CSR Team Building: How to Put a Team Day in Your ESG Report

Every year someone in a company is asked to write the CSR section of the annual report, and every year they open the document and find nothing concrete to put in it. A statement of intent isn’t a result, and the person reading the report knows it.

We’ve run charity team building since 2011, and the reporting question comes up in almost every conversation we have with leadership and HR teams. It’s one reason our events end with a charity collecting equipment in front of the team that built it.

This guide covers what a report needs, why a physical build is easier to evidence than a cash gift, which events produce the clearest figures, how to match the charity to what you already support, and what we send you afterwards. Our page for leadership teams has the shorter version.

What is CSR team building?

CSR team building is a team event where the output goes to a charity. The team day and the charitable contribution happen in the same afternoon, on the same budget line.

What sets it apart from a normal team day is the evidence. Your team builds something, a charity takes it away, and there are photographs of both.

What sets it apart from a volunteering day is the teamwork. A fence gets painted however well the team gets on. A bike doesn’t get built unless they work together.

What does a CSR or ESG report need from a team day?

Four things, and you can collect all of them on the day.

What was built: bikes, sports wheelchairs, prosthetic hands, care packages.

How many: five bikes, two wheelchairs, twenty care packages.

Who received it: the named charity, and what they do.

When: the date the charity collected it.

Add the number of your own people who took part and you have a paragraph built on figures. Add the photograph of the handover and it can be the strongest page in the section, because very little else in a CSR report is that concrete.

Why is a physical build easier to evidence than a donation?

A cash donation is real and it helps. On the page, though, it’s a single line in the accounts.

A build is something you can point at. Every bike is safety checked by our mechanics and collected by the charity, almost always the same day. Wherever we can, the charity collects in front of your team, so you get a photograph of the handover.

The figure is exact, too. Five bikes is five bikes, and the charity that took them can confirm it. An auditor, a journalist or a client can check it for themselves.

Which charity team building events give the clearest figures?

Some builds produce a number that reads well on its own.

Charity Bike Build. Bikes go to people leaving hostels, young carers and families without a car. We’ve built more than 3,000 since 2011. It suits a mixed audience, and 25 bikes from a conference makes a strong line in any report. See the Charity Bike Build.

Performance Wheelchair Challenge. Sports wheelchairs go to inclusive clubs and SEND schools. We’ve donated 346 so far, and each one gives a young person years of access to sport. For a report, it’s the strongest single donation we offer. See the Performance Wheelchair Challenge.

The Hand Project. Prosthetic hands go to upper limb amputees in countries with no health service. It lands hardest with health and pharma audiences. Feedback from recipients arrives nine to twelve months later, which gives you a second line for next year’s report.

Great Philanthropic Challenge. The charity specifies what goes in the care packages, so the contents can match a cause your business already supports. We’ve delivered 631 so far.

How do you match the charity to what you already support?

We choose the charity to fit your business. If you have a stated focus, such as children, health, homelessness or sport, there’s an event whose donation fits it, and we’ll suggest the match.

If you already have a charity partner, the Great Philanthropic Challenge lets that charity write the list of what goes in the care packages. Your report then names the partner you already work with, with a new figure next to it.

If you don’t have one, we’ll match you to a charity, and your report names a real organisation with a real address.

Why does the same afternoon do two jobs?

The person who books a team day and the person who signs off the CSR budget are often different people, and they want different things from it.

HR wants a day people remember, with everyone involved and nobody put on the spot. Our page for HR and people teams covers that side. Leadership wants equipment delivered to a named charity on a date they can put in a report.

A charity build gives them both in one afternoon, for one price. Our guide to what charity team building costs has the figures, and they don’t change by location or date.

What do you receive after the event?

After every event we send you the story: photographs, the donation figures, and copy your team can post.

That’s what makes the report easy to write. The numbers are counted, the charity is named and the photographs are taken. Nobody on your side has to chase the charity for a quote or count bikes from a phone picture. Read how it works for the full run through, from the first call to the handover.

Does it matter that o3e is a B Corp?

To a procurement team, usually yes. We’re a certified B Corporation, independently assessed on how we treat our people, our charity partners and the planet, and the certification has to be renewed to keep it.

If your supplier questionnaire asks about sustainability, you’ll find us on the B Corp directory. We also hold full public liability cover and can send risk assessments and method statements to your compliance team.

How to plan a team day that goes in the report

1. Decide what the report needs: a donation figure, a named charity, a headcount of your own people, or all three.
2. Pick the donation that fits your focus. Bikes for a mixed audience, wheelchairs or hands for health, care packages for a charity you already support.
3. Get a rough headcount and date. Put the headcount into our price tool and you’ll see three events with prices in about a minute.
4. Use the room you already have. Tell us the room size and we’ll say whether it fits.
5. Write the paragraph in advance: what, how many, who, when. Fill in the numbers after the handover from the figures we send.

Put a number in this year’s report

A CSR report needs things that happened. A charity build gives you what was built, how many, who received it and when, plus a photograph of the handover.

For your team, it’s the afternoon HR would have booked anyway. For the charity, it’s equipment they need, built by people who chose to spend the afternoon on it. Put your headcount into the price tool to see three events and prices.