While the market doesn’t necessarily reward companies for announcing philanthropic gestures in the short-term, giving back to the community is a long-standing tradition for many companies, and its advantages show up in many ways that are hard to quantify when speculators are assessing your performance. That’s why so many businesses that choose to reinvest in the communities they come from find themselves standing the test of time. In addition to the sometimes intangible benefits like goodwill and community support in return, today’s businesses are finding there’s a real return on investments in social responsibility, including both the adoption of green policies and the financing of humanitarian goals. Let’s talk about the clear gains your business can make by investing in the people around you.
1. Philanthropy Is Indirect Marketing
The old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity may hold true for celebrities who make their money on being in the public eye, but it certainly doesn’t apply to businesses. For companies, positive coverage is great, but anything else can spell disaster, affecting both sales and stock prices. When businesses give back, their contributions are usually seen as newsworthy, at least locally. For big companies like Facebook, national media attention is easy to garner through charitable gestures that make an impact on the national or international stage. Whether you’re looking to show your home town that you appreciate their support for your company or you’re starting a nation-wide charitable initiative, gaining publicity for positive acts is a form of marketing. At the end of the day, you might do it because it’s right, but you also benefit from being seen doing the right thing.
2. Giving Back Improves Morale and Cohesiveness
When your business sets an example through philanthropy, it helps show your employees that the company prioritizes the community. That, in turn, boosts morale and employee investment in the well-being of the company, which helps bring teams together to pull toward shared goals. On top of that indirect influence, using your business’s giving as a chance to pull the team together can do even more. That’s why many companies include everyone in a drive to give back by offering incentives like matching or even doubling employee contributions. When everyone helps enrich the community, everyone sees themselves as a part of the business making the change. It’s a simple but powerful way to unite the people in your organization, and that unity can carry through to other projects when it’s harnessed by a pro-active, ethical management team.
3. It Builds Goodwill Abroad
Today’s businesses need to look toward the global marketplace if they want to truly establish themselves as players in the industry. Not only is international trade where the biggest and best opportunities tend to be, but market share is also now global for many companies. That means even when you don’t plan on competing internationally, sometimes international competition comes to you. Social responsibility demonstrates a commitment to a greater good, which helps build the reputation you need when you’re seeking to expand your work into a new locale. Engaging with international humanitarian organizations and global philanthropists like Dr. Ehsan Bayat is a solid way of demonstrating your commitment to humanitarian causes on a wider scale. Even if your involvement is not in a country or territory you plan on expanding into, it shows that your company thinks about itself as a global citizen.
Building a Plan of Action for Giving Back
Whether you are thinking about doing something to improve the lives of the people who live and work near your headquarters or you’re looking to show your commitment to improving life for people around the world, you need a plan of action for your business’s giving. Is the goal to spin out your own foundation, identifying causes and operators working on them who need funding? Is it to empower those organizations that already exist for the purpose of financial resources? What about your team? Are you looking to pull people together in community involvement, shaping a sense of civic duty and collective involvement that brings your team together?
Deciding to do a company-wide giving drive is a bigger commitment than earmarking profits for reinvestment in the community through philanthropy. Even if it is often well worth the rewards, it’s not always practical for companies that have just recently established themselves as major players in the industry, which is why planning your strategy for giving back is so important. It might be that the first few years are about establishing your goals as a company committed to social responsibility, with the involvement of your team as an eventual goal. It might also be just the time to bring everyone aboard for a major push that establishes your company’s full commitment to global philanthropy from the top down. If you’re not sure, it might be worth bringing in a consultant who understands both what is possible and what is needed in the areas where you are most interested in giving back.
