Business Community Involvement

More and more businesses are realizing the benefits of community involvement. While many business still ignore the importance of this, it is crucially important and can greatly improve a business in a number of ways.

First, through community involvement many businesses can realize direct increased sales. Whether a business sells to residential or business customers, being seen as a part of the community directly results in revenue. Businesses tend to like to do business with local businesses, and by seeing an organization playing an active role in the community, they see that they are local and vested in the community. Many chamber of commerce organizations have evidence to show that chamber members do business with other chamber members - because they feel a part of the same community. For residential customers, this may hold even more true. Individuals inherently want to trust those they purchase services or products from, and by being a part of that individuals community, you can establish this trust.

Another reason why businesses benefit from direct community involvement is that the business gains a personal face to its potential constituents. Whether this face is that of a salesman, executive, manager, or just a positive team member, it enables customers to see that it isn't simply a business wanting their money, it is real people behind the business. Local people who attend the same sporting events as them, attend the same churchs, go to the same shopping malls - in other words - people just like them they can trust. Essentially, you turn your team members into corporate champions within the environment. Finally, as every team member is, at some degree, a salesman for the company, this helps to improve networking

Beyond the most direct benefits that come from community involvement of increased revenues, are the benefits to the employees of the organization. The same psychological effects for potential customers also apply to the companies team members. Employees want to feel that they work for a great company. Although this might not rank up there as high as other interests and motivating factors, employees still enjoy feeling that work for an upstanding and socially responsible organization. By connecting the company to the community where employees live, they in turn feel more connected to their community. This results in directly increased employee morale. Increased employee morale directly equals increased productivity, and decreased employee turnover - leading to lowered operational costs. Those employees who choose or are selected to represent the company through its community involvement also feel increased levels of loyalty to the company and the community - making offers to go to work for other organizations or other geographic locations less appealing. Finally, by being connected in with the community, the company gains a better reputation and better access to local talent, improving their ability to attract and retain the best talent around.

There are a wide variety of types of community involvement for a business to choose to participate. This can range from traditional levels of involvement such as through the chamber of commerce or other local industry associations, to sponsorship of local events, participation in charitable organizations, sponsoring childrens teams, etc.

Although perhaps the simplest way for a business to get involved is with the checkbook, this doesn't yield the best dividends. By simply sponsoring events or teams to get your name out, you gain the benefit of name recognition and being local, but, you don't engage your employees in the community. Involvement by the corporate checkbook is still very important, as it enables many great community activities that desperately need funding. As they say, to understand what is important to a business, look at their budget - if a business doesn't allocate any funds to local support, it probably doesn't really care that much for the local community.

One of the absolute best methods for community involvement is a structured and supported volunteer program. This has the benefit of costing very little, can have a large impact on the community, and can get a large number of employees active and involved. Volunteerism is even considered to be "in fashion" now, so, getting employees involved may not take much prompting. By choosing projects that allow employees to get involved with a project with a defined and accomplishable boundary, employees will feel good about themselves, feel good about the company, and feel good about the community - a definite win all the way around.