Support Charity Work
As part of my involvement with the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce, I was helping to cook and serve lunch at a local mission today. It was an uplifting experience, because this is such a great contribution to people who are out of housing and out of work. As an added bonus, I got to hang out with some of my Chamber buddies for the morning.
We were talking with them about what kind of volunteers they get. It’s primarily two kinds of groups: large companies, and local churches. It got me wondering … what happened to small businesses like mine?
I suspect that it’s because, in a small business, every person and every hour seems indispensible. When you’re just a few people, or even a single person, what happens to the business when someone takes a few hours off?
But there’s a huge value in supporting your employees to get involved in charitable activity. It demonstrates that you believe there’s more to the community than making money. It helps them to get a perspective on why their work is important. And, if you do something as a group, it helps people to bond together as real people, not just co-workers.
For some businesses, you could even declare that you’ll be closed for a few hours and get everyone out of the place. This is a hugely positive benefit, and when you’re helping the community, people see a point to it. That’s different than just taking the afternoon off to party – also a good exercise, but it strikes people as more frivolous. Especially when we all have friends and relatives who are out of work and battered by the economy.
If you want to do this during non-work hours, great. Just be very sensitive to respecting peoples’ personal choices. You can’t make them feel bad about declining an activity because they like to spend Saturday with their kids.
What are the needs in the community that you could help support? Don’t just write a check – get involved!
Carl Dierschow
Small Fish Business Coaching Fort Collins
www.smallfish.us
