How Businesses, All Kinds, Gain from Corporate Giving

1. Outward Focus Growth

Most businesses focus 90 percent inward. Inward focus swirls with internal politics, software crisis, and office organizing. Consider the United Airlines passenger fiasco. The internally focused leaders prioritized the movement of their crew over their customer’s physical safety. By staying focused on their staffing challenges that missed the people who were paying their salaries and their video expertise. In contrast, outward focus invests in customer experiences. It develops better processes. Consider Apple for example.

2. Better Solutions 

Get involved and you’ll meet people. In turn, you’ll learn something. Often, if you listen, that knowledge will solve your top challenge. Why? You’re primed to hear solutions. For example, Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, and other organizations collect discards from households and businesses. The organizations transform these hand-me-downs into value. Drop by a Goodwill and share, then with fresh eyes, think about an aspect of your business you can improve finding hidden value in your discards.

3. Wealth.

Economist Arthur C. Brooks states, “Thirty years of economic research prove that people who give more become wealthier.” Giving generates affluence. Economists, like Brooks, attribute this growth of personal wealth from increased happiness. Happier people take more risks, place another call, and say let’s try it more often. Is this one of the reasons that 65 percent of Fortune 500 companies match employee donations?