SBGA creates culture of business leadership

“Doing WELL by doing GOOD” has captured the imagination of an entire generation of business leaders and the buzz phrase weaves through half a trillion (by my last unscientific count) corporate philanthropy and HR marketing websites. Put broadly, the term reflects a growing trend towards a more holistic and socially responsible way of making money in the modern world. But, like so many new business fads, corporate citizenship all too often carries less substance than a green-diesel commercial. To see what makes the difference between brand posturing and true community investment, we caught up with Nathan Jurczyk, Vice President of Small Business Growth Alliance, to learn how one company put its money where its PR was.
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  SBGA first got involved with Make-A-Wish back in 2007 when Nathan brought his significant corporate philanthropy experience to the company. “I’d seen, in previous roles, the amazing good a company can do for the community and I knew that was the kind of workplace I wanted to build” Nathan explained. “SBGA’s operations impose a footprint in the community. We use the roads, depend on the utilities, hire the locals, and generally are privileged to leverage the assets of the thriving local business climate to drive our success. We knew we had to do something to make sure that we left the community stronger than we found it.”

  In his experience, changing a company culture requires leadership buy-in and so right out of the gate Nathan implemented a philanthropic steering committee of top-level executives charged with a mandate to drive engagement in the new initiative. “Early on, our goal was to identify those individuals who would be excited to take on the challenge of making something new, natural spokespeople for what we were trying to build.” As it turned out, this task was much easier than expected. Nathan and his team quickly learned that community minded individuals typically aren’t shy about wanting to help, and as soon as SBGA empowered its constituents to do good, those individuals with the biggest energy quickly rose to the top, always ready to take on another volunteer project or host another in-house fundraiser. With executive support and team leadership firmly in place, the real work began.

  The committee surveyed various stakeholders to gain insight into the group’s needs and selected a few charities that closely aligned with the company’s goals and interests. Make-A-Wish Orange County and the Inland Empire was on the short list. “In addition to seeking out charity partners who aligned with our company culture, we looked for organizations that had the infrastructure to fully engage in our efforts and that would be able to provide the staff and administrative support necessary to make the most of our internal campaigns. Make-A-Wish’s history in the community and committed staff resources made them a natural fit.” Once a few charity partnerships had been established, the committee switched gears and began working on ways to drive impact for their selected causes.

  “We started with small opportunities that literally couldn’t fail; volunteering a few hours at the food bank, hosting gift card drives, things that would benefit the community regardless of the level of overall participation.” Robust participation, however, wasn’t far off. “Where some companies typically see 10% turn out at an event, we were soon seeing over 50% engagement! It was incredible how excited the team would get around these efforts.” For Nathan and his committee, success bred success and today the company has a well-earned reputation for its best-in-class corporate philanthropy.

  The values SBGA pursued have caused a paradigm shift in the company’s employee culture AND market position. On the employee side, great staff are staying longer and consistently engaging more deeply with the work; all of which reduces turnover and training costs and boosts productivity. In addition, enthused Nathan, “employees who embrace our culture of community investment tend to produce stronger customer experiences which plays a big role in fueling our success.” From a market perspective, SBGA’s reputation for integrity, driven by its community oriented management style, has opened doors to client and vendor relationships that likely wouldn’t have been available before. “We have a solid edge in contract negotiations because our partners know from the beginning that we’re in this for more than just the next dollar in profits; an invaluable bargaining position that’s very difficult to fake.”

  In closing, we asked Nathan for some advice to other local companies looking to replicate SBGA’s success. His response: “Start small, choose the right partners, and above all, mean what you say.”

 Author Name:- Kjeld Lindsted