For the last several months, I received daily emails from HARO (Help a Reporter Out). It’s a cool service that allows journalist to let subscribers know about stories they are writing. This week I posted my own request for stories about how companies give back and what difference it makes. My post just listed about 24 hours ago but the responses I have received have been terrific. So many organizations and individuals are doing amazing things to give back. While most probably don’t give with the expectation that they will get something back, it seems most do. Here a just a few examples from many responses:

- At Pacific, we budget at least 2% of net profit to go toward charitable giving. Ever since we have done that, people all over our community have begun listing Pacific as a leader in the community when before we were just kind of behind the scenes.

-  Fox’s Pizza Den in Punxsutawney, PA has given back over $100,000 to the Fire Company & to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.  It has proven to be the most profitable & rewarding marketing we have done.

- I am a partner at a small translations business located in Nashville, TN. We offer all local non-profits a free English to Spanish translation so that they can communicate with their Hispanic clients.   legal services, animal shelters, and medical services. We feel good about knowing that Spanish speakers have access to important information in their language.  The non-profits are thrilled that someone gave them something for free. It has also helped our bottom line. We get the benefit of the “donation” (we send an invoice with the value of the translation with a balance due of zero), and several non-profits have turned into paying customers.

From small companies to large international organizations, I am convinced that if you want your organization to profit, try giving and if you want to be uplifted during these challenging times, take the advice below. 

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” Booker T. Washington

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how givingincreases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go towww.TimRichardson.com