In the Wall Street Journal this past weekend, Harvard Business School Professor Michael Norton offered some advice on how companies can get more out of their corporate giving programs. And when HBS professors talk, we’re inclined to listen.

Employee engagement has become a business buzzword — a phrase often thrown around in meetings, but not clearly achieved in most companies. In Harvard Business Review’s “Why the Millions We Spend on Employee Engagement Buys Us So Little”, Jacob Morgan explains that companies are spending too much on employee engagement with minimal return. As a result, they are missing out on real impact when it comes to their workforce.

Employee giving is often an under-reported and under-capitalized component of a company’s corporate social responsibility efforts. When you look at the logistics, you start to understand why. 

Many companies are still relying on traditional paper processes to execute their employee giving campaigns. Add to that the need to coordinate hundreds of team members, nonprofit partners, payment systems and the corporate match, and an employee giving campaign can get overwhelming quick.