I think it’s safe to say that every successful business owes its well-being to its customers – and more likely than not, those customers come from the surrounding community. With this in mind, many companies are taking a very intentional look at their impact on the community and are finding new ways to partner and help a neighborhood thrive.
After all, when customers see a local business supporting a youth program in their community or promoting environmental sustainability, they are more likely to spend their hard-earned dollars with those businesses that have a track record of giving back.
Think back as you set out on your day today - did you come across causes that made you stop and think, and perhaps even act? For me, my day started with a grande skim mocha at Starbucks. No matter your feelings about the coffee company, they have a remarkable way of making each of their stores support causes important to the local community. To demonstrate this, just before completing my order this morning I was asked if I’d like to donate a pound of coffee to the AIDS ward at a community hospital here in San Francisco.
My colleagues and I often share stories of our encounters with companies like this who are taking creative steps to improve the communities in which they operate. With that in mind, we thought we’d begin to highlight some of those stories on our blog. While it would be difficult, if not impossible, to write about all of the companies that donate their time and money so generously every year, we hope to use this section of our site to shine a spotlight on companies who recognize the importance of doing well by doing good.
We hope you’ll share stories of companies that are doing great things in your community. If you're on Twitter you can tag your favorite examples of companies that care with the hashtag #CSR and join the larger conversation on Twitter around corporate social responsibility. And, if you're not on Twitter don't worry, you can drop us a line on the comment section below, we'd love to hear what's happening in your community.
Here's a list of some of our staff favorites to help get you warmed up:
Tags: corporate philanthropy CSR giving
The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship is sponsoring a film fest to highlight different ways companies tell their corporate citizeship story through video.
Check it out: http://www.bcccc.net/index.cfm?pageId=2068
- Nicola Beddow 20 Mar 09, 11:02I work for the DREAM Program, a Vermont mentoring program pairing children from affordable housing communities with college student mentors. The program started as a student run initiative at Dartmouth and has grown across Vermont in the last 10 years. Ben & Jerry's helped us get our Camp up and running five years ago and when we needed office space to expand our staff, they helped us out. Now, as we expand to Boston, Ben & Jerry's is supporting us with funding and training. It's a super partnership that will help DREAM grow from state wide to nation wide! Hooray Ben & Jerry's!
- Daniel Shearer 19 Mar 09, 13:37Here you go!
- Steve Goodrich 18 Mar 09, 18:06
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