Starting a philanthropy program at your company is a great way to give back, boost employee involvement, and invest in your community. The following pieces of advice will help you launch a program with maximum impact.
Choose Your Mission Carefully
Your first step should be to decide your mission and goals. Why are you creating a philanthropy program? What do you hope to accomplish? Your goal should be deeply connected to your company’s values. Ideally, you can also utilize your group’s expertise to give back to your community. Once you have a rough idea, you need to refine it by creating a concrete mission statement.
Create a Team
Next, you should create a system that will help your company achieve its philanthropic goals. For example, you need to put a team in place. Which members of your staff will help serve your mission best? You’ll need to schedule consistent meetings where you can discuss initiatives and progress. You need staff who will be efficient, driven, and dedicated to seeing your program succeed.
Build Your Online Presence
Once you’ve nailed down a mission statement and assembled a team, it’s time to build awareness! Create a website for your program and share its goals and story. You can describe the types of groups that you’re looking to support. Once the page is built, share it! Send it out to everyone on your emailing list and encourage your employees to share it with their networks. Build social media profiles for your foundation and be active on them. This will help build increase awareness.
Be Flexible
Remember that you need to remain flexible. Few things will go perfectly according to plan, but that’s okay. The important thing is to start with the building blocks and then get the word out. You’ll have to consistently make adjustments and refine your program as time goes on.
Share Your Results
Make sure you understand how to communicate your results with others. Reports should tell a story and highlight your successes. You can share these stories on your website and social media pages. Follow up with groups with which you’ve worked to ask questions about their experience. This will provide you with valuable insight on how to improve your company’s philanthropy group.
Starting a philanthropy group at your company is a complicated process, but the results will be well worth the effort!
This article was originally published at LambrosChristofi.org.