The Impact of Charitable Team Building: How Our Customers Donated 7,200+ Items in 2023

Philanthropic team building activities provide proven benefits for your employees and organization. And, as our internal data shows, they also offer you and your colleagues the chance to make a tangible positive impact on real people.

There are a ton of reasons why philanthropic team building activities are beneficial for your organization. Studies have proven that:

• 93% of employees who volunteer through their company report being happy with their employers
• 54% of those who are proud of their company’s contributions to society are engaged at work

Giving back with your team also helps:

• Boost morale
• Support a stronger and more vibrant culture
• Support a more profitable bottom line

And since employees today seek employers with robust CSR programs, ethical practices, and a strong commitment to making a positive social impact, charitable team building can even make your organization more appealing to top talent.

But what about the flip side of the coin?

Beyond the benefits that charitable team building provides to your organization, these activities can also create tangible positive impacts for real people.

To help bring this fact to life, we’ve rounded up stats and data showing the difference our customers have made throughout 2023 alone.

Whether you’re a small business or a multinational organization, you and your colleagues can help brighten someone’s day—all while having a ton of fun and building stronger bonds in the process.

And to prove it, we’ve scoured through 12 months’ worth of data to quantify the volume of donations our customers have made through nearly 80 charitable team building activities, categorized by our most popular events in 2023.

Facilitating Play with Charity Bike Buildathon

This charitable team building activity is all about helping your team hone valuable business skills while doing some good in the world. With Charity Bike Buildathon, your workgroup splits into teams to build and decorate kids’ bikes. Once you’ve done so, you work collaboratively to develop an advertising campaign for your respective bicycles. Then you get to donate them all to a charity of your choice!

In 2023, we hosted 40 Charity Bike Buildathon events for customers across North America. And through those activities, these teams assembled and donated 394 bicycles to kids in need.

Each of those bikes provided kids with the opportunity to get outside and have fun. Each bike could last for years before being passed onto someone new.

Empowering Mobility with Wheelchairs for Charity

Doing good deeds has been scientifically proven to reduce stress and make people feel better. And our Wheelchairs for Charity activity fuses philanthropy with real-world learning outcomes to help participants give back while sharpening their business skills. Together, you and your colleagues will build and test fully functional wheelchairs before donating them to those in need. This exercise is great for helping your team members increase their empathy while enhancing their communication and collaboration skills.

Through the efforts of organizations ranging from small businesses to enterprises, these teams have donated 45 wheelchairs this year, providing those in need with assistive devices that help promote mobility and enhance quality of life.

Empowering Education with School Supply Scramble

Every child deserves a good education. That’s why School Supply Scramble focuses on providing underprivileged kids with the tools they need to succeed in school. Together, your team competes in a series of education-themed challenges to collect backpacks and school supplies which they’ll donate to a children’s charity.

Throughout 24 School Supply Scramble activities in 2023, we’ve seen our customers donate all kinds of classroom essentials, including:

• 745 backpacks
• 711 pencil cases
• 711 lunch boxes
• 902 reusable bottles
• 711 plush toys
• 1063 books
• 711 stationery boxes
• 101 kids’ jump ropes
• 450 board games

These donations have not only benefitted the kids who use them but also their families, helping to reduce the financial burden of purchasing them.

Supporting Our Troops with Military Support Mission

For many organizations and teams, the opportunity to support and celebrate our troops is a cause near and dear to their hearts. Military Support Mission does just that, providing you the chance to give back to military personnel serving abroad by completing challenges in order to earn items that you’ll use to build military care packages.

Working collaboratively to achieve this goal, our customers have donated:

• 105 men’s toiletry kits
• 105 women’s toiletry kits
• 170 rechargeable hand warmers

This is in addition to a number of toques, protein packs, neck warmers, flashlights, and thermal socks.

Custom Charitable Team Building Events

At Outback, we can create custom charitable team building events in order to support causes that are meaningful to you and your team.

For example, we’ve helped customers host events in support of animal shelters where they’ve donated things like:

• Nail clippers
• Booties
• Brushes
• Ear cleaners
• Paw cream
• Pet eye wipes
• Boxes of treats

And you can also add a charitable element to any of our team building activities with the ability to incorporate care kit assembly, including your choice of patient care kits and hygiene kits, to provide essential goods for those who need them most.

3 Other Charitable Team Building Activities to Choose From

If you’re interested in other types of philanthropic team building activities, we have three other options you can consider.

Hardware Harmony

In the United States alone, hundreds of thousands of people don’t have a home to call their own.

But with Hardware Harmony, your team can support a charity that assists those in need of affordable housing. In this activity, you’ll all break out into teams to play in fun, musical-themed challenges to earn household items and hardware you’ll use as instruments.

Then, you and your team will rehearse for a grand finale musical performance before donating your “instruments” to be used as supplies and tools to help put a roof over somebody’s head.

Do-Good Games

This budget-friendly philanthropic team building activity is all about connecting with your colleagues to complete challenges designed to provoke thought, spur discussion, and inspire action pertaining to some of the most pressing challenges facing our world today.

With The Do-Good Games, your team will break out into groups and compete in text, trivia, multiple choice, and media challenges focused on clean water and food insecurity, health and wellness, community support, and global environmental awareness. Groups will receive points for successfully completing each challenge.

Random Acts of Kindness

Sometimes, all people need is a quick smile to help brighten up their day. And with Random Acts of Kindness, that’s exactly what your team will provide them with. With this philanthropic scavenger hunt, your group will head out into your city and perform random good deeds for people in the community. 

Charitable team building offers benefits both to your employees and organization as well as to those who benefit from your team’s generosity. So, whether you have a small team or a large one, a modest budget or a significant one, you and your team can make a difference in the lives of real people—and our customers have proven the impact you can create.

Does your organization do any philanthropic activities? If so, please let us know about them in the comments section below!

Learn about how you can make a difference with charitable team building activities.  

If you’ve got questions about philanthropic team building activities, reach out to an Employee Engagement Consultant.