Giving Back Helps Your Bottom Line and Your Spirit

Whether you’re a large corporation or a small business, you have one goal in mind—do everything you can to make your business profitable. After all, a profitable business usually means a successful business, and having a successful business is the point of having a business, right?

Some business owners make the mistake in thinking that saving every possible dollar is the best way to be profitable, but this is untrue. As the old adage goes, “it takes money to make money.” If you’re not in the business of spending money, then you may not be a profitable business in the end.

While some companies will spend money on themselves, others focus on another smart way to spend money that can increase the bottom line—donating. That’s right. Donating money to charities, nonprofits, or for-profits can actually increase your bottom line, and here’s how.

Build relationships with your customers.

Customers are attracted to companies that are willing to donate to other companies and organizations in need, and donating can help you build a stronger relationship with your own customers because of it. For example, by advocating your donation, you are making your customers aware of your efforts. They may commend this and offer to help as well or choose to purchase from you because they commend your do-gooder attitude and efforts.

If you run a donation promotion through your own company, you can also increase your bottom line. For example, let’s say you advertise that you are going to donate 10 percent of every transaction to a certain cause. Because your customers will applaud your effort, they may opt to buy from you when they weren’t planning on it, or they may make larger purchases in order to boost the amount of money that is donated. This will ultimately give you a larger profit because it will easily increase revenues, even though you will be giving 10 percent of it away.

Build relationships with your employees.

If you don’t have an engaged and happy workforce, you are going to lose money. According to Investopedia, the cost of hiring a new employee is 1.5 to 3 times as much as a regular full-time employee. This includes the amount of money spent on recruiting, training, salary, and benefits.

If you don’t have an engaged workforce, you’ll have high turnover rates, and this will greatly affect your bottom line. When you’re employees are engaged, and they will be when they work for a company that cares, you won’t have to worry about turnover as often, which will save you money.

Show off your skill.

Fundraising doesn’t always have to be in the form of cash. You can always opt to donate an in-kind service, which means that you will donate a service to a specific need or cause. For example, if you’re a catering company, you can offer to cater a fundraising event for a local nonprofit. In return, you will simply ask to be mentioned on the marketing collateral for the event as a donor. Provided that you create delicious food that everyone at the event raves about, you will show off your skill and earn some new customers and clients. This will greatly improve your bottom line and bring new customers through the door.

If you don’t have a skill you can provide, you can also offer to donate items for the event/fundraiser instead of money. For example, if you’re partnering with an autism organization, you may offer to donate autism awareness products­ that the organization can use for swag, raffles, etc. You will still get the recognition and increase your bottom line.