Ask Not What Your Community Can Do for You, but What You Can Do for Your Community

It’s now October and we’re coming up on seven months since the pandemic upended our world. While some things may have gotten better, many in our communities are still suffering. Many people (and organizations) need help. You may be wondering what you and/or your business can do to make their lives better.

For many, the first thought that comes to mind is writing a check. Financial assistance is always needed and welcomed! And some may not be able to write the check, but still want to help. There are many less obvious (and more personal and meaningful) things you can do that will make a big impact on people’s lives. It just takes a little creative thinking about how you can connect your time and talent to your community’s needs.

Recently the Pensacola Blue Wahoos—who weren’t able to play baseball due to COVID—stepped up to help the community after a hurricane hit. Each player listed his skillset in the newspaper. The idea was that nonprofits needing specific skills to help with clean-up and other tasks could call in a Blue Wahoo to help. (This is a great way for an organization to help out in disaster areas. Unfortunately, there are a lot of these kinds of opportunities these days.)

House calls!

The Blue Wahoos spent Friday visiting local citizens in need to help clear debris from the hurricane at their homes.

This morning, the team helped 91-year-old Vic G. reclaim his yard after the storm. pic.twitter.com/oBWHd3bgXg

— Pensacola Blue Wahoos (@BlueWahoosBBall) September 25, 2020

Maybe you don’t have a baseball team available to serve the community. But what you do have is brainpower, willpower, and manpower (“human power” might be a better way to say it!).

Business owners often have the ingenuity, the social capital, and the resources that can make a difference. It’s just a matter of leveraging these gifts to help those who need them. This can be really rewarding. Something great happens when we put our minds and hearts to work to help those around us and to make our communities better, safer, and happier.

Also, when we get employees involved in the effort it can end up bonding them to each other and to the business. Good people want to work for companies that give back. Providing them a way to help others can actually make them more engaged, passionate, and productive.

So, think creatively. Whether you’re an individual or a business owner or leader, there is always something you or your company can do help your community. A few tips:

1. Don’t wait till you’re comfortable to start helping.

People may think they have no time or money right now, but plan to help others when they get on their feet. When the quarantine started back in the spring, D.C. Reeves, craft beer maker and owner of Perfect Plain Brewery, immediately started looking for what he and his employees could do to help others. (As a reminder, bars and restaurants were some of those hit the hardest.) Perfect Plain stepped up. They sold T-shirts to support out of work employees in the craft beer industry. They also delivered drink vouchers to a local hospital as a way to thank healthcare heroes.

Perfect Plain could have waited until they were out of the woods to help, but by then it would have had a lot less impact. Don’t wait. People need help now. (Plus, helping makes you feel better at a desperate time.)

2. It doesn’t have to be money. Audit your company’s skill sets.

If your company is fortunate enough to be busy or at capacity, you can still donate time. Do you have an accounting hand, a marketing hand, an IT hand you can lend to a struggling company? Could you mentor a new entrepreneur who needs help navigating these tough times? Could you help paint or clean up a struggling small business or prepare a lunch of teachers or healthcare workers?

3. Your contribution doesn’t have to be huge. Think “small ball.”

Change one life at a time. Every little bit helps. Often small efforts will build your own enthusiasm and inspire others to help as well. Things may snowball from there.

4. What do you have that you can share?

TriHealth, a Cincinnati Health System, created a wellness tool kit filled with stress management assessments, tactics, and other resources (very much needed these days) for their more than 12,000 employees. Once they realized that students and faculty in healthcare education programs were suffering, they gladly shared it. Also, I recently read about a tire company that loaned warehouse space to a food bank who needed storage. There are all kinds of ways to help.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

5. Make a commitment.

Cash flow is always a big problem for small businesses, especially right now. If a restaurant knew every Wednesday, you would order lunch for your entire law firm or your auto repair shop, it could really give them a revenue boost and allow them to plan better. One school, who didn’t have a cafeteria, began a relationship with a local café whereby the kids could order directly from them. It saved the business!

6. Round on your community to see where the real problems are.

Find the needs. Build a coalition. Put the neighbor back in neighborhood. Think beyond non-profits and other businesses and consider the needs of the entire community. For example, zero in on vulnerable populations like students and senior citizens. You could tutor a student who is doing virtual work and getting behind. You could adopt a senior citizen who is feeling isolated and lonely (while observing social distancing and mask guidelines, of course).

The great thing is that helping others also helps you. When we do something to help make the world around us better (even if it’s a small something) it can wake us up and give us a new understanding of our life and purpose. Certainly, it makes us better citizens.

Never assume you have nothing give. Even if you had no money and no practical skills, you’d still have your time, or a listening ear to lend, or a supportive smile to offer. Service is a mindset. When we make that mental shift we find that our desire to help expands and the opportunities multiply. What can you do for your community? Now is the time to ask that question. You might be surprised and gratified by the answer.

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