How to Get Your Business Involved in a Charity

Being a part of your community means giving back. Businesses that give time, money and other resources to their communities reap many benefits. They have employees who are more involved and productive who are willing to stay. Being involved in the community improves brand visibility and facilitates networking.
"It’s a great way to retain and recruit quality personnel," says Pete Parker, managing director at NPcatalyst, a Reno consulting firm that helps business and nonprofit interactions. "If you let me volunteer a couple of hours a month or week and carry the company name, that makes me proud to be a part of the company."
Here are some suggestions for businesses that want to start giving back.
Think local
Look around in your town, city or region to see which charities need help. Think about small charities, nonprofits and local chapters of larger organizations.
James Coburn, owner of Harbor Consulting IT Services, has set a goal of donating 20 percent of his company's profits each year. Much of that goes to local organizations.
"It started out with local charities like animal shelters, and now we’re pretty involved with a cancer program," says Coburn. "Always remember where you came from."
Do your research
It's vital to research charitable and nonprofit organizations to make sure they're reliable, responsible, open and honest. Nonprofit consultants like NPcatalyst can help you filter out the better ones. You can also research organizations through sites like CharityNavigator and GuideStar.
Consider what matters to you
Find nonprofits that speak to you in some way. This might mean choosing nonprofit organizations related in some way to the mission and expertise of your business. Or, choose groups that speak to your own concerns, or the interests of your employees.
“If you’re going to do it and are able to do it, find something that means something to you," emphasizes Coburn.
Give employees free choice
Some businesses give employees the chance to donate time or money to nonprofits. When employees are allowed to choose which charities to contribute to, employee satisfaction with the charitable-giving program is greater. Employees like having a personal investment in the process.
Keep records
Remember to track all charitable projects for tax and other purposes. Record what money and time is given, as well as when, how and to whom the company donates. If you don't have the resources to do this record-keeping in-house, hire an outside firm or consultant to handle this part of charitable giving for you.
Getting help with the administrative side of charitable work and donations will give you and your employees more time to devote to the charitable work itself.
Gang up
When groups of employees get involved in charitable giving, they build teams. Consider giving time for the whole office, or designated teams, to volunteer at a local event or charity. This practice brings more help to the organization and increases the team spirit of your employees.
One of Parker's clients is a bank that encourages groups of seven to 10 people to work on a project together. It might be clearing trails or packaging food at a food bank.
"The benefit there is employee bonding, and there are a lot of benefits that come out of that," says Parker. "And it’s free—you don’t have to pay for a ropes course."
Though small businesses might not think they have the resources to devote to charitable activities, often they have more resources than they realize. It's a matter of setting aside time or money and understanding how charitable involvement can benefit the business's bottom line as well as the community.

6 Surefire Ways to Capture More ‘Likes’ on Facebook

Facebook ‘likes’ are quickly turning into currency for credibility. The more ‘likes’ your business has, the more seriously consumers will perceive your company. Extra bonus: every time someone ‘likes’ your page, each of your updates shows up in their news feed, thereby providing them constant reminders of your brand.
So how can you pump up your ‘likes’ to Apple Inc. and Gap levels (2.7 million and 1.4 million, respectively)? Follow these tips and you’ll soon be on your way.

Tag, Tag, Tag
 

In late January, Jill Homiak, founder of Presenza, a wrap top designer in Alexandria, Virginia, posted this to her company’s Facebook wall: ‘Who else is excited that Sofia Vergara is the new CoverGirl?!?!’ She tagged the word CoverGirl by putting an @ before the ‘c’, thereby alerting CoverGirl to the post. Her plan worked; it not only caught the attention of the cosmetics brand, but the brand ended up ‘liking’ her comment.
“By ‘liking’ my comment, it showed up on their Facebook page, which is ‘liked’ by more than 1.7 million people,” says Homiak. “It gave us huge visibility and we attracted more ‘likes’ in the process.”

Donate to Charity
 

PaySimple, a cloud-based accounts receivable provider out of Denver, Colorado is taking a touchy-feely approach to attracting ‘likes.’
“We are taking part in a month-long philanthropy campaign where, for every ‘like’ we receive, we will donate $1 to Kids Are Heroes, a non-profit that inspires volunteerism in children,” says Sarah Jordan, the company’s director of marketing, adding that the company is hoping to bring in around 200 likes and, so far, is up 40 from last month.
If you’re inspired to try this but aren’t sure what charity will resonate with your customers, Jordan recommends the trial and error method to see what brings about the most interest.

Host a Giveaway/Contest
 

On New Year’s Day 2011, Marc Joseph’s Facebook business page had around 3,200 ‘likes.’ Today, it has more than 42,000.
How’d he do it?
“I’ve been doing giveaways every month since January 2011 on Facebook and it has worked beautifully,” says Joseph, CEO and president of DollarDays International, Inc., a wholesale distributor out of Scottsdale, Arizona. “In addition, we really engage with our customers online and ask them what kinds of giveaways they want, which inspires even more attention and comments.”
Contests are also great ‘like’ drivers. Just before Christmas, Brina Bujkovsky, founder of The Younique Boutique in San Marcos, California, offered a free hanging quilt as the prize of a contest asking followers to describe their happiest holiday memories on her business’s Facebook page. The contest worked—her ‘likes’ went from 100 to more than 800 in just two weeks, she selected the winner at random and then asked them to post photos of the quilt once they received it—attracting even more ‘likes.’

Create a Splash Page
 

A splash page is a gate to one's Facebook wall and usually contains colorful graphics describing a company, promoting products or sales. Louis Hernandez, Jr., CEO of The Motor Bookstore, a car manual retailer in DeBary, Fla., uses his splash page to capture ‘likes.’
“A splash page asks the visitor to ‘like’ your page before seeing your wall contents,” he says. “You can bypass this, but the majority of visitors will follow instructions.”

Reward re-posts
 

In an effort to get the word out about her harp performance business, Merry Miller turned to Facebook in a creative way: she asked followers to do the work for her.
“I inspired my base to re-post a link to my love CD by offering to play a wedding for free to the person who got the most likes on my link,” she says. “I captured 100 likes in the first day.”

Get personal
 

Facebook users hate a hard sell. Endear your business to followers by posting on personal topics such a popular sports games and how you feel about the weather. Michael D. Haaren, co-founder of Rat Race Rebellion, a work-from-home job board out of Annandale, Virginia, posts about his obsession with Nutella and gets tons of feedback as well as ‘likes.’
Bottom line: remember to put the ‘social’ in social media; don’t talk at your consumers. They will just tune out.