Building Your Business Through Community Outreach

As we know, businesses don’t exist in a vacuum. They operate within a wider context, impacting on the community and culture within and around them. This makes ‘business and community’ vital companions. It also just happens to be the Chamber’s theme for the month of July!

Advice from the experts

When it comes to business ethics and community, who better to look to than Richard Branson? His success at both business and relationship building are pretty impressive after all. Richard’s idea is that getting involved in local community enables a business owner to meet new people and find customers, and also helps the business to put down deep roots – increasing its chances of survival and success in the longer term.

In this article from Entrepreneur Magazine, Branson discusses how in the 1970s Virgin Records started up a free service to assist young people with the problems they were facing. This enabled the company to find out what events and issues were concerning to local people and to connect with them. Virgin learned a lot from this experience and over the years have always been involved in local projects.

What can you do?

Involvement in the community involves more than just donating money to good causes, noble as that is. And even if you don’t have spare cash to donate, there are other ways to give.

A good place to start is to take stock of what you have to offer – skills, equipment, special talents or other resources. Perhaps you have experience in arranging events or theatrical productions that could be useful at the local school, or skills at public speaking, or other useful talents? 

Other ideas include coaching and mentoring, giving priority to local producers and suppliers, sponsoring local fundraisers, loaning out equipment, or volunteering time to local community projects that interest you. As Branson says, it may not have to involve more than a few hours a month to reap rewards.

Benefits of community

One of the main benefits is relationship-building. While some might say that the basis of a business is to make profits, really this is a secondary benefit. The basis really has to be in reaching out, building relationships, and providing excellent service. Generosity of spirit and sharing support for those in your community are likely to reap benefits, so it even makes sense from a point of view of enlightened self-interest!

Branson’s idea is that by supporting community your business can become a “hub for the community, supporting and fostering the people around it”. This is likely to make a business more fun to be around if nothing else! It also helps to create a better culture within the business itself, and improve relationships with employees and customers.

Building community is likely to help improve your business reputation and lead to more repeat business, as well as benefiting so many others around you. Looks like a win-win all round really!

Like to learn more?

Contrary to what you might think, social impact can actually be measured through the Social Return on Investment (SROI) process. Social Ventures Australia runs courses in learning about and using SROI, with the next course in Sydney coming up in September.

Also, in line with July’s theme the Chamber is holding a Business Breakfast on 9^th July in Baulkham Hills, where Lincoln Amidy will be discussing the relationship of community and business. You can register for this event here.