Hunter Industries Switches to CSR Software That Simplifies Social Impact

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The number one thing I hear from employees is that Percent Pledge is intuitive and easy to use.

I've had people ping me on Teams out of nowhere to say this platform is great.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg, Senior Sustainability and Social Impact Specialist}

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About Hunter

Hunter Industries is a trusted global manufacturer of landscape irrigation and outdoor lighting systems. Its workforce comprises 1,000 to 5,000 employees in manufacturing facilities and offices worldwide, with most employees working on the floor. 

Like many companies its size, Hunter needed corporate volunteering software and a giving platform that could reach a largely deskless, distributed workforce. Its social impact program runs on a Combined Rewards Cap model that grants each employee $1,000 per year to put toward matching gifts, Dollars for Doers cause credits, or both. Through Dollars for Doers, employees earn $20 in cause credits for every hour they volunteer, which they can direct to any nonprofit they choose. 

For years, Hunter ran the program on a large legacy corporate social responsibility (CSR) platform. Over time, the team started asking whether they had the best tool for the job.

To hear the story in their own words, we sat down with Warren Gorowitz, Director of Sustainability and Social Impact, and Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg, Senior Sustainability and Social Impact Specialist.

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Why Switch? Better Employee Experience and Customer Support 

Gorowitz's ethos is simple: Always keep a pulse on what's out there. That mindset is what brought Hunter to Percent Pledge. 

Two things were on his mind:

We were looking to improve our employee experience and how our employees interact with our giving and volunteering platform. We were also looking for better support and more responsiveness from the partner we'd be working with.
_{Warren Gorowitz, Director of Sustainability and Social Impact}

Their legacy platform worked, but it didn’t make giving and volunteering feel easy. For a company where most employees aren't on computers, anything that adds friction kills participation. The vendor relationship had also become formal. Bureaucratic. Changes came slowly. 

"Changes and improvements just didn't always happen at the pace we wanted," Gorowitz said.

The employee side made the case even more clearly. "There are so many barriers to employees getting into a platform already," Mostert-Freiberg said. "Platform complexity is not another barrier we want to add on top of that."

This pattern isn't unique to Hunter. Percent Pledge has helped many companies upgrade from legacy CSR platforms, and the two most common triggers are exactly what Gorowitz named: employee experience and customer support. 

When he previously chose a CSR platform, he ran a full competitive evaluation. Multiple vendors. Multiple bids. When it came to Percent Pledge, he felt instantly comfortable.

I didn't go look at any other platforms. Based on the conversations and interactions we had and what I saw, I didn't need to look anywhere else.
_{Warren Gorowitz}

A big reason why he felt so comfortable is something he did do: customer reference calls. Speaking with others who had moved from the same large legacy CSR platform to Percent Pledge was critical:

I asked a lot of questions, and you set me up to talk with other customers that had been in the same situation we were in. I was adamant about wanting to talk to other [legacy platform] customers so I could truly understand. Being able to have those candid conversations goes far.
_{Warren Gorowitz}

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The Smooth Transition from Legacy CSR to Percent Pledge 

Switching workplace giving software mid-program is not trivial. But the transition was one of the smoothest Hunter has experienced. 

We've implemented multiple different software platforms. This is one of the smoother ones.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

Gorowitz added: “What we went through when we switched to [the legacy platform] was a lot more complicated.”

HRIS integration was fast and clean. There were no third-party customization fees or weeks of back-and-forth. SSO went smoothly and the pieces they expected to be complicated mostly weren’t.

For our integrations, it was really easy for us to just click a button and be up.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

The biggest change was moving employees off payroll giving. Some of Hunter's most committed givers had used payroll deductions for years, so the team put real thought into how they communicated the shift. Their messaging never framed it as a loss. Instead, it focused on what employees could still do: automated monthly giving, the same recurring outcome, with more visibility and less friction.

"You will have the ability to make automated monthly donations," was how they put it. Not "you're losing payroll deductions."

"We explained everything, so they understood why it was actually better for them," said Gorowitz.

The shift landed without significant pushback.

Recurring administrative tasks became faster too. 

It took me 45 minutes to process invoices for matching gifts and Dollars for Doers with our previous CSR platform. Now it takes me 15 minutes. A third of the time!
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

Reporting improved as well. With their old platform, checking numbers meant logging into a completely separate system. Now Mostert-Freiberg can simply look at a live dashboard and see exactly where the program stands. 

The live reporting in Percent Pledge is great. I can just glance and get a feel for things.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

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Strong Partnership with a Dedicated Social Impact Manager

After the switch, Hunter and Percent Pledge built a strong working relationship:

I'd rate our working relationship with Percent Pledge as really high.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

A big part of this can be credited to Hunter’s work with Lenna Daniels, a social impact manager at Percent Pledge who previously launched and ran social impact programs at a global tech company. Percent Pledge intentionally builds its social impact manager team with people who have run programs like the ones they're supporting rather than hiring generalist customer success managers.

"My relationship with Lenna is incredible," Mostert-Freiberg said. "When something comes up, she doesn't open a ticket. She sends a message and gets a real answer."

We've had a good experience because of the one-to-one, personal relationship that we get with Percent Pledge.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

That looks very different from how support worked at the legacy platform. "If we had a challenge, we’d put in a help ticket and that would go through the appropriate channels, which could take days,” said Mostert-Freiberg. “Whereas now I have Lenna. I just send her something directly and get active support immediately."

Mostert-Freiberg summed up the difference simply:

Percent Pledge is a nimbler company, from both a tech perspective and a customer service perspective. The team is really responsive, timely, and able to respond to our needs really well.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

Gorowitz added that responding to their needs extends to feedback too. Percent Pledge proved that they were always open to receiving it and welcoming it, continuously working to improve service and implement changes fast.

At [our old platform], it was a process. Here, it's like we're having a conversation, and you're already thinking of ways to help resolve our challenges.
_{Warren Gorowitz}

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“Percent Pledge Is Intuitive and Easy to Use” 

The employee experience has also improved. Employees keep saying so themselves: 

The number one thing I hear from employees is that Percent Pledge is intuitive and easy to use.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

Ease of use was one of the main factors in Hunter’s move to Percent Pledge, and it’s even more important for a company of Hunter’s makeup:

There are many barriers to employees getting into a platform, especially for a manufacturing company where most of our employees aren't on a computer. Platform complexity is not a barrier we want to add on top of that, so Percent Pledge has been amazing.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

When asked what specifically about the interface stuck out to her, Mostert-Freiberg pointed to the design itself:

What stands out is the simplicity of the design. Things are above the page line. They’re clear and easy to find. The simpler you can get, the better.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

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Results

Volunteering Has Hit New Highs in Year 1 with Percent Pledge

Since moving to Percent Pledge, Hunter has maintained high donations and set new highs for employee volunteer engagement.

We set a goal to get over 1,000 volunteer hours in 2026, and this week we bumped it up to 1,200. We’re easily going to hit 1,000, so we want to push employees to make an even greater impact.
_{Kim-Ashleigh Mostert-Freiberg}

For context, Hunter logged 937 volunteer hours in 2025. Midway through 2026, they were already past 700, and the second half of the year is historically when volunteering spikes, driven by year-end campaigns and the holiday giving season.

Much of the growth came from the combination of Hunter’s existing Dollars for Doers benefit and Percent Pledge’s new Grow Your Impact tool. Now when employees log volunteer hours, they earn $20 in Cause Credits, and a tree is planted (1 volunteer hour = 1 tree planted). Hunter has found it works for two reasons:

• It's easy to explain and market. "It's easy for employees to grasp a dollar or an hour a tree," Mostert-Freiberg said.
• It's a great way for employees to keep making an impact, even after their $1,000 benefit is maxed out. Engagement never hits a ceiling. 

Percent Pledge’s corporate volunteering software has made it easier for employees to log their hours, and Grow Your Impact has served as an effective extra incentive for employees to log hours.

The results showed up in unexpected places. 

During Earth Week, Hunter ran an office competition. The team with the greatest participation won lunch with Gorowitz. The winning team was the night shift, working from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Gorowitz showed up at 2:30 in the morning with food.

"Talking to some of the people, I even showed them how to log into the platform," Gorowitz said. "It was cool to see that people were interested. We made it so easy for them."

Fee Transparency

Hunter covers all donation fees for employees, and Percent Pledge shows employees a full breakdown in-platform. Every employee can see how 100% of their donation goes to the nonprofit(s) of their choice, thanks to Hunter. 

That visibility flows back into how the team talks about the program internally.

"We market this as an employee benefit,” Mostert-Frieberg said. “We talk about their benefits package and how Hunter supports their giving and volunteering. Covering the fees is just another way to feed into that."

That transparency, paired with the simplicity of the platform, has led to bigger donations. One in particular stood out to the team. A Hunter business unit president donated $10,000 through the platform — 10 times his $1,000 match cap. Gorowitz explained:

The simplicity of the platform and the Hunter-covered fees were incentives for him to donate this huge amount through Percent Pledge, even over donating to the nonprofit directly.
_{Warren Gorowitz}

On the Verge Of Maxing Out Their Budget Cap

Higher engagement, bigger donations, and growing volunteer participation are adding up. For the first time, Hunter is running a social impact program on track to max out its own matching budget. Gorowitz is sure of it:

I don't know when it's going to happen. But at some point, we are going to hit our cap and have to say, 'We’re sorry, we're out of our budget because we hit it for the year.’ That'll be a great problem to have!
_{Warren Gorowitz}

For a corporate giving program, maxing out the match cap is the goal. It means employees showed up, gave and volunteered more, and the program did exactly what it was built to do.

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Why Hunter Industries Recommends Percent Pledge

With results like these, Gorowitz was quick to answer whether he would recommend Percent Pledge to other CSR and Social Impact leaders considering alternatives to legacy CSR software:

Yes. I would definitely recommend Percent Pledge to others.
_{Warren Gorowitz}

The reasons: 

• A smooth transition
• A strong partnership with a dedicated social impact manager
• A platform that makes donating and volunteering easy for employees
• Low, transparent fees on donations
• Results like setting new highs for volunteers and volunteer hours logged in year 1 with Percent Pledge

One more thing stood out to Gorowitz. Percent Pledge's corporate volunteering platform automatically sends post-event surveys to attendees, and the feedback and testimonials are collected into an organized view within Hunter's Admin Dashboard. The responses have made a huge impression: 

I saw the volunteer testimonials and thought, this is why we do what we do. This is why we have a program like this.
_{Warren Gorowitz}

Having a platform that collects positive feedback, in the moment, gives Hunter something they didn't have before. Gorowitz is hoping it keeps coming as volunteering grows, with plans to use the glowing testimonials in communications about their program.

"No one really knows what a perfect employee giving and volunteering program looks like. There’s no playbook," Mostert-Freiberg said. "It's important to partner with a platform that's innovative, trying to keep up with the times, and moving in sync with them. That's something I think we found with Percent Pledge."

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More Companies Making the Switch from Legacy CSR Software

Hunter Industries isn't the only company that left a large legacy CSR platform and found something better.

Progress Software logged more volunteer hours in their first six months on Percent Pledge than in the prior three years combined on their legacy platform. Read the Progress Software story.

Edelman Financial Engines saw participation jump more than 50% in under three months after switching mid-year, maxing out their annual matching budget for the first time ever. Read the Edelman Financial Engines story.

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Ready to Make the Switch?

Book a demo to see how Percent Pledge would work for your team.

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