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How Helping Your Community Grows Your Business

November 17, 2022

How Helping Your Community Grows Your Business

Businesses are an essential part of the local community, helping provide services and goods to community members while bolstering the economy. When businesses give back to the community through outreach, donations and other means, they help improve the community as well as their own growth.

Below, you’ll learn more about why businesses should get involved in the community and how your company can give back. You’ll also learn how CAEDC can help you relocate, remain and grow in Cumberland County.

Benefits of Community Involvement

The importance of community involvement for businesses cannot be understated. Getting involved benefits the community and your company. Learn more about the benefits of getting involved in community outreach below.

1. Building Trust and Connections

When customers and locals see you helping out your shared community, they’re more likely to view your company as one that aligns with their values and cares about its customers, which helps establish trust. When customers trust your business, they’re more likely to keep using your products or services.

Getting involved in the community also helps businesses foster authentic connections with the community. These days, people spend their time on phones or behind a computer, whether for work or leisure, which makes connecting with others in person a refreshing experience. You can help foster connections with your community by getting involved, whether by hosting charity events, serving food for the homeless or offering services at a local fair.

These events offer excellent opportunities for community engagement for businesses. Your team will get to know each other better at these events, and employees will be able to connect with members of their community.

2. Creating Brand Awareness

When you help your community, you also get the word out about your business. Your local community is much more likely to remember your brand if you’re consistently helping out at events, donating or finding other methods to assist your community.

Many volunteer opportunities also offer incentives that encourage businesses to get involved. For example, say you offer to serve food at an event, donate to a nonprofit auction, volunteer clean-up services or do any other community service. Your incentive could be your business’s name and logo printed on flyers or posted on the event website, giving your free exposure.

3. Building Loyalty

When you help your community, you build loyalty from your regular customers and locals, turning them into raving fans. Loyalty is essential for any business as it keeps new customers coming back over and over again. You can create customer loyalty by getting involved in your community and showcasing your support for local concerns.

Once a person becomes loyal to your business, they turn into brand advocates. These customers can spread information about your business through word-of-mouth, a highly effective marketing tool. Loyal customers will rave about your business to family, friends, coworkers and others in their life, encouraging more people to check out your goods or services.

When you get involved in the community, you prove that you care for these individuals, making it more likely that they continue doing business with your company and share information about your brand with loved ones.

4. Forging Employee Relationships

Working in the office can be busy, making building meaningful connections with coworkers challenging. Even employees at smaller companies may find it difficult to foster relationships among coworkers with a busy work schedule, whether they’re working to achieve sales goals, focusing on accounting, talking to customers on the phone or completing other work-related tasks.

Getting involved in the community is an excellent opportunity for employees to build relationships, which will help them more efficiently communicate with coworkers and complete essential tasks. Employees have the chance to bond while they stuff envelopes, serve food or participate in other community events together. This opportunity is something they might not have the opportunity to do in a busy office setting. Getting involved in community outreach or local charities is an excellent way to help your employees connect while giving back to the community.

 

Ways Your Business Can Give Back to the Community

Giving back to your community helps grow your business by increasing brand awareness, trust, loyalty and employee relationships. There are many different ways you can get involved with your community. Consider the following methods to help community efforts:

  • Partner with local brands: Partnering with other local businesses can help bolster the economy and your brand awareness. If you sell products, you can stock your shelves with other local products that align with your brand identity. You can also offer discounts to customers who show receipts from your brand partners. Even liking social media posts or recommending other local businesses can help improve your community.
  • Donate products or services: Donating money is just one way to give back to a community. You can also donate your products or services to those in need to help make a significant impact. For example, restaurant owners can donate meals to the homeless to help fight hunger, and retailers can donate clothing to those in need. Find ways your products and services can benefit your community, and look for a trusted organization that accepts donations and offers them to those in need.
  • Offer discounts: There are many hard-working members of your community that contribute to your local health and well-being, such as doctors, EMTs, military veterans, teachers, police officers and firefighters. You can express your appreciation and give back to these essential community members by offering special discounts. You can even offer discounts for special days, like birthdays or anniversaries, to make the rest of your community feel just as appreciated.
  • Host charity events: Charity events are a great way to raise money for your community and bring awareness to your brand. Some events you can host at local venues include mixers, happy hours, dinners, game nights, performances and artwork showcases. These events help bring the community together and encourage donations that benefit locals. You can even host online events when in-person meetings aren’t possible or safe.
  • Encourage company involvement: Getting employees involved in local volunteer opportunities to help foster positive workplace relationships while addressing community needs. You can host service days where employees can get involved by planting trees in a local park, serving food to the homeless or cleaning up a public space. There are many opportunities to take advantage of in your local community, and you can even provide your employees with different options to get involved in ways they enjoy.
  • Get Involved: CAEDC can help your business make valuable connections to the community and business leaders. Learn about the benefits of joining the Cumberland Valley Alliance here. You can also find a local event to attend or support by browsing the Cumberland Valley Events Calendar.

Grow Your Business in Cumberland County With Cumberland Area Economic Development Corporation (CAEDC)

CAEDC helps foster growth for local Cumberland County businesses, using various services and resources for companies in the local area. While hosting events and performing outreach in the community is a great way to give back, focusing on developing your business in the area is an excellent way to improve economic growth, offer new services to locals and increase tourism.

CAEDC offers many services to help businesses relocate, grow and remain in Cumberland County, including financing, incentives, government programs, grants and development services. We are a bridge between local businesses and the government to help companies find a home in Cumberland County. Contact us to learn more about our services!