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Giving back as a business doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult. There are some smaller, but great ways to engage employees and help your community.
Why Giving Back Matters to Your Team
On LinkedIn and Facebook, you see employees boast their company’s community-service involvement. On the news, there are stories of businesses that help fund certain projects or donated large sums to charity. You pass signs about a company that supports this or that cause.
If you see these things, then you know your team does too. People love to do community service or find ways to give back. The feel-good pride that wells in one’s chest and the rewarding flush that comes after easing someone else’s hardship is something most people can relate to. They want to give back.
However, most people don’t have a lot of time or resources to properly do what they want to. They work full time, manage bills, and often care for a family. Sometimes, their workplace is the only way that they find to give back in a manner that feels impactful.
Why Giving Back Matters to Your Business
Businesses that have good community service built into their strategy tend to see higher engagement from employees and even better interaction between team members, but why is that?
First of all, team bonding of any kind can see an increase in both of these things, and many popular forms of giving back engage team members as a group. It’s also a great way to break up the regular work routine (Trust me. Everyone needs it.). Even pulling weeds at a community building or roughing up a pair of jeans while helping to build a house can leave smiles on your team’s faces.
Higher levels of engagement and better team dynamics lead to higher levels of satisfaction and employee retention, something your HR team and managers will thank you for. Not only that, but higher retention is much better for company morale and your bottom line.
Giving Back Can Be Easy
Not every business can make investments into charity by writing large checks or letting several employees take an entire day off work at the same time to volunteer. Whether it’s been a hard year or you’re just not there in size yet, sometimes you have to start smaller.
However, starting smaller doesn’t mean you don’t have an impact or can’t get team members involved. For example, our company recently got our very own Ronald McDonald House Charities pop tab box.
It seems like a ridiculously small thing, but one thing we’ve done for a long time is to provide complimentary soda and sparkling water (the flavored kind, of course) to our people.
We were already collecting the tabs. It turns out we really love to take the tab off and crush the pop can underfoot to recycle. The natural next step was to give the tabs to our local Ronald McDonald House.
Did you know that all of the pop tabs they collect and recycle can add up enough to buy food for the house? In fact, the Northwest Ohio Ronald McDonald House offsets more than half of their entire food budget using pop tabs.
Think about how much pop your employees may be drinking at work. What about at home? Sometimes schools collect pop tabs, but not always.
You can make it a fun competition to see which
Photo Credit: BhamNow
department collects the most pop tabs within a quarter. Remote team members can participate too by collecting them at their house and then donating them to a house in their area.
Do you want and are able to do more? Many local businesses find creative ways by donating their time and services to helping the house. Any cost incurred to run the house must somehow be raised or offset since the Rondal McDonald Houses are nonprofits that are run individually.
For those that can’t volunteer time or services, you can put together a fund. Employees can choose to make one-time donations or set up a small, recurring donation each paycheck that is then donated to the house each year.
Who are the Ronald McDonald House Charities?
Growing up, you likely heard of the Ronald McDonald House. You may have even collected the famous pop tabs for it, but like many, you didn’t know why.
Many people know that the Ronald McDonald Houses are associated with children’s hospitals too, but few after that know what they do.
Photo Credit: The Toledo Blade
The Ronald McDonald House’s purpose is to provide aid and support to children the families of children who are ongoing some kind of treatment. Different houses will provide different levels of support and may even be dependent on the type of treatment the child is going (ie. some houses focus on aid to the families of young cancer patients). They do this by providing somewhere to stay at little to no cost and food.
Since Houses are run at the local level, each one of the 368 is unique and the way to aid their community and its children is unique.
“Ronald McDonald House Charities provides a home away from home for families whose children are in area hospitals. For most, they are experiencing the worst time in their life, a sick child or premature birth is not only difficult in the moment but could have a life-long impact on the parents and child.
RMHC exists to provide a safe, loving environment where families can come at the end of the day and relax, enjoy a hot meal, and the company of other families. Our staff is available 24/7 to answer questions, admit new families, provide a shoulder to cry on, or be the friend needed at any moment in time.
The Toledo House provides a fully stocked pantry, all hygiene items, a private sleeping room with an attached bathroom, access to 3 laundry rooms, and anything else a family might need during their stay.
For families who have extended stays with us – the average stay in Toledo is 11 days and the longest stay was over 1 year – we ask the community to provide free tickets and passes to events and venues throughout the area. Toledo Mud Hens baseball and Walleye hockey, Toledo Zoo, concert series, and much more are donated regularly to the House.
RMHC of Northwest Ohio never charges a family for their stay, we want their focus to remain on their child, not where their next meal is coming from, or where they will lay their head in the evening.”
– Michelle Kravetsky, Development Director of the Northwest Ohio Ronald McDonald House
Learn more about the Northwest Ohio Ronald McDonald House, as well as the mission of the Houses overall, by listening to our podcast episode with Michelle Kravetsky.
About Our Guest:
Michelle Kravetsky
Development Director at the Northwest Ohio Ronald McDonald House
Michelle Kravetsky is the Development Director at the Northwest Ohio Ronald McDonald House. She has over 30 years of experience in market research, fundraising, education, and administration.
Her connection to the community and belief in the mission of the Ronald McDonald Hosue Charities has given her great passion for her job, and it shows! Michelle lights up the room and is able to easily connect to its occupants within moments. One cannot help but be riled to action when in her presence.
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