Last week we hosted our 10th Annual Shoreline Clean-up. We partnered with Vanex this year to help spread the word. This fun event has a super low barrier to engage while providing so many great upsides. It’s an opportunity for our team members, colleagues and clients to come together, be outside, feel good about helping the environment and create goodwill in our community. This got me thinking what other small ways can we support our larger community?
If you’re a fellow entrepreneur like me then there’s a good chance you have a 1000 grand ideas ever 5-minutes but may struggle to implement them all due to focus or lack of time. What I’ve been working on learning (thanks to my awesome coach Katherine Lazaruk) is that many small consistent steps can often be way more affective than one massive leap. So, here is my list of 5 small things we can do as a business to support our larger communities.
- Reach out to a shelter or community centre near you and ask what they are short on? Personal care items? Clothes? Baby items? Then create a donation drive with your team and your clients. Perhaps wrap it up at a local cafe or pub to share how much you collected and invite someone from the community centre or shelter to share with everyone about their great work.
- Make sure your office has comprehensive recycling and compost program. Extend it beyond how you deal with your waste to look at how you can avoid waste all together.
- Use sites like MaxSold, Facebook Marketplace etc. when you need new office furniture (on of the 3 R’s – re-use). Recycle your old furniture and electronics rather than sending to the landfill.
- The holidays are around the corner. Talk to your team to see if they would like to put together a Holiday Hamper or volunteer at a Food Bank.
- Let your team take the wheel? Open up a suggestion box for team members to recommend community activities or organizations to support and then vote as a team. Maybe you will end up joining a walk-athon, collecting pop bottles, or going golfing . . . who knows. But your team will feel great that you’re supporting something they’re passionate about and you might learn something new.
- BONUS option 🙂 Sign up for a company Kiva account and decide on a specific budget that you’re willing to invest annually or per new client etc. Kiva let’s you make micro-loans to people around the world.
As business owners we each have the unique opportunity to decide how we spend our resources and our time. We can really take pro-active steps towards supporting our communities and enriching the lives of those around us. In the busy-ness of running our businesses it can seem daunting to try and think of really big projects and lofty goals (not to say they should not be considered) but these low barrier activities are a great way to get that ball rolling.
I would love to hear how you engage and about your awesome events! If you do want to join us – check out our Events page.