Giving Back: Charity in the modern business

An anecdotal post I wrote on my personal Facebook page over the weekend garnered some interesting feedback. It began like this:

A couple of weeks ago I went to my GP and because there were some scary things happening, she called an ambulance and I was taken to hospital (I'm fine, no sympathy please). Today [Saturday] I received the invoice from St John in the mail. It was $98.

It continued with ruminations on my health journey over the last year (see "The True Meaning of Wealth"), including the increased levels of empathy, awareness, openness and perception I've noticed in myself, but ultimately with the point of emphasising the importance of charitable giving.

For an hour or so on this day, I was attended to by two extremely kind paramedics, who made me feel almost completely at ease in a worrying situation, and the ambulance they were manning meant I could get the medical attention I needed as quickly as possible. How is that worth only $98?

The point I wanted to get across had hit me acutely when I opened my mail and discovered there was no correlation between what I was being charged by St John, and the perceived value of the service they had provided me with. I consider myself a smart, well-educated person of sound acumen, however I do believe it's quite possible that the pre-illness me would not have genuinely recognised the deep need of community and public support required by an organisation like St John, and therefore that it's likely a large chunk of my network would possess the same unintentional ignorance.

The feedback I received was largely personal accounts of friends' experience with St John but it was evident that not all individuals have the financial room to give back; to fund this lack of correlation which enables St John to provide a relatively affordable service to Kiwis. It got me thinking more about giving, and its place outside my personal life: in my business life.

As a business leader there are three avenues of giving I focus on every single day:

• Giving to our company's employees, by way of encouraging their professional growth,
• Giving to our clients and introducers, by way of providing service that has a lasting positive impact on them and/or their businesses, and
• Giving to our financiers, by way of referring the right type of business to each one.

Each one brings immense gratification and although "rewire yourself into a giving mindset and abundance will flow your way" has become the trend du jour of self-help articles in recent years, how better I, as an individual in business, and we, as a business, can serve others, has always been my focus. Yet still, charitable giving is not on the above list, and chances are it's not on yours, either. If it is - kudos! - you can stop reading now.* If you're in the same boat as me - it should be.

Giving comes in all shapes and forms. As a group, Credit One already regularly supports some overseas charities providing medical care and schooling to children in areas of poverty - this is a pretty clear-cut action of charitable giving but the type that many individuals and businesses can't necessarily practise.

In some ways, I think "taking less" is, in essence, a form of giving, and possibly a good way to contribute to a better world for us all. Think: implementing ways to reduce paper or plastic use/waste in your life and business. And of course, time - the holy grail of giving and something of infinite value to us all - can always be given to good causes in lieu of profit or pay cheques.

The world relies on giving. Some people rely on it for clean water to drink. I relied on it to receive urgent medical attention for a relatively minor affliction. The more I think about it, the more I can identify other local companies doing their bit beyond the normal scope of their business to give, such that it's evident this is a key area for businesses of today to consider if they're to remain progressive in our ever-changing modern economic landscape. Over the coming weeks I will be continuing to think about how I can incorporate more giving, whether strictly charitable or otherwise, into our business and I challenge you to do the same.

*I'd love to read in the comments below what regular practices you have within your business that somehow equate to giving back, whether that be to charity, our earth, or the local community.