A Practical Guide for Weaving Community Service Into Your Company Culture

If you haven’t made community service an integral part of your business, it is more difficult to dedicate the time and resources to giving back. While it may seem daunting to add another thing to your plate, supporting your community can benefit your organization in a number of ways.

“People who are doing good things for other people, opportunities do arise from it,” says David Koehn, regional director for the Southeast for Bland Landscaping Company, headquartered in Apex, North Carolina. “I think it does help boost new sales. I think it helps improve your culture. At the end of the day, if you can boost sales and culture, those are two of the top things for building a business. If you’re not doing community involvement work, you’re missing the boat.”

Start Small

Community service doesn’t have to be a massive undertaking. It could be something as simple as trimming trees for a nonprofit or building a vegetable garden for a local school.

“Start with something you know you are good at, can handle, and run with it,” says Chris Kujawa, president and CEO of Kujawa Enterprises, Inc., a Sperber company, based in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. “Get your team involved right from the start. Form a small committee to discuss it. Solicit suggestions for action.”

Seneca Hull, president of Franz Witte, based in Nampa, Idaho, adds you shouldn’t be afraid to try different things.

“Our event looks very different from when it started, but you evolve and learn and it’s good to change a little bit each year so it’s fresh for people who come every year,” Hull says.   

Kujawa notes that as your organization grows, it’s important to involve your team in championing different causes.

“Let your folks engage in the process and let them experience the benefit of ‘giving back,’” Kujawa says. “If they are allowed to choose, their buy-in is assured as they will have ownership in the process and the outcome. That’s a benefit to everyone in the organization.”

Budgeting

It’s also a good idea to create a line item in your budget for your community service efforts.

“It’s easy in our industry to just get really, really, really busy, and you don’t really think about giving back to the community in that way,” Koehn says. “I think just being very intentional about it, and having a plan and having a budget is certainly good.”

Koehn says initially he just set aside $5,000 and grew the budget every year to $50,000 until they were acquired by Bland Landscaping.

However, you don’t have to feel constrained by your budget. Tony Nasrallah, president and founder of Ground Works Land Design, based in Cleveland, Ohio, says while they have a budget set for community service, they never stick to it, as it’s too hard for him to say no to helping out.

The cause you choose will determine whether you can support them financially or with manhours. Koehn says they prefer to donate manhours because it involves their team.

“I feel like that’s a bigger win than just like writing a $5,000 check and handing it to somebody,” Koehn says. “That’s great, and it still supports the mission, but when you can get your team together, you go out there and you do something, and you see the reaction of that particular organization, it really does make a good impact.”

Partnering Successfully

Part of the way to ensure your community service is impactful is to select the right partners. Hull says when they first started their OktoberBreast fundraiser for breast cancer, they had a great turnout but didn’t raise a lot of money. They had partnered with Susan G. Komen and wrote them a check for $2,500.

“We knew that wasn’t much money, but it was more than we made and felt like it was a good start,” Hull says. “However, they didn’t come to the event or really act like they cared, and it was a bit disheartening. It wasn’t that we wanted to be praised for it, but we just didn’t feel like we made any kind of impact. The next year, we decided we wanted to do something with local non-profits.”

The following year, they partnered with Expedition Inspiration, which focuses on ending breast cancer by funding research and Casting for Recovery, which focuses on helping those with the disease.    

“We have people from each of the orgs we benefit involved in all of the planning and getting sponsors, auction items, etc., as well as they bring volunteers to help with set up and at the event,” Hull says.

One of the causes KEI supports is GreenCare and SnowCare for Troops. Kujawa says that Project EverGreen makes it easy for them to provide landscape maintenance and snow management services to deployed service members’ families.

“These folks risk it all for our country, so making life just a little less stressful for them and their families is a great reward for us,” Kujawa says. “Our message to the soldiers deployed is, ‘You worry about getting home safe to your family, we’ll worry about the lawn.’”

Koehn advises staying in touch with your chosen organizations throughout the year to see if they have any needs.

“A lot of times it could just be something very, very simple that they need that’s not a lot of money, it’s not a lot of time, and we’ll go take care of it,” Koehn says.

Advice for Others  

There is no perfect time or company size to start giving back to your community. As long as you genuinely want to help people, any way you choose to do some good is what matters.

“It doesn’t have to be that big of a project,” Koehn says. “It can literally be three guys going down to the soup kitchen; you’re still serving your community. Once you do that, you’re going to be like, ‘Wow, that really felt good,’ and then you’re going to want to do it again.”

If you do opt to create a fundraising event like Franz Witte’s OktoberBreast, Hull recommends setting it up as its own 501(c)(3) charitable corporation.

“With the event raising over $100,000 per year now, I felt very nervous about someone accusing us of keeping the money or somehow not being honest about something,” Hull says. “All it would take is one person throwing one bit of question and the whole thing could be ruined. Having it separate gives me a lot of peace of mind.”

Kujawa encourages sharing about your charity efforts on social media, but not to hard sell it.

“You can and should be proud of your good works, but avoid ‘crowing’ about it,” Kujawa says. “It’s all in the delivery of the messaging. Support the charity you choose to serve, don’t supplant it. The mission of the charity is the headline; your support of that mission will throw off its own bright light.”