Oswald Letter

Your Company Benefits When It Supports the Community

Forgive me for bragging, but I’ve got a group of fantastic coworkers. Many of them were in action again this morning. You see, some of our people volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House here in Nashville today. As I write this, they’ve already served breakfast to the families staying there and another team will be serving lunch. In addition, we have a group that will be getting together during their lunch hour to make blankets for the families of the Ronald McDonald house.

It’s amazing to watch people come together to perform selfless acts that benefit others who are in need. Ever since the Nashville community rose up to help its own in the days and weeks following the flood that devastated many parts of our city, I’ve been thinking about how wonderful people can be in times of need — and how the people who do the volunteering often are the ones who benefit the most.

At our company we have a charitable activities committee that drives the volunteerism of the organization. Here’s how it works in a nutshell.

At the beginning of each year, we send an e-mail asking for volunteers to serve on the committee. The committee takes suggestions from its members as well as the other employees about the charitable activities we might participate in. We also add to that list any group that comes to us asking the company to make a charitable donation.

The committee discusses each suggestion or request, then votes, and from there sets a calendar for the year with monthly activities. Each person serving on the committee chooses one activity to “chair” — they coordinate, organize, and work with the contact from the organization.

In order for us to work with a charity, it must meet three criteria we’ve established:

  1. The charity must be a local organization thoroughly checked out and approved by the committee before we consider working with them. We have limited resources so we want to make sure that we not only work with reputable organizations, but that we can make an impact where our employees live and work.
  2. The charitable organization must provide a volunteer opportunity. We want our employees to get involved with the organization so we look for opportunities to volunteer. We will disregard any request for financial support that does not include a volunteer aspect. We will provide paid time off for any company-sponsored charitable activities.
  3. In order for the event to be sponsored by the company, it must be voted on and approved by the committee. This helps us focus our efforts on activities that meet the criteria and where we believe we can do the most good.

Our people have benefited from the opportunity to work together for some tremendous causes. Each year we adopt a family for Christmas. The employees purchase the gifts, wrap them, and deliver them to the family. Last year, we had the family attend our company holiday luncheon so that our people could meet them.

We’ve worked with the Make a Wish Foundation here in Nashville helping make the dreams of a number of young people come true. We’ve sent a couple of kids to Disney World in the past. We typically hold a company event to which we invite the entire family of the recipient of our donation. Our employees purchase some gifts for the child, things he can take to Disney with him, and we celebrate together.

Already this year in addition to today’s work with Ronald McDonald House, our employees have volunteered with a non-profit that’s focused on mentoring, leadership development, and healthy recreational opportunities for inner-city children and youth. We also delivered 174 pounds of food to Second Harvest, a local food bank, and had volunteers donate their time to sort 17 pallets of food (equal to 35,000 pounds). And we have something planned for just about every remaining month of 2010.

If the people at your company are volunteering and making a difference, thank you! If you’re not doing it yet, be the one to get it started. It’s a great thing to do for the community in which you work and live. And it’s an even better thing to do for yourself and your coworkers. I promise you’ll never regret doing it!

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