When planning your company’s team building events, why not look for something that’s both beneficial for your employees and for your local community? By combining corporate social responsibility with a team building activity, you’ll not only present your team with a gratifying experience but you’ll also elevate your organization’s reputation at the same time. Here are just a few ideas about how to incorporate charitable experiences with your team building event:
- Create something for the local children’s hospital. Use your team’s creative thinking and fabrication skills to make something for the children staying in the local children’s hospital. Make it a competition among multiple departments or branches. The ultimate reward is the thought of all that hard work going to a worthy cause. A great example of this was CenturyLink’s participation in building high-end remote-control race cars for a children’s hospital.
- Help decorate the community. Break your workforce up into teams. Give each team one panel of a mural and have them work together to come up with a creative concept for their panel. The panels can then be donated to a local library or orphanage. The teamwork component comes in because each team is only given 4-6 colors and they must work together to create more colors. They also have to coordinate with the other teams to ensure the panels join seamlessly and cohesively.
- Build wheelchairs for disabled veterans. You can start the activity off with a trivia contest. Each correct answer gives players chips that they use to buy wheelchair parts and tool kits. Let each team build the backrest, footrests, and leg pegs for each wheelchair. At the end of the project, make sure the chairs are inspected by a professional to ensure safety and then donate them. You can make it more intense by turning into a competition as well.
- Build dog houses for local animal shelters. Have a team building event dedicated to building and decorating dog houses for needy animals. In a team building event for Wesco, the groups played games to earn points that allowed them to buy the materials needed for the doghouses. Then, another team would build the house with the bought materials, and the final team would decorate and customized the dwelling.
- Have a game show day and donate a portion of the winners proceeds to a charity of their choice. Invite your team to have a game show event in which they team up and play Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, or Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Use their points or dollar amount earned and donate an agreed upon portion to the charity of their choice. For the winners, you can buy them lunch or give them a paid day off to use at a time of their choosing.
No matter how complex or simple your charitable team building event is, every little bit helps the community and your team’s esteem. Use your team building events as a way to tell the community who you are and what you value as a company. Your employees will enjoy whatever activity you choose, as long as they know that their combined efforts are helping a noble cause.
How would you incorporate a charitable aspect to your team building event? Share your ideas with us. We’d love to hear them.
