Corporate Giving: How It Benefits Everyone

While we certainly encourage the joy and value of giving during holidays and other special times, we often simply talk about giving at a personal level. But corporations can employ the principle that it’s better to give than receive as well.

In the same way that giving gifts is good for our personal wellbeing, corporate giving is good for business. Companies that engage in giving programs reap a wide variety of benefits leading to greater employee engagement, improved business performance and stronger relationships with their clients and customers. Here are six ways that giving back is good for business.

People want to feel good about the places where they work. Not feeling connected to a job or feeling ambivalent about an employer means employees invest less of themselves in their work. Like every other manager, you know the quality of your employees’ work is key to your success as a company.

Companies that focus on giving back to the community can forge stronger emotional connections with their employees and help them to feel good about where they work and for whom. Philanthropy and corporate giving campaigns show employees that you care about more than just the bottom line.

Employees often learn new skills when taking part in corporate philanthropy programs, and this certainly can benefit your company. Learning how to manage and organize people or resources is one example of a new skill that employees might gain. Creating and executing successful social media and marketing campaigns for the philanthropic cause also are skills that can benefit the company. Making connections with other businesses is yet another benefit, and chances are that your employees will be able to easily integrate these new skills within their day to day work.

Corporate giving allows you to really get to know the community and provides you with an opportunity to build up empathy within the company. This was one of the principles of business encouraged by Steve Jobs, who stressed the importance of truly understanding the feelings of the customer. When you and your employees get out into the community, your efforts at giving back will allow you to create deeper and more meaningful connections with customers, and you will have a better grasp on how your corporation fits into and can strengthen the community.

Philanthropy solidifies company values, and these core values are not only what guides your overall corporate mission; they help strengthen bonds between the company and the employees as well as with customers and the community. When you target organizations that match your core corporate values, this just furthers the mission of your company, and this trickles down into every part of your day-to-day operations.

New skills, community engagement, and a new perspective certainly can help a business succeed, making giving back worth the effort. It is also important to remember that giving back is a lot of fun, too. Companies that volunteer or donate to the community rarely have any regrets about it, and once they start, they generally find they enjoy it and only want to give more.

Sebastian Troup likes blogging about philantrophic solutions for businesses and non profit organizations. For further info about workplace giving programs, or to find some employee giving campaign ideas, please check out the Truist.com website today.