June 20th, 2016
Small businesses tend to be very involved with their local community and often join charity initiatives. As a provider of flexible office space in many local areas, Basepoint has a strong commitment to the communities where we are based.
Basepoint itself is owned by a grant-making charity, the ACT Foundation, which supports a range of good causes. Each of our business centres also organises a range of fundraising, charity and community events in its own local area. One recent example was a visit to our Canterbury business centre by Sustrans, a local charity which promotes safe cycle routes and sustainable transport, for a bike doctor session, pictured.
Small Businesses and Corporate Social Responsibility
As a small business owner, you will find there are many local issues you feel strongly about, but many companies find it is best just to pick one or two causes to support at a time, to avoid spreading themselves too thin. You may choose to support a charity which is specific to your area or has a particular relevance to your clients or customers. For instance, suppliers of children’s products often choose to fundraise for a local children’s hospital.
The whole question of social responsibility has increasingly become something that big businesses have to address, for instance by sourcing supplies sustainably, cutting energy use wherever possible and allowing staff paid time to volunteer for good causes. Small businesses are also aware of all these issues, and typically tend to operate in a sustainable and environmentally responsible way. For instance, a small local food supplier will not incur the same level of “food miles” as a larger company which has to transport dishes across the country.
When it comes to volunteering, however, it may be harder for a small company to get involved because of their more limited resources. If a business has only a handful of staff, allowing someone to take extra time away can put colleagues under too much pressure. All the same, there have been efforts nationally to encourage small business owners to get involved in volunteering, and many have taken up the challenge.
If you do decide to volunteer, it can be helpful to set an amount of time that you can realistically afford to give and then stick to it. This also applies if you opt to donate free specialist services in your particular field to charity, rather than joining in a volunteering project.
Raising Funds for Good Causes
Many small businesses decide to take part in fundraising events both in the workplace and outside, ranging from coffee mornings to sponsored walks and more wacky and unusual events. The growth of fundraising websites has made it easier to stage these events than it used to be in the days of traditional sponsor forms, but organising a fundraiser can still be time consuming.
Networking and working in a group can be very helpful here. If a number of small businesses in an area support a fundraising drive, it means there is less pressure on each one and that you can draw on a wider field of support from customers and clients.
Basepoint’s Support for Good Causes
Basepoint’s ethos is to support the community and charities. Our parent company, The ACT Foundation, is a charity which gives grants both to other charities and to individuals, including elderly people and those with physical and mental disabilities, to improve their quality of life.
As well as feeding proceeds into ACT to help fund its work, each Basepoint centre chooses an annual “centre charity” to support. For instance, Ipswich Basepoint is currently raising funds for Age UK Suffolk, including taking part in an annual charity golf day, with businesses at the centre getting involved. Meanwhile, our Southampton business centre is supporting the Piam Brown Ward at Southampton General Hospital, which is a regional unit providing oncology and haematology services for children.
Our centres also organise a whole range of other community and charity events. For example, the whole network of centres took part in the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support in 2015.
Basepoint licensees are encouraged to get involved in charity and community events, whether you are based in our flexible office space or are a virtual office customer. Taking part can benefit you as well as the charity, by helping with networking and building relationships with other small businesses.
Flexible Office Space Click to see our great range of centres in prime business locations.
