In some jurisdictions it may be cheaper for the company to donate a given amount to charity than to pay it to an employee (because of tax rules intended to incentivize charitable donations).
The company may value both employee-motivation and helping charities.
The company may value being seen as the sort of company that helps charities.
This seems like a correct answer. The company (1) wants to be seen as the sort of company that helps charities, (2) doesn’t care deeply about the charities, and (3) wants to motivate employees.
The first part explains why they have a budget for charities, and the second and third part together explain why they let employees allocate that budget instead of the company doing it itself. The charitable explanation of the second part is that the company trusts their employees to have good knowledge about charities, and thus kinda outsources the research of good charities to them.
On the other hand, an uncharitable explanation is that if most employees don’t donate to charities, then this strategy allows the company to appear more generous than it actually is. For example, if a company with 1000 employees publicly declares to match each employee’s donations up to $1000, it gives an impression as if they are going to donate $1000000 to charities, while in fact they may know that only five of their employees actually donate to charities, so the expected expense is $5000. (There is a risk this could backfire, but maybe they did experiments with smaller sums in the previous years, and/or maybe there is a small print somewhere making an exception in the case that too many employees decide to donate.)
In some jurisdictions it may be cheaper for the company to donate a given amount to charity than to pay it to an employee (because of tax rules intended to incentivize charitable donations).
The company may value both employee-motivation and helping charities.
The company may value being seen as the sort of company that helps charities.
This seems like a correct answer. The company (1) wants to be seen as the sort of company that helps charities, (2) doesn’t care deeply about the charities, and (3) wants to motivate employees.
The first part explains why they have a budget for charities, and the second and third part together explain why they let employees allocate that budget instead of the company doing it itself. The charitable explanation of the second part is that the company trusts their employees to have good knowledge about charities, and thus kinda outsources the research of good charities to them.
On the other hand, an uncharitable explanation is that if most employees don’t donate to charities, then this strategy allows the company to appear more generous than it actually is. For example, if a company with 1000 employees publicly declares to match each employee’s donations up to $1000, it gives an impression as if they are going to donate $1000000 to charities, while in fact they may know that only five of their employees actually donate to charities, so the expected expense is $5000. (There is a risk this could backfire, but maybe they did experiments with smaller sums in the previous years, and/or maybe there is a small print somewhere making an exception in the case that too many employees decide to donate.)