How StoneX Sparked Local Engagement in Their Global Giving Program

StoneX is an American financial services company with over 60 offices around the world. While their workplace giving program is heavily influenced by an employee-led philanthropy group within the company, much of the back-end management of the program falls to the StoneX benefits team. In particular, Candy Olesen, global benefits program manager, and Rosemary Carlson, HR administrative manager. 

“What [Bright Funds] offers to us has been a game changer because, in terms of the pre-established campaigns and being able to do the conversion numbers. It's been a huge administrative lift for us.”

Candy Olesen

Global Benefits Program Manager

On top of their regular human resource duties, Candy and Rosemary are responsible for the administration of the giving and volunteering program. It’s a big job. 

They’re tasked with creating programs that engage employees at all 60 locations while also handling the technical aspects, such as currency conversion, scheduling, and communication. 

As the program began to gain momentum within the company, Candy and Rosemary realized the CSR software they were using wasn’t keeping up. 

A software falling short 

For three years, StoneX used Benevity to power their employee giving and volunteering. They chose Benevity in large part because Benevity was a StoneX customer. But the software was falling short. 

Problem #1 Underwhelming participation 

Even though there was a lot of enthusiasm around workplace giving at StoneX, many employees weren’t getting involved. Candy and Rosemary realized the Benevity platform was part of the problem. 

“It wasn't the easiest to use from our perspective,” Rosemary says. Employees were getting confused and frustrated when they tried to sign up.

When people did sign up, participation was lumpy. Some locations had better engagement than others. The US and UK had stronger numbers, but offices in Europe and Asia were lagging behind. Benevity just wasn’t effective at getting everyone involved.

Problem #2 Limited support

As a benefits team with HR duties, Rosemary and Candy needed more than just technical support for the giving and volunteering program. They needed true consultation with a team that could provide ideas and direction on how to make programs work well. “We're spread pretty thin and don't have a whole lot of time,” Rosemary says. 

Benevity didn’t provide much beyond basic technical support, which meant that Candy and Rosemary were on their own to figure out all the details. “We didn't feel like we got a lot of support from our client service manager as far as ideas and campaigns and helping us put that information together,” Rosemary says. The StoneX experience was not unique; Benevity gets only a 2.7 rating on Capterra for their customer service. 

Problem #3 Time lost to back-end management

Although Benevity was supposed to streamline the giving program, Candy and Rosemary found themselves spending too much time on manual tasks—often for aspects of the program that should happen automatically. 

Manual currency conversion 

At every StoneX office, employees gave in their local currencies. The problem was, Benevity didn't do the currency conversion to US dollars. 

“It was difficult to manage on the back end because everything was in the currency of the country that those particular employees were assigned to,” Rosemary says. 

The benefits team had to manually convert all local currencies into USD themselves. This added a lot of work and made it difficult to manage the budget. 

Inconsistent donation matching

Too frequently, company matching didn’t go through correctly on the Benevity platform. When that happened, Candy and Rosemary had to go through and manually match donations one by one. 

“It got really messy from an administrative standpoint,” Rosemary says. Once they even had to shut the program down for a while to allow time to complete the matches. Employees couldn’t donate during that time, which eroded trust in the platform and, most importantly, the program. 

Solution: A platform that makes giving personal 

When StoneX was up for a contract renewal with Benevity, Candy and Rosemary decided to see what other options were available. That’s when they found Bright Funds—which is now part of Submittable—and knew it was time for a change. 

Though they were excited about the possibilities on Bright Funds, Candy and Rosemary didn’t want to pause the giving program to switch software. The Bright Funds team helped them make the switch without any program downtime—and on a tight timeline. The full implementation took only four weeks. 

“It's probably been one of the smoothest transitions and implementations I've gone through,” Candy says.

With Bright Funds, StoneX saw that they could make workplace giving a more personal experience for every employee. And they could cut down on administrative work for their team. 

1. Empower employees at the local level

StoneX needed a platform that would engage the employees at every one of their 60 offices around the globe. With Bright Funds, Candy and Rosemary empowered employees to launch their own initiatives. 

After switching, they noticed a significant rise in interest and participation.“It's been much more robust with campaigns and people actually reaching out saying, ‘hey, I want to do this,’” Candy says. With local offices creating their own events and campaigns, employees can champion causes that are personal to them. 

For example, the office in Poland created a campaign focused on pets—a popular cause due to the high number of Ukrainian pets that have been relocated to the area. 

High local engagement is only possible because the Bright Funds platform is easy to use for everyone. Plus, with 8 million vetted charities in the Bright Funds and Submittable system, employees can find the causes and nonprofits that feel most meaningful to them. Candy and Rosemary don’t feel like they have to personally recruit employees to get involved. 

Employees are naturally spreading the word amongst themselves. “We've seen some positive engagement in the program because employees are talking to each other about how easy it is to get in there and utilize the platform,” Candy says. 

One thing they’ve noticed since the switch is that a wider range of employees are getting involved. More than 300 have participated in the match program. “I'm seeing more small donations—so there’s more participation across the board rather than just the people who can afford to donate $5,000 or $10,000,” Rosemary says. 

I'm seeing more small donations—so there’s more participation across the board rather than just the people who can afford to donate $5,000 or $10,000.

Rosemary Carlson

HR Administrative Manager

2. Lean on a true partner

Though the StoneX leadership team supports the employee giving program, they don’t provide much guidance about how to structure or run the programs. It’s on the benefits team–Candy and Rosemary–to figure that out. 

With Bright Funds and Submittable, Candy, Rosemary, and Sara Grant, their customer success manager, team up to come up with campaigns and test out new ideas. “We've really appreciated the way Sara's been able to help us with setting up campaigns and helping employees as they have questions,” Rosemary says. 

Rosemary and Candy are no longer left to strategize on their own. Their biweekly meetings with Sara give them a venue to bring their questions. She offers insights on everything from driving engagement to building a communication strategy.

3. Keep it simple with one invoice 

Using Bright Funds has given the benefits team back their time. Rather than having to do the currency conversion for all their different locations, Bright Funds does the conversion and sends StoneX a single invoice in USD. This has taken a big burden off of the benefits team and made it much easier for them to manage the giving budget. 

“What [Bright Funds] offers to us has been a game changer because, in terms of the pre-established campaigns and being able to do the conversion numbers,” Candy says. “It's been a huge administrative lift for us.”

The matching is also completely automatic. Candy and Rosemary can set the parameters and trust that when employees make a donation or log volunteer hours, the company matching kicks in as it’s supposed to. There’s no more manually matching donations one at a time or pausing the program to catch up on the backlog. 

All this has helped shift the whole culture around workplace giving. Rather than being a source of frustration, it’s become a point of pride for the whole StoneX team. 

Create a giving program that can grow with you

With Bright Funds and Submittable now in place, the StoneX giving program is building momentum. Giving is becoming an integral part of the brand. 

Candy and Rosemary no longer have to worry that administrative load or the lack of support will hold the program back. As they look ahead, they’re laying the groundwork for initiatives like more GivingTuesday campaigns, a company-wide volunteer day, and a new hire giving program. 

Part of what Candy and Rosemary have learned through the process is that finding the right partner can open up the possibilities for the future. If you’re looking for help as you launch or evolve your giving program, get in touch with the Bright Funds and Submittable team today to learn how we can support your mission.