Supporting charities and social causes through your business is a great thing to do, both for moral reasons and for business reasons. You can give something back and improve your reputation to support charity.
There are all kinds of ways for a business to support social causes. Doing so is important, as outlined by the business expert, Jozef Opdeweegh. If you’re not sure where to start, try these ideas.
How to Support Charity
Donate a percentage of your profits to charity. Calculate how much to donate based on the value of your sales for a transaction or time period.
Make ad-hoc donations. Choose the value, as and when you want to donate.
Make regular donations of fixed amounts.
Donate a product for every product you sell. Donate the same product or a different one.
Donate resources for every product your sell. Make a donation of something needed, like food or a mosquito net, every time you sell a specific product.
Donate your unsold stock. Instead of holding onto or throwing away old stock, donate it to a cause that would appreciate it. For example, clothes can be donated to homeless shelters, toys to hospitals, or computers to sheltered accommodation.
Invite buyers to make a donation with their purchase. This could be a donation box on the till for spare change, or the ability to ‘round up’ their spending to the nearest dollar when they shop online.
Buy social
One of the simplest ways for your business to have a positive social impact is to buy from social suppliers. While operating your business, you will need to buy products and services from other businesses on a regular business. Consider whether you could be buying from a charity or social enterprise. If you can, this is a brilliant way to have a better social impact without spending more money. Buying social could even end up saving you some money.
Change your hiring practices
Much like social sourcing, social outsourcing is when you employ someone who has been through some personal challenges, such as abuse, neglect, poverty, war, illness, injury, or trauma. You should have the intention to help someone in need who would struggle to get a well-paid job and find ways to help each other. You give them an opportunity to work, and they provide you with the skills that you need in your business.
There are a lot of social enterprises that have been set up specifically to employ people who have been through hardship but you don’t need to be a social business to have these hiring practices. Commercial businesses can use social outsourcing in their recruitment, as long as they also do so in line with any relevant legislation that relates to equal opportunities.
Fundraising
There are lots of ways that businesses can raise funds to help people in need, whether that’s hosting fundraising events, charitable sales promotions, or point of sales collections. These can be hosted at your place of work, or you can combine them with other business activities.