Better Businesses: 6 Steps To Becoming Community Champions

Social problems are embedded in social systems and an increasing number of businesses seeking to make positive impacts through systems change are taking on the challenge of tackling their communities most pressing needs. Action Funder are a fellow B Corp that are in the business of helping businesses to do this, we collaborated with them to find out what 6 steps companies can take to become community champions.

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Building Better Businesses and Communities

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Businesses of all shapes and sizes, from your local chemist to HSBC - want to support local communities.

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The arrival of covid super-charged awareness of local issues, encouraging more businesses than ever to support the communities that they operate in. But local challenges aren’t new. And neither is business to community support.

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Business owners and employees have long been interested in giving back locally. But they’ve rarely had the time, money, and expertise to do it (let alone do it well).

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At ActionFunder we’re in the business of making it easy for companies to support local communities. We help businesses to find, fund and follow the impact of local non profits across the UK. And we see the positive changes that occur as a result; both out in the community and inside the businesses where brand value, employee engagement and CSR ratings are given a boost.

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So, how can your business get involved in supporting the local community?

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6 steps to becoming a community champion

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1) Define Local

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Decide which local communities to support. Be strategic; align your giving with the locations that matter to your operations and your stakeholders. That way you’ll get better engagement from across the business and the added bonus of being able to see the community impact first hand.

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Look at key locations like your head office, shop front(s), points along your supply chain, the places that your employees, investors, and customers are based. If you have stakeholders across the UK then run a UK-wide community support programme. Or focus in on a particular location (a village, town, city or region) to target the communities on your, your customers, or your employees doorsteps.

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2) Decide On A Cause

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Now you know which communities you want to support, it's time to choose the local challenges that you want to help tackle. Focus on the causes that align with your work. For instance, if your business is in the food industry then consider working with food banks, food rescue schemes, and community farms. If you can’t easily align your giving with your business’s purpose then ask your employees and customers which causes matter to them (biodiversity, education, or homelessness for example).

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By aligning your giving with the purpose of your business or the causes that your people care about you’re more likely to give more to the community and get more out of what you give too.

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3) Fund Local Action

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At ActionFunder we speak with thousands of non profits tackling local challenges and boosting community cohesion across the UK. When we ask what kind of support they need the answer is resoundingly clear: funding.

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So, on ActionFunder we make it as simple as possible to fund local non profits. You can sign up for free to get matched with non profits relevant to your business. And you can support those non profits by launching a fund. Then you can sit back and follow the impact. You’ll be amazed to see how far your funding can go!

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4) Celebrate Community

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Support non profits operating in your local community and you’ll soon see the impact. Get ready to be amazed by the photos, videos, stories and quotes you get back from the groups that you support.

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Share that content and the wider impact of your funding with your customers and employees to give a boost to the non profits and to your brand. And spread the word further (through your website, social media, newsletters, events etc.) to shine a light on the amazing results that come from supporting communities. The more we share about the power of connecting with and supporting local non profits, the more others will do the same.

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5) Offer your expertise

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Dive even deeper into supporting your local community by offering your products or services to local non profits - what you sell will likely have value to them as well as your usual customer base.

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Whether you can offer sports kit, event space or marketing know how… reach out to the non profits you’ve built a partnership with and let them know what you can do for them.

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We’ve seen businesses fund action in their communities and go on to offer free legal advice, tech support, and even wildflower seeds to local non profits!

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6) Get out and volunteer

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Employees often want to get out of the office and volunteer in the community. Local volunteering is a great way to develop cross-team engagement with your community giving programme. And provides brilliant team building and storytelling too! The ActionFunder team volunteers twice a year so we can vouch for how brilliant it can be for boosting morale.

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Get in touch with the non profits that you’ve funded and ask if you can come along to support the delivery of their work. Then roll up your sleeves and get out there!

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There you have it - 6 steps to becoming a community champion! Sign up to ActionFunder for free to see some of the local non profits aligned with your business location and interests. And get in touch if you have any questions about supporting your community.

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