Time to Reflect on Charity & Community Engagement for 2013

Scott Vaughan: Chief Marketing Officer, UBM Tech Scott leads a performance marketing team focused on using data-driven marketing to engage and serve B2B professionals and the marketers trying to reach them. He is also responsible for UBM Tech brand management and outbound communications. About Scott Vaughan (7 Posts)

‘Tis the season for giving and a perfect time to reflect on your charity and community engagement initiatives for 2013. Amplifying this point, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook made headlines this week with a $500m stock donation to Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on education and health initiatives.

I working predominantly in the Tech industry and there are many great examples and stories of giving and philanthropy from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Salesforce.com and Marc Benioff’s Dream foundation. My colleague Kelley Damore of UBM Tech’s CRN outlines many examples in a recent article and even presents this in a slide presentation worth a look. While many of these are big examples, small and medium businesses and entreprenuers are having their own impact as outlined in Kelley’s “Charitable Endeavors: SMBs Can Think Big”.

Cash donations and capital are critical for any nonprofit; however, developing strong, more deeply rooted community partnerships between companies and nonprofits is providing sustaining results for the nonprofit and the company. Sustaining is the operative focus. For nonprofits, a community engagement approach provides resources and relationships that advance the cause and impact. For businesses, this approach breeds more employee and customer loyalty offering employees deeper meaning about their job and the company they work for, and can move customers to choose your company over another.

Business4Better is all about this mission – developing smart community partnerships between companies and nonprofits to have a greater impact on society. We are looking to profile these partnerships, sharing and learning from their efforts and celebrating their impact.

If you have examples or advice to share, you can do so here in the Business4Better blog, apply to speak at Business4Better, and/or join your colleagues and participate in the Business4Better Conference May 1 & 2, 2013 in Anaheim CA.