Doing good with your business and giving back shouldn’t just be something that is done at the end of the year.
Did you catch Maggie O’Reilly’s podcast interview on how her ethical and sustainable fashion brand Mayta Collection is changing lives, doing good for the local artisans of Peru and Morocco as well as regularly giving back to the community? Maggie is truly an inspiration and the conversation with her left us wondering how other businesses and business owners can also do more for the communities they live, work and operate in.
If you missed Maggie’s interview, you can listen to it here.
There are several ways you can giveback to your community, your tribe or even just your circle of friends and colleagues. A few weeks ago, we highlighted the story of Annie Spratt, a photographer, who shares her images for free for anyone to use. Her philosophy and her thought process around why she does it is very inspiring.
If working for free or giving stuff away for free is not something you are comfortable doing, here are other non-monetary ways to ‘give back’.
#1 Donate your talent
We are all experts in the areas of work that we focus in. Sometimes giving back can be as simple as sharing your expertise for free. You don’t have to share your trade secrets but having a cup of coffee with an aspiring entrepreneur and highlighting what worked and what did not work is all that is needed to help a fellow business owner. If there are some specific questions around the way you do some things, sharing openly can be quite liberating. Often what makes us unique as a business is our unique personality, and no-one can copy that. So donate your talent and watch someone else flourish and grow.
#2 Donate time
If you have some extra time to help out another business or person, use that time wisely. This can be done in small increments or even as one chunk of time. Being a small business owner is overwhelming especially during the initial stages of a business. Having an extra set of hands or eyes will always be much appreciated.
#3 Donate items
Sometimes giving back is more transactional. There might be things you may not need anymore – office supplies, professional clothing etc. Donating these items might just help someone who is desperate need of these things but doesn’t have the financials to justify that expense. We all know that in those initial years of establishing a business, there is a lot of bootstrapping involved.
#4 Donate as a team effort
This is something a lot of corporations do as part of their corporate responsibility efforts and as a way to practice team building outside of a work environment. Entrepreneurs and small business owners can also do similar projects as a great way to give back to the community that they live and work in. If the team is more remote, encourage corporate responsibility by incentivizing employees to give back to their local communities in terms of time and talent.
#5 Pay it forward
We all love hearing stories of people who have a simple pay it forward approach during their day to day. Perhaps it is paying for the next coffee order during the drive through, perhaps it is giving an extra tip during the next lunch meeting or even buying that extra pack of Girl Scout cookies from your colleague’s child. These simple acts of kindness go a long way in developing a mindset of giving back.
There are several articles that we found online that talk about why doing good for a company is good for the bottom line. This article by Forbes talks in detail about the bottom line impact. And if you feel this is only true for large corporations, this article by Financial Post showcases small businesses who are making a huge impact in the community by giving back.
When we asked in our community on ways that businesses or even individuals give back, here are some ideas that people shared.
Nicole Chenault – Yes every quarter I donate a portion of my sales to a non profit that helps families of fallen firefighters and fallen police officer. I also do decor at cost as a donation for the Bay Area crisis nursery for their events and am on the committee for their up coming event. I made 375 wine glasses at cost for their last event that was a crab feed.
Danielle Cevallos – Yes! 10% of everything I own goes to a young girl in India’s college payments. We know them personally through a ministry we have worked with.
Renae Boge Launderville I donate to my cousin’s classroom on Donorschoose dot org before or during product drops for good sales juju.
Jessica Marx Yes! I pick a non-profit every year and donate a portion of my proceeds on a monthly basis. I include it on my website and I always build it into my coaching to challenge my clients to do something as well with their own business. My clients love knowing a portion of their payments to me is helping children who are diagnosed with cancer. Its such a driver for me to close more clients and make more money so I can give these children what they deserve.
Samantha Siffring I do it via time. I serve on two boards.
Serena David I do! I started a virtual assistant company offering personal and business solutions. I have a nonprofit that I partner with. So every time 20 hours is booked it sponsors a child.
Rachel Cunningham I use the kiva platform to roll some profits throughout the year to share with my customers. I forcus on supporting women there as it reflects on my product.
We hope these examples generate ideas on how you can give back to your community – as individuals and/or as business owners. We would love to hear from you, our amazing audience, on how you give back. Remember no amount is too little and no effort is too little to make a difference in someone else’s life!
{Photo credit: Annie Spratt}
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