Community Involvement: Giving Back And Boosting Your Bottom Line
Fortune Magazine’s article, Why Companies That Give Back Also Receive, boldly states that companies that give back are the most successful. At Preferred Client Services, we believe that there are many reasons why this is true.
Customers want to support companies that better their community. Unfortunately, participation in the community and charities is something many businesses ignore.
Can participating in charities and in the community really contribute to your bottom line? Here’s why community involvement is important to your business.
You Help Your Community
Every business wants to be known as an influence, especially in their own backyard. The best way to spread your business name is by first reaching out to your community.
Helping your community doesn’t only benefit your town and your neighbors. Your community will gain trust in you. This gives them more leverage to support your business. This not only brings more sales to your business but you’ll bring in more devoted customers.
There are two ways you can help your community: direct help and indirect help.
Direct help is what most businesses think of when they give back. Direct help is donating to charities or organizing charitable events. Indirect help is also effective. This is when a business has involvement in a community deed but isn’t a direct presence. An example is helping rebuild a historic building, such as promoting the restoration on your social media.
Indirect Giving is especially recommended for small businesses. When startups and small businesses immediately participate in the community, they immediately gain a positive local reputation. Helping your community also doesn’t require a lot of time and money. Even a simple deed, such as volunteering at a soup kitchen every Saturday, will help boost the public’s perception of your business.
There are also community and non-profit industries that can fit your niche. For example, if you own a camping store, look into local nature conservation groups or volunteer at a park.
You’ll Set Positive Goals
Many businesses strive to achieve more sales, more money, and more success. While these goals aren’t bad, they only benefit your business and not those around you. Using your success to benefit your community will help you set more positive goals in the long run. For example, maybe you discovered a problem in your local community. One of the goals you can set is achieving more sales in the next quarter and using a percentage of that revenue to help fix the problem.
Setting positive goals not only makes you more successful but also more humble. You’ll take a philanthropic approach to certain issues and you’ll make others happy. Staying positive also makes you analytical and you can see the world from eyes that are not your own.
Your Marketing Will Improve
These days, everything is on social media. What do some of your social media updates look like? Maybe you’re promoting a new product or you just recently attended a convention. While these updates are fine, your marketing will improve if you give back to the community and share your efforts online. When potential customers see you giving back, they will feel better about supporting your business compared to your competitors.
How do you use your philanthropy in your marketing?
Show how you give back to the community by posting about any donations or other community efforts. If you host your own community event, such as trash cleanup, explain what you do and how it has improved your community. You can also share what you’ve done in the past. This includes community events, donations, and other community efforts.
You shouldn’t only share these efforts on social media. Create a page on your website that shows how you give back to your community.
Inspire a Safe and Productive Community
It only takes one business to leave a lasting impact on your community. Your business alone can inspire others to do better and to follow their dreams. For example, let’s say there’s an impoverished school that doesn’t receive the best educational support. You and your staff can volunteer and teach these students vital skills that relate to your business. Let’s say you own a technology company, you can teach them vital skills such as coding that these students will use in this field.
This not only inspires a productive and talented community. When more people are focused on a passion or a skill, they won’t commit crimes and other harmful activities. By focusing on your business’ skills, you may inspire students to pursue these skills and they can one day join your team.
Another way you can inspire your community’s betterment is by helping rebuild, restore, or renovate any run-down areas. This will boost the economy and pave the way for more businesses to enter. Who knows, maybe you can open a new or second location in this area.
You Inspire Your Employees to Do Better
Your philanthropic efforts don’t only inspire your community, they also inspire your employees. Giving back makes us happier than receiving. And every employer knows an office full of happy employees means more productivity and better employee retention.
When you host events or participate in the community, invite your employees. Don’t make their participation mandatory but offer an incentive, such as the day off the following Friday.
Participating in community events is also fun and will help your staff de-stress from a long day at work. Since you and your staff are working as a team outside of the office, your office relationships will also improve and you can all improve your collaboration skills.
What are some business community involvement ideas you and your staff can do? You can all help the homeless by donating food and old clothing to homeless shelters. During the holidays, you can all buy presents for children in need.
Community Involvement Also Means Supporting Local Businesses
It’s easy for business owners to get so caught up in their business that they forget their community. But business community involvement is an important addition to your business growth strategy. Giving back helps your bottom line by achieving devoted customers, inspiring your employees, and making your community thrive.
Community involvement also means supporting local businesses. Is your business based in Edmonton? If you’re looking to outsource your accounting, trust your local accounting neighbors! Take a look at our services.