3 Tips on Meaningful Charity in 2021
Charitable Giving that Gives Back
This past holiday season, many of us filled our Amazon carts with toys, tokens, and gadgets to remind our loved ones of how much they mean to us. The gifts we gave our family and friends were tangible ways to say, “You mean a lot to me” or “I’m invested in you.”
As we move forward in 2021, business owners should be reflecting on ways to say the same thing to our communities.
In fact, that’s one of the first steps toward meaningful charitable giving — seeing your community as an investment.
Investment can come in many forms, but let’s focus on three major perspectives you can consider for your charitable giving this year.
#1: An Investment in Human Resources
Your company is likely made up of individual employees that propel the business forward. The smarter and the more educated your employees are, the better your business will be.
But take a moment to look at your current workforce. Will it look the same in five years? In ten years? In 20 years?
Now, let’s consider the young people in the community where your business is based. Are they learning the skills that will make them successful contributors to your industry one day?
Charitable giving initiatives that support education are powerful investments in human resources. Supporting industry-oriented education is even more powerful as it prepares young people for meaningful contributions in target fields. In the context of your business’s charitable giving efforts, you may want to support education in fields specific to your industry.
At our company, Cane Bay Partners VI, we combine technology, data analytics, and financial experience to help fintech companies better manage their resources. The people who work for us have strong backgrounds in risk analytics, marketing analytics, data analytics, economics, and finance.
Since our company is based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, much of our charitable giving has supported math, science, and technology education on St. Croix. We’re especially interested in promoting fields directly related to the fintech industry.
According to occupation employment statistics from the Virgin Islands Department of Labor, only about 1 percent of the USVI workforce had math or tech-related careers in 2019. About 5 percent participated in business or financial operations. The stats didn’t reveal how many of those people were born and raised in the local community.
It appears that there’s a great need to equip more people from the local community with the resources they need to become skilled workers in these high-income fields of study.
In August, the University of the Virgin Islands offered a data science minor for the first time ever. Cane Bay Partners supported the program with a $10,000 donation. Over the past 11 years we’ve contributed more than $125,000 to the university in support of similar initiatives relating to data science and analytics.
We also support education through our charitable giving arm, Cane Bay Cares. After hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the USVI in 2017, we started a free afterschool program — Operation Inspire — for students whose school schedules had been disrupted. Today, Cane Bay Cares continues to administer the program, which has now gone virtual to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. A large part of the curriculum is project-based learning in math, science, technology, and humanities.
When considering charitable giving towards education initiatives in the context of your own local community, think of industry trends. Where is your industry headed in the future? Will an understanding of, let’s say, artificial intelligence help the industry make strides? Are there any gaps in education in your local community that, if filled, can help prepare youth to make those strides? Let your charitable giving fill the gaps.
#2: An Investment in Development
Your charitable giving also has the power to solve problems that affect everyone. Every community has unique issues and supporting initiatives that promote development is yet another way to make your charitable giving meaningful.
Here’s an example. Let’s say your business is based in a community where a high percentage of the population is struggling economically. Your company’s charitable giving could be geared towards economic development.
If your business is making money, but the residents who live in your community don’t have access to important resources, does it even matter? Yes, it matters. It matters most on a humane level, but it also matters if you’re thinking about the longevity of your company. In countries where there are huge inequities because the country’s resources aren’t fairly or properly distributed, civil unrest, high levels of crime, and political instability tends to follow. Under those conditions, most businesses don’t survive in the long run.
In a very broad sense, economic development is a measurement of the quality of life for the residents of a particular place. Every time you make a charitable contribution toward making essential resources and services (i.e. healthcare or education) more accessible to individuals or a contribution toward preventing crime, you are contributing to the economic development of your local community and to the longevity of your company.
Cane Bay Partners supports literacy through our afterschool program, and we’ve also donated funds to support special education. But we also set aside money annually to support local crime prevention organizations such as the Virgin Islands Police Department and Crime Stoppers USVI.
It’s important to note that you don’t always have to give money to make a meaningful contribution toward development. For example, I volunteer my time and financial expertise every week to help USVI government officials advance economic development initiatives. My volunteer time sometimes involves participating in task force meetings, speaking at conferences, or being an ambassador.
Although your background may not be in finance, it doesn’t mean you don’t have anything useful to share as a business owner or leader. Your time and experience in your industry can be valuable resources in solving problems that affect the community on a whole.
#3: An Investment in Relationships
Another way to make your charitable giving more meaningful is to consider your giving as an investment in relationships. When you support other organizations that have strong leadership and impactful initiatives, you’re creating strategic alliances.
For our company, that meant partnering with the University of the Virgin Islands Research and Technology Park (RTPark). The RTPark is an economic development program that specializes in attracting technology and knowledge-based businesses to the USVI. We sponsor their ACCELERATE VI program that supports entrepreneurs and freelancers with trainings, a coworking space, and other resources. The 2,300-square-foot coworking space is housed on the first floor of our building. It features high-speed Internet, office equipment, two conference rooms, and four private meeting rooms.
We see our sponsorship as a way to empower the RTPark to advance technological development here. As most of our clients are fintech companies, an alliance with an organization that can help us serve them better is a win-win situation.
When it’s time to choose where your company’s charity dollars go, you might also consider targeting organizations that will serve as good partners in advancing the work in your industry — directly or indirectly. Suppose you have a company based in the U.S. with a diverse workforce. That workforce may include foreign engineers who are good at what they do but who also had to struggle with learning English when they first started working in the U.S. Why not support an ESL school that’s doing exceptional work in teaching professional adults functional English? You might consider donating money to the school and covering the costs of lessons for foreign new hires. The school then makes money to help it expand its resources. Those resources will benefit foreign professionals seeking to advance their careers, and you will get more proficient employees. Win-win.
Wrapping it Up
Overall, giving with purpose means seeing the big picture. Where do you want to see your community in the next 20 years? How can your charitable giving make that vision a reality? While your giving will help your community now, it may not benefit you or your company immediately. But there is long-term value to consider. Once you start seeing the money you give to your community as an investment toward human resources, development, and positive relationships, you’re on your way to charitable giving that is meaningful.
Key Takeaways
· Meaningful charitable giving starts with seeing the money, time, and services you offer as investments.
· Meaningful giving can be an investment in human resources.
Example: donating to or starting an academic program that will teach students the skills needed to improve their quality of life and advance your industry
· Meaningful giving can be an investment in development.
Example: donating to causes or creating initiatives that make healthcare, education, or affordable housing for the underserved in your community
· Meaningful giving can be an investment in strategic relationships.
Example: donating to and supporting organizations that do commendable work in the community while also advancing your industry
