Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by P G T I University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
Speaker 2 00:00:18 Yeah. Employees who react favorably to their company's nonprofit work, charity work, community service, everything like that are five times more likely to remain with the company. Wow. So that's huge.
Speaker 1 00:00:31 We are shifting gears today as we continue in the series Community Matters. In this week's episode, we chat with McKenna Tansky, our marketing specialist who helps with the philanthropy efforts at P G T I. We talk about how to determine which nonprofits are a good fit for your company. Did you know there are massive benefits to your organization when you do this? Listen to this short episode to learn more. So, good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast and today we are gonna be talking about the value of external partnerships. And our previous episode we heard a little bit about how we take care of our internal partners, how we care for our employees and our team members. And today's episode we're gonna talk about why it's important to partner outside your organization. And we have in studio with us. Um, returning is McKenna Tansky. Welcome back.
Speaker 2 00:01:19 Hi. Thank you. Excited to be back.
Speaker 1 00:01:21 Yeah, it's good to have you back in the studio. This is just gonna tee up the four episodes that we have coming. Each of those episodes is with one of our non-profit partners. Before we hear from them, I wanted to tee it up. Uh, so McKenna, in what ways does a business benefit by giving and serving others, particularly other non-profits?
Speaker 2 00:01:40 Yeah, so giving and serving the community is so important as a business. It improves employee engagement and it boosts productivity. It boosts ethical behavior within your company, gratitude to the organization. It boosts your team members' pride in their work. It has so many benefits. And overall when employees are more engaged with their work and more pleased with their corporate culture, like they feel like their company is doing something to make their society, their community, their world better, they will have a higher morale in general. So, and that just happens naturally. So I think that's like the biggest benefit of giving back and serving your community, serving a higher cause than just your business, just what you're producing. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:02:19 I did not realize that there were all those
Speaker 2 00:02:21 Benefits. Huge benefits. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:22 Yeah. I mean I know I like it. I didn't know there was all
Speaker 2 00:02:25 Of that. Yeah. Huge.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 And so we have four nonprofits that we support on a regular basis and that allows us to really make a bigger impact with those four than say we partnered with a hundred different organizations and gave them a little tiny bit. Do you feel like that's a good strategy no matter what size of a business you
Speaker 2 00:02:44 Have? Yeah, definitely. The more that you can center your focus in on exactly what you are, you know, trying to promote, trying to help, trying to stop, the more that your team members will be engaged with that. And so R four, they're all kind of similar. You know, they all are very people focused, very um, women, children focused. But our, our team members will be able to see and understand better, um, stand behind us when it comes to those issues. Cuz there's not like a plethora of different charities that we're giving to. And it, it's easier to show our team members what we're giving to and to ask them to engage with us. You know, the fewer charities that you have, the more narrowed focus that you have
Speaker 1 00:03:20 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. And then you can make a bigger impact with those four. Right. And so the four that we have are children First, Loveland Center, the Y M C A and Girls Inc. I mean, we're not limited. We do support other nonprofits. There are, you know, other organizations that P G T I has helped and we'll continue to help. But our large focus is those four. Right. As I understand
Speaker 2 00:03:42 It. Yes, Yes. And we are adding a focus with human trafficking with the Florida Alliance Against Human Trafficking. So I don't know if that's been like publicly announced yet. Oh. Um, but we're gonna be sponsoring them pretty heavily this next year.
Speaker 1 00:03:54 Okay. Awesome. And you and I are gonna talk further about that in another episode. Yes. Awesome. I'm excited about that one too. And so for our dealer audience, I mean they probably get asked to help the softball team or the pet shelter or the retirement center or whatever. What would be good guidance for them to choose a nonprofit to work with?
Speaker 2 00:04:15 Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like when you are a giving person and you do want to help everybody, it's hard to kind of narrow your focus in and say no. But when you do that, you do have a bigger impact on that narrowed focus, which is very important when it comes to helping the community. So I would suggest to just know your customers, know, um, the people who are buying your products, know your team members and know what you're passionate about personally. Like what do you want to make a difference in? What angers you about the world? What do you want to shine a light in, send a helping hand in? The more you're passionate about what you're, what you're supporting, the higher impact you're gonna be able to make. So I would suggest that a company just finds what they're passionate about, what fuels them.
Speaker 2 00:04:54 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then really think about what's at the heart and soul of your company like you and your employees. What do you guys strive for every day? Is it serving people? Is it serving the environment? Is it improving the environment? Like what is that? Figure out what that is. And then above all else, just make sure that your team members, your workers feel connected to the charitable work of your company. So if they kind of don't really take much engagement in it or kind of take a step back and it didn't bring them together as much as you thought it would, maybe try to revisit another industry, another sector of the non-profit area. Yeah. Employees who react favorably to their company's non-profit work, charity work, community service, everything like that are five times more likely to remain with the company. Wow. So
Speaker 1 00:05:38 That's amazing's huge. Well, and one of the things that I'm super excited about, and I talk about this a little bit in one of the other episodes, but it's worth saying again, we have such an amazing policy here. As a full-time employee, we get eight hours of paid volunteer time off every year. And so there's paperwork involved. You do have to get a nonprofit to sign off on your time that you spent there, but that's a huge benefit. Like, I'm actually helping with a non-profit this coming weekend and then I'm helping them again in December with a big event that they have and it's on a Friday. So Okay. Instead of me taking a personal day and taking away from my personal time off, I can actually go and still get paid from my job to do a nonprofit event. And that's huge because otherwise like I'm just gonna have to miss a full day's worth of
Speaker 2 00:06:23 Work. Right.
Speaker 1 00:06:24 Or cash out one of my, you know, sick days or vacation days or whatever. The company here believes so strongly in volunteerism that we get paid to do it. Right. Which is amazing. And this, so I think even if a dealer doesn't have a particular bent on non-profits or they haven't solidified a partnership yet, or they don't really know what that's gonna look like for them, they can at least comp their employees for a day of, Hey, there's this thing and I wanna go help and can we work that out? I think that is just a huge benefit and doesn't cost that much.
Speaker 2 00:06:53 Right. Right. Yeah. Having those VTO hours kind of just shows that the company is supporting you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, like even if they don't have that charitable narrowed focus, Right. They can still offer those VTO hours and the team members will see like, oh, the company does want me to go out and help the community. Like they are wanting me to make a difference and they're empowering me to do that. Right. So those VTO hours are very important. Right.
Speaker 1 00:07:15 And if you can do it as a group and do it as a team building exercise as well. Like, hi beach cleanup on July 5th, <laugh>. Yeah. You know, that's always a big one. Or, you know, helping a lot of the charities and nonprofits get really busy around the holidays and they need extra help,
Speaker 2 00:07:30 So Right. Yeah. Make it a group effort. Make it like a team bonding thing. Right. You know, instead of going to play some team bonding games, you could go and help out a soup kitchen or volunteer, you know, cleaning up the beach like you said. Right.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Awesome. Okay, well I think we've given them some good ideas around how to support nonprofits and, uh, look forward to hearing more about Highway
Speaker 2 00:07:50 Heroes. Awesome. All right. Take care. Thank you. All right.
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