Supporting your community can be a rewarding way to use your company profits and influence. It could also have a positive impact on your sales – by helping you to build a positive brand reputation, you could find that you attract more customers. Here are just five ways in which you can give back to your community.
Charity donations
Donating funds to local charities is a great way to give back to your community. You could make a large one-off donation or you could find a way of continuously donating proceeds to a charity (such as donating a dollar from every sale). It’s important to find a charity that you believe strongly in. You could even set up your own charity.
Community events
Hosting or sponsoring events can be another way of giving back to your community. This could be a fair, a concert or a sports event. This could be a charity event or an event that simply supports artists or other businesses. It’s generally much easier to sponsor an event as you don’t have to worry about organising the actual event. However, if you’ve got a creative idea for your own event, it could be worth giving it a go – there are event planning companies that you can pay to organize it for you. You can compare a few event planning companies at socialtables.com.
Building projects
You could also consider funding local building projects such as schools, parks, churches or other community buildings. You could provide the funding entirely yourself or you could look into ways of raising money from the public such as brick fundraising at brickmarkers.com. You could even suggest building projects that you think your community could benefit from and campaign for support.
Local business support
There may be other fellow businesses that you can support. Such businesses may need funding and could be looking for local investors. Alternatively, you could help promote a company with marketing such as recommending them on your site or allowing flyers to be displayed in your premises. Of course, you should make sure that there’s no conflict of interest – funding or promoting potential competitors is not a good business move.
Mentorship programs
Another way of giving back to your local community could be to start a mentorship program. This could involve teaching young people skills within your trade or simply offering a couple week’s work experience (some schools have work experience programs that your company may be able to sign up to). There could also be other ways of passing on knowledge including hosting seminars or workshops.
