Getting your company actively engaged in your community has a lot of great perks. It increases brand awareness, associates your company with a positive impact, and works to ensure your employees and local clients have a great community to live, work, and thrive within.
Finding a way to be involved in your community, however, might seem overwhelming if your business has never attempted it before. We can help! Engenius has been community-driven from day one, and there are five key areas we’ve focused on for community involvement:
1. Encourage employees to be on boards.
Time for key company leaders and executives is limited and there are fewer of them than employees. By encouraging and supporting board involvement for employees, you can stay engaged with community needs while keeping an eye on the pulse of local happenings. Additionally, the connections gained and leadership experience developed from board service will benefit your employees and, by extension, your company far into the future.
Our team frequently volunteers with groups like Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Carolinas and Rebuild Upstate. This picture is from one of our work days with the latter replacing the siding on a house.
2. Participate in leadership initiatives.
There are many great leadership programs in existence. Here in our backyard, Leadership Greenville is a premier program considered one of the best in the country for teaching budding community leaders the needs and inner workings of our community ecosystem. The connections gained through this program are great, but even greater is the wisdom and perspective your company gains from each participant’s experience.
3. Find creative ways to ‘give back’.
Engenius is a leading web design and digital marketing firm. Early on, we saw web design as a huge need within the nonprofit community and started our Engenius grants program, where we offer web design and web support services to local nonprofits. Using our existing skills and bandwidth helped pave the way for us to give back and further engage our employees with the organizations and causes we care about.
4. Engage within your sector.
Chances are strong that you’re not the only company doing what you do in your community. You might do it in a unique way, but there are plenty of other companies with similar operations within your broader sector. Engage with them. Most sectors have industry-specific groups that provide a space for you to network with your peers, pursue professional development, and gain valuable connections for the future. If you don’t have this group for your sector, consider creating one, whether formal or informal.
5. Be a great place to work.
When businesses think about supporting their community, they often overlook the fact that by just being a good company, they are already giving back. Providing jobs and a tax base is as valuable a contribution to our local ecosystem as anything else. Beyond that, however, your organization has the chance to create jobs that promote employee satisfaction, professional development, and personal fulfillment. Jobs are one thing; jobs that make a difference in people’s lives are truly a contribution to the community as a whole!
As a business, Engenius seeks to be a welcoming place for all who enter our doors most notably our employees!
No matter how you do it, get your company engaged with your community!
You don’t have to be a huge firm with hundreds of employees. Even relatively small teams with a dozen or so employees can make a mark, and Engenius is evidence of that. It will lead to a stronger team and a closer connection with your local clients and vendors, and it will ultimately ensure the community you call home is stronger and more vibrant for years to come.
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Interested in learning more about how we stay engaged?
