Charity | Mass Markets

In Times of Need, Businesses Step Up

Like the changes of the seasons, every year it can be expected that a major disaster will strike somewhere in the world, be it natural or man made. Whether they occur in a third- or first-world country, disasters can be large enough to affect as many as thousands or even millions of people, resulting in the spread of homelessness and disease.

In times of need of this magnitude, the governments of foreign countries are sure to provide immediate aid with supplies and money. Another major source of aid is sure to come from businesses around the world who can offer much more than their deep pockets. Here’s how businesses step up in the face of tragedy.

Direct Financial Aid

The fastest and easiest way businesses provide assistance during a disaster is with money. Out of their own revenue, they donate directly to government bodies in the country of the disaster’s epicenter or to charities that will be setting up relief efforts.

Distribute Donations

On top of their own donations, businesses will reach out to their customers for donations either on their website or in their locations, which will then go directly to a specific charity.

Proceeds From Products

A creative way to raise awareness of the disaster and provide a simple way for people to aid in the relief efforts is for businesses to donate proceeds from the sales of a particular product of theirs. Either all or a percentage of each item sold will go directly to the cause.

Contribute Related Supplies

Some businesses will find themselves directly related to the relief efforts of disasters because of what they manufacture. Instead of donating money, they can donate their own products like military cots or construction equipment, for example.

Send Expert Staff

Businesses might find that their greatest resource for aid is their employees, spurring them to send some to help on site. For instance, during the 2010 Chilean mining disaster, mining companies around the world sent digging experts to help free the trapped men.

Wherever relief is needed, businesses will be there.

Filed Under: Business, Charity Tagged With: Donation, Emergency management

Effective Ways Businesses can Raise Awareness for a Cause

The idea of the conscious business has become the staple of the business world. Corporations have turned to using their vast resources for the common good. But instead of just donating money to a bunch of charities, many businesses have decided to take on one specific cause that will help separate them from others.

By teaming up with charities that are tackling their causes, businesses are making an impact in ways that endear them to many. In doing so, businesses have come up with some very creative ways to raise awareness for their respective causes.

Launching a Contest

Generating awareness for a cause starts by getting people involved. What better way to get people involved than with a competition that features a reward? Instead of just rewarding winners with large sums of money, businesses have created unique contests that pit entire charities against each other in friendly competition for substantial cash donations, or funds for a specific project.

Some businesses replace the monetary reward with goods they produce, such as products from a food manufacturer for a homeless shelter.

Marketing to Customers

Whether they realize it or not, many customers are being marketed to for charitable causes from some of their service providers, be it the cable or gas company. One creative way of doing so is through materials that come with the monthly bills. They can either be in the form of an insert or a payment options on the actual bill that allows customers to add money to their checks as donation.

Media Campaigns

The heads of many charities don’t have the same clout that some of the biggest CEOs have. So when a business decides to get behind a charitable cause, they send their most influential figure in front of the camera to champion the cause. The substantial international aid efforts of Bill Gates is a great example. Some CEOs are celebrities themselves and make the perfect spokesperson.

Businesses strive to raise awareness for their good or services, and they can do the same for charity.

Filed Under: Business, Charity Tagged With: Business, Charitable organization

Why Business Foundations Make Great Charities

The average charity relies on a limited number of resources and the voluntary contributions of others to accomplish their goals and build awareness for their causes. Businesses on the other hand have plenty of personnel and revenue at their disposal, which is generally why charitable foundations created by businesses are some of the most effective.

With their established reach, business foundations can at times resemble their economic-driven founders and fight a common cause with great precision. Here are a few detailed reasons why.

Major Weight

Businesses, especially major corporations, have a monumental presence not only physically with brick-and-mortar locations but also in the conscious of consumers. This is why when a business creates a foundation for a cause they have a lot of weight behind it and people are sure to hear about it.

Substantial Financial Backing

Charities have to work extremely hard to generate funds for their operations. While a business can’t allocate profits to their foundations they do have the perfect expertise for building monetary contributions because this is what businesses are supposed to do: generate revenue.

Wealth of Resources

A business foundation not only has access to money generating resources, but also other much needed resources. These include: operating locations, marketing and advertising materials, shipping resources and manpower, all of which any business is sure to have. While most charities have to make arrangements to access these resources, a business foundation can ride piggyback on its founders.

Easy Membership

Getting people to join their charity, hopefully with contributions, is the hardest part of running one. For businesses they already have prospective members in the form of current and future customers. And business can direct them to their foundation without the relentless tactics that have to be used by most charities.

When it comes to building awareness to a certain thing and running a successful organization, it’s hard to think of a better managing entity than business. This explains why some of the biggest causes from cancer to domestic violence find the best support from the business community and their successful foundations.

Filed Under: Business, Charity Tagged With: Business, Charitable organization

Organizational Philanthropy

Organizational Philanthropy can be explained as a large number of small capital donations brought under one single organization to make that money count as a huge amount which can be beneficial to the society. With this type of collection’s feature is to allow limited liability on a particular person and also can be counted to be a huge capital involved in charity with limited risk.

This type of organizational philanthropy has brought very small amounts of the charity work to be changed into a huge amount of donation which is helpful with broad social consequences by distributing the way of ownership and control of the huge amount indulged.

Organizational Philanthropy is a depersonalization of the capital amount with significance. Sometimes there is an abuse of the agency involved in the organization by the management. It is not sure that this type of charitable donations is in lieu with the strict economic principles, as this type on charity donations are also used as benefits in the reputation of the firm.

It has been investigated by various scholars that there is a good way of re-integration of the organization with social life broadly. Most of the organizations are norm less in the manner they need to work on this type of charitable doings. They also proposed various ways to reform that could enable the organizations to take a good notice on their social responsibility.

Most of the research in field of philanthropy have been more focused on has the organization made a huge donation and how much have they done , it is very less focused on the various ways I which this huge amount of money is transferred to the receptors who are in real need of this type of charity. Mostly they have suggested to take care of the money and spending it in correct ways so that it is more useful for the whom it is done.

Filed Under: Charity Tagged With: Donation, Philanthropy

Giving Back to Others While Purchasing Stylish Footwear

: Image via Wikipedia

Toms Shoes is a revolutionary footwear company, started by Blake Mycoskie who was a previous contestant on the hit television show “The Amazing Race.” In his experience on the show, Mycoskie was able to visit many countries, and during a leg of the race located in Argentina, he noticed a type of shoe worn by the workers there. The shoe is called alpargata, which translates to espadrilles, and Mycoskie wanted to reinvent the shoe by designing interesting patterns for the outside, a piece of leather for the inside, and rubber for the sole. This allowed the shoe to be both functional and sturdy while still giving a fun and unique appearance to go with any outfit. He also noticed that many of the children in the villages where he visited did not have any shoes. They had to walk barefoot.

Toms Shoes are very popular because of their comfort and style, but the company goes far beyond that in its impact on the world. For every single pair of shoes sold, another pair will be donated to an individual who is in need of footwear. This is a remarkable business plan in that it is literally giving the profit of the sale to a person who would not otherwise be able to afford a pair of shoes. Because of Mycoskie’s philanthropy, thousands of popular retailers across the globe have eagerly purchased Toms Shoes to sell in their stores. Additionally, for every piece of Toms merchandise that is purchased, including hats, jackets, shirts, stickers, sweatshirts, and gift bags, one pair of shoes is donated. The shoes have rapidly grown in popularity, partly due to their comfort and style, but mainly because of the impact that this company has had on countries all over the world. Anyone who purchases a pair of Toms Shoes or item of clothing can be part of an amazing way to help out someone less fortunate.

Filed Under: Charity, Employees, Marketing

Why Society and Charity Is So Important

Why should any government be afraid of the American people? For starters we have guns, lots of them in fact the entire population of America has access to a gun right now if they are aware of it or not. That means the governed mass of America is basically a standing army. Okay so we have guns big deal, we have more than that we have diversity. In nature diversity means you get the stragglers and you get the leaders. We have built a society where the greatest ideas rule and the leaders in those ideas shine.

Not every great idea is good or healthy, but it does have the power to shape. To shape how we think do, and perceive the world around us. It was a great idea to arm the citizens of this country to protect it from an abusive government and foreign invaders. Our Four Fathers gave us State safety and now we can focus on what we are protecting, the people.

In this system that we have contributed to there are leaders and there are stragglers. The stragglers that keep trying their hardest to help themselves and their situation and keep failing deserve a hand up. We have a responsibility as Americans to unite and contribute to the darker end of our system. We need to look after our brothers that are sick, injured or simply too old to take care of themselves. If we do not want to be a nation of greedy aristocrats that hold ourselves higher than our morals we need to start giving.

Yes money is good to give if you don’t have the time to help others in your busy day. Money enables charities to do the work that you can’t. Charities help millions around the world with a verity of problems. They feed, and house the poor. If you do that on your own, then don’t feel guilty about not giving.

Filed Under: Charity

Give a Cow and Save a Community

In poor economic times in America, one begins to hear the lament of why so much humanitarian aid given to other countries? It’s understandable, but what a person is usually trying to express is why with so much aid, does the problem of hunger, and poverty continue. Most people care enough that they want the problems solved, and not just money thrown at it. There is a nonprofit organization doing just that, one community at a time, called Heifer International.

Heifer International does not spend much money on advertising. Which is why you likely have not heard of its simple, profound message. These types of organizations tend to put their money toward the people and communities they intend to help, and unless you run in nonprofit circles or attend religious services you are most likely to never hear about their great work.

Here is the Heifer International philosophy. Once immediate needs are met such as food, and shelter this organization meets with the community and analyzes the situation. After some training and preparation the community is given “living loans.” These living loans are livestock such as cows, sheep, or chickens. The participants sell the milk, eggs, and wool to create an economy. Every community or person who receives this help repays the living loan by donating their animal’s first offspring to someone else in the community. This is called Passing the Gift. With this simple act you get long-term sustainability, community developement, and self sufficient families and individuals. It is a long-term solution to one of the world’s most complex problems.

Where do the “living loans” come from since no money is exchanged? It comes from people who donate money to Heifer Project International, who in turn purchase the livestock. Heifers are $500, sheep are $120, and a flock of chickens is $20.

It is a small price for a long-term solution causing peace in one small part of the earth thanks to http://www.heifer.org/.

Filed Under: Charity, Expenses

Selecting a charity for donations

When selecting a charity to donate to, one should consider several factors or tips. These include, researching the charity, choosing an established charity, requesting a receipt for your donation, and selecting a charity that has personal meaning for you.

Some important aspects to charitable donations are requesting information on the charity’s privacy policy as well as being familiar with the donor’s rights, and viewing the company’s annual report. These three aspects will provide you with research on how they spend your donation, what rights you have as a donor, and how they can use your personal information.

Often these charities claim to be registered charitable organizations. As a possible donor you have the right to request their registration number so that you can verify the legitimacy of the charity. Organizations that refuse to give this information or in providing a copy of their annual report can be trying to hide something from their donors.

Another important aspect when selecting a charity is choosing one that has meaning to you personally. This can mean choosing a charity that addresses an illness that you have been exposed to in some way, or selecting a charity that has a goal that is in line with your passions or selecting a well established charity in this particular field. This can increase the meaning to you personally, can increase the likelihood that more funds are spent on the foundation’s intended purpose, and can ensure you are not being subjected to a scam. Finally, ensure that you request a receipt, which serves as necessary paperwork for tax records and provides you with a paper trail should you require one.

However you choose to select a charity for donations, using these few simple steps will increase the probability of a happy and successful experience. These simple steps help donors understand their rights and select appropriate, established foundations, becoming a personal and positive experience for the donor.

Filed Under: Charity, Expenses

Charities Are a Hidden Employer

In the business world, charities are often seen as a tax write off business run by volunteers. However, charities serve more than a philanthropic purpose in society. Charities are a hidden employer.

Sure. Most charities have a group of dedicated volunteers who do much of the work and outreach, but they also have to have dedicated, consistent staff to keep the day to day operations running. Therefore, charities are also employers. Their non-profit status doesn’t mean they’re not businesses.

Charities operate in many business categories. There are resale shops that operate in the retail industry. They typically have a hired store manager and a few paid staff. Once operating costs are paid, the profit goes to charity. There are human services charities that operate in the human services and health industry. They have to follow the same strict regulations as a for profit business in that field. That means many of their staff members have to be licensed professionals. These people are paid for their services, so they are employed by the charity.

One of the big perception problems for charities is that they run less efficient businesses because they have small budgets. In some cases that may be true, but some charities are just as successful as their for profit competitors. For instance, a charity hospital still gets money from Medicare and insurance companies. That charity organization may take more indigent patients, but they’re still getting income. Where they differ is that they can also solicit donations. In that case, they stand to have a greater gross income than the for profit hospital.

Society makes charitable donations based on emotional attachments to the organization, so a well run, beloved hospital might be raking in the donations. In that case, they’ll likely have the better medical technology and care.

Charities are businesses, so hold them to the same rigid standards that society holds for profit organizations.

Filed Under: Business, Charity

Running A Charity Like a Business

When taking a look at a successful charity in this day and age, the one thing you may notice first is that the charity is run quite a bit like a for-profit business. This is no accident. Businesses and charities have an uncanny resemblance to one another in the 21st century mainly because many of the most successful charities have realized they must be run that way.

To that end most of these successful charities will work not as through they are begging someone for their hard earned money but rather as though it is your duty as a citizen of this country and this world that you donate not just your money but your time to a specific endeavor. Taking an approach that the money they are asking for is not actually a gift but something they are entitled too has been a good way to make sure that the rake in the dollars. What it says about Americans as a people has yet to be determined but we like to dedicate our resources to companies that show not only that they know what they are doing but also that the company is even aggressive in the way it does business.

Because of this new approach, changing from one where every charity had its hands out and was begging for someone’s spare change, quite a few charities are seeing their top officials be people who were extremely successful in the business sector. Former CEOs of some fortune 500 companies have found great success and great peace of mind when they find that they are now working for a charity that actually helps people as opposed to simply aim to make money. This is also why some of the best charities have partnered with big time firms in order to have more success. Americans like the people they deal with to be competent and have a little swagger. The best charities recognize and practice this.