Using ideas from our Strategies for Success members can many times get you “two or three results for the price of one”! For example, wouldn’t it be great to achieve all of these goals with just one procedure? 1) Providing a family and team oriented environment for your employees and 2) reaching out to the community by helping a good cause and thus 3) giving your company publicity, recognition and “differentiating” yourself from the competition. How can you get all these great results with one simple “contest”? Examine the following idea:
Let your employees nominate and democratically elect the company’s “Chosen Charity” for the year. Different company events can be tied into this charity as fund raisers. You can even advertise that a certain percentage of sales (or better profits) during a month will go to this charity. Additional benefits are your company demonstrating a sense of community plus all of us (including your employees) feel good when we “do good”!
I like it. While we want to demonstrate trust in our employee’s judgment, I would hedge things just a bit. For example, I might tell my employees they could all submit their favorite charities and then I would review all of them, choose three or four and then the entire company would vote on which one to pick. One thing you don’t want to find yourself doing is publicly supporting a controversial charity that may be objectionable to a sizable percentage of your customers.
Steve
P.S. What charities has your company supported and what response have you gotten both from your staff and your customers? Please share what has worked for you in the comments below.
P.P.S. One gentle request. Remember that this free QuickTIPS service depends on all our members sharing their Techniques, Ideas, Procedures and Systems. (Cute acronym, huh?) So please, go to our online form to submit your quickTIPS
From day 1 I have promoted and donated 10% of proceeds to a local charity, Anderson Interfaith Ministries (aimcharity.org) The response from new customers has been the deal maker for someone on the fence trying to decide on who to choose. Not only is it a great benefit to the charity, they help promote my business also. I clean the entire facility for free on a regular basis but the ripple effect from 20 employees and 500 volunteers made the results from Google look pathetic.