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Having a profitable, well-respected, and competitive company are good goals to strive for but it’s also important to have a broader mindset that goes beyond your establishment’s walls. More specifically, you need to strongly consider giving resources to charitable causes. There are several things that occur when you make the smart decision to go ahead with that option.
Your Visibility Goes Up
In most cases, showing support for a charity makes you more visible in the community. There are numerous ways that could happen. For example, you might agree to act as the main sponsor for a golf tournament that supports breast cancer research. If there is a printed program distributed at that event, all the attendees could potentially see your business name when they check information about times, participating golfers, or event locations.
By agreeing to support a given charity, the name of your business will also probably be featured on a respective website. It might also be mentioned within a small business news article about the event.
People May Start Buying More Frequently From You Instead of Competitors
The more your current and potential customers see evidence of your business doing good things that help others, the more likely they will be to give their support to your products or services. A survey of over 2,000 respondents indicated people in the 18-34 age group, otherwise known as the Millennial generation, are more likely than older individuals to support companies that give back to charities. They show their support in several ways, such as buying products, recommending the company to friends, and wanting to work at the business.
Millennials make up a massive segment of society and so they probably represent a big portion of your target market too. Although you shouldn’t completely shift your business practices so they appeal to Millennials alone, the data above proves it’s worthwhile to at least see if there are things you can do to spur charitable involvement at the company level.
Realize that almost all charitable efforts start with the mere desire to do something good for others. As long as you have that, you’re off to a great start and it doesn’t necessarily matter if your company is very small or otherwise does not have an abundance of resources to contribute to charities.
Raised Morale Among Employees
It’s also common for employees to feel happier about coming to work if they know they’re working for companies that are actively supporting charities. Even when people are earning substantial incomes and generally pleased with their lives, they often feel unhappy because they’d like to show gratitude for the resources they’ve been given by directly engaging with charities of choice.
There are many ways your employees can get involved with charitable efforts and they don’t all involve giving money. Consider helping interested employees get set up with ways they can volunteer for branches of their preferred charities locally. Due to internet-related advancements, it may even be possible for people to give their time and talents to charities by telecommuting and serving in non-for-profit accounting roles.
You might also launch matching initiatives so every time an employee donates an amount to a specified charity, your company doubles the contribution. That approach is a good one to present to workers who feel helpless because they’re under the impression they are powerless to enact any real, meaningful changes within charities.
Your Community May Experience an Economic Boost
If you’re feeling adventurous and want to keep your charitable involvement as local as possible, explore ways your business could host or heavily sponsor a festival that supports a charity. Eugene Chrinian is the owner of Factory Direct Enterprises, LLC. While in that role, he oversees 13 Ashley Furniture HomeStore locations in the metro New York and New Jersey areas, along with a huge distribution center.
He’s a busy man, but not too tied up in other obligations to think about effective ways to support worthy communities. Specifically, Chrinian was instrumental in establishing Ashley for the Arts, a three-day music and arts festival held annually since 2009 in Arcadia, a destination in Wisconsin that’s home to only about 3,000 people. During the festival though, as many as 30,000 people flock to the 54-acre Soldiers Walk Memorial Park and enjoy the memorable celebration.
Clearly, the event offers huge potential economic advantages to Arcadia’s residents and businesses. Your charitable efforts could do the same especially if you focus on venues and towns other people might not think of because of their relatively small sizes.
Need more reasons why there’s no better time than now for your business to throw its support behind at least one charity? Just ask any types of business leaders you respect. More than likely, they already support worthy causes that promote the greater good or are at least thinking of doing so in the near future because of the perks described above and others.
