How DRW’s 20th Anniversary Giving Challenge Broke Records

For DRW, a global trading firm committed to social responsibility, its Annual Global Giving Challenge is a key part of its culture. 2024 marked the 20th anniversary of the DRW Foundation, and with it, a goal to complete the most impactful Giving Challenge yet. 

We spoke with Monica Grant Cohen and Liesl Block from DRW’s Community Investment team to explore their record-breaking 2024 Giving Challenge with Percent Pledge.

Having everything centralized in Percent Pledge allowed our team to focus on engaging everyone to participate.
_{Liesl Block, Community Investment Specialist}

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Challenges

The 20th anniversary required DRW to go bigger than ever before. DRW set its highest goal yet: exceed $500,000 in dollars donated, a major increase from past years.

The biggest challenge? Pushing boundaries to honor the huge 20th anniversary milestone.

With it being the 20th anniversary and the success of last year with Percent Pledge, we decided to set our biggest goal yet to cross that half a million dollar threshold.
_{Monica Grant Cohen, Director of Community Investment}

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Solutions

With the Percent Pledge Giving Platform powering everything, DRW’s Community Investment team and Community Champions had the freedom to design their most engaging and impactful Giving Challenge yet.

• Bonus Matching Benefit: DRW added a second $500 match during the challenge, increasing donation amounts.
• Hot Takes Challenges: A spicy wing challenge in the spirit of “Hot Ones” for offices hitting 50% participation. The firm-wide goal unlocked an executive challenge.
• Daily Employee Video Spotlights: Employees shared stories in Slack and on office monitors, with each one highlighting a different nonprofit. These allowed employees to share their personal connections to the nonprofits they supported, and to show that employees could support whichever causes or charities they care about most. 

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‍Live Leaderboards

People were refreshing the leaderboards constantly! I got Slack DMs saying ‘Oh my gosh, we’re climbing!’ The data visualizations really drove engagement across our global offices.
_{Monica Grant Cohen, Director of Community Investment}

Cause Portfolios

ERGs kept asking, ‘Is it too late to create a Cause Portfolio? We’d love to have one!’ The vetted portfolios are a game-changer for people who want to give but don’t have time to research.
_{Monica Grant Cohen, Director of Community Investment}

Global Donation Processing

There's no way we would have able to process donations to 751 nonprofits globally without Percent Pledge.
_{Monica Grant Cohen, Director of Community Investment}

Expert Support

Percent Pledge’s customer service was also amazing. Our Montreal office gave a special shoutout for how quick it was to get a response or add a new charity.
_{Monica Grant Cohen, Director of Community Investment}

Also included with Percent Pledge Campaigns feature set: Campaign Home Pages, Campaign Dashboards & Reporting, Custom User Groups, Automated Communications, and more. 

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Outcomes

The 2024 Holiday Giving Challenge was DRW’s most successful yet:

• $635,400 raised (127% of the goal, up 86% YoY).
• 781 employees participated, including 455 first-timers.
• 751 nonprofits supported.

Bonus: Hot Takes Challenge unlocked – top executives took on the spicy challenge!

This year reinforced the importance of the right tools and strategy. With Percent Pledge handling operations, DRW focused on engaging employees and maximizing impact.

Ready to boost your company’s community impact and employee engagement? Let’s chat and show you how our platform makes it easy to donate and volunteer globally! Pick a time here. 

Want to learn more about the Percent Pledge Campaigns feature set? See full details here.  

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I was stressed until we crossed the $500,000 mark. Then we crossed it and I kept watching it tick up to 600, 610, 630! Leadership was thrilled by the firm-wide participation.

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