a 2017 Deloitte survey, 70% of respondents said volunteering does more for morale than a company happy hour.

If you want something more recent, a study in the Industrial Relations Journal compared workplace wellbeing programs, from meditation and fitness apps to coaching. As Visit.org summarized it, volunteering and other social impact programs were the only ones that made a significant difference to how employees felt.

A sample email

This one uses the Teddy Bears kit for a team of 15. Swap in your own kit, headcount and date.

Subject: Team volunteer activity on Dec. 10, $975

Hi Dana,

I’d like us to do a volunteer activity together at our team lunch on Dec. 10.

We’d build teddy bears for children through Visit.org Impact Kits. Each person builds one bear and fills out a short profile card for the child who gets it. Visit.org then delivers the bears to a nonprofit partner.

Cost: $65 per person, so $975 for 15 of us. Shipping is free both ways, and sales tax may be added at checkout.

What it takes: everything comes in one box with instructions. When we’re done, we send the bears back with the prepaid label.

Timing: kits ship within three weeks of ordering, so I’d need to order by Nov. 12.

Can I go ahead? Here’s the kit: [link to the kit page]

Thanks, Sam

If your team runs on Slack or Teams, a shorter version works too:

Hi Dana, could we build teddy bears for children at our Dec. 10 team lunch? It’s $65 a person, $975 for the 15 of us. Everything comes in one box and the bears go to a nonprofit partner. I’d need to order by Nov. 12. Here’s the kit: [link]

Where requests get stuck

Requests stall when something is missing. The price is there but not the total, or there’s no date, so nothing makes it urgent. Some go out ten days before the event, which is too late to order. And an open question like “Can we do something for GivingTuesday?” tends to sit longer than a specific kit, headcount and total.

When they push back

“Can’t we just donate the money?” You can. A donation doesn’t put the team in one room, though, and a kit activity gives you something you did together, with a team photo to show for it.

“Is this a charitable donation?” No. You’re paying for a team activity. Your finance team can tell you how to record it.

“Will people actually show up?” Ask for a headcount before you order, and only order for the people who said yes. The minimum is 10.

“Half the team is remote.” Order for everyone. All kits ship to one address, so have the box sent to the office and mail kits to remote people before the day.

“Can we do something bigger?” There’s no maximum group size, and Visit.org also runs custom programs for larger companies. At Cencora, a pilot at four distribution centers grew to 40, and the program is now funded from the business group’s own budget, according to Visit.org’s case study.

Kits that are easy to explain

Some causes fit in one line, which helps when someone else has to sign off.

You can see all the kits, with the price per participant on each one.