As a business, RogersGray has made a concerted effort to identify how our giving is prioritized and we focus on two main components: our employees and our clients. This decision speaks directly to the guiding principle of our company: Do the right thing – for our people and our clients. This makes our decisions much easier when sorting through the many, many requests that come to us.
A great of example of giving back is our a recent Facebook contest that R&G held, “Share the Love.” With this contest we reached out to our 2,500+ Facebook followers and their friends and asked them to nominate their favorite local non-profits that they thought were worthy of receiving a $250 donation from the agency. With an overwhelming number of votes, Emerald Hollow Therapeutic Riding Center Inc. was the clear winner and went on to graciously receive the donation.
Connection with Clients
We are very fortunate to do business with many local charities and non-profit organizations. In turn, we believe it’s our obligation to give back to them. These groups directly understand the needs of our communities and have fewer layers of administration than international or national charities, ensuring that the majority of the funds they raise go directly to their service delivery. Our company believes it’s important we continue to support the groups who improve our area’s quality of life and build a stronger local community.
Financial support is the most obvious, but there are many other options to connect with clients and your community. If your company is active on social media, think about ways you can help promote that nonprofit. If an organization has a 5K run or other coordinated activity, can you bring a team? Is there a cleanup day or volunteer opportunity to participate in? What services might you have within your company that could benefit a nonprofit?
For instance, we assist a nonprofit client with graphic design work specific to their largest fundraiser. Are we a graphic design company? No – but we have those skills on our team and can thus support them in this manner, which solves a huge need they have.
Local Impact and Prioritizing
If you conduct business across the entire U.S, giving becomes more challenging, but for businesses with a limited geographic area that want to give locally, prioritize your giving for maximum impact. Align your giving with your business – or let your employees choose what’s important to them and what they’re invested in.
For example, if your company is involved in the construction industry, strategically partner with a group like Habitat for Humanity or with your local technical/trade schools.
Or look to your employees – survey them and pick the top need category. If the result was “food security” for instance, your giving priorities that year could be geared toward financial support of food pantries and company volunteer opportunities to help stock shelves at a pantry.
Prioritizing your company’s CSR and giving in this fashion engages your community and your employees in ways that are meaningful and relevant to your business. And that is good for everyone.
If you want to take a look at some of the non-profit organizations we support in our local communities check out our Community Involvement page.