Small Businesses Giving Back

Since small businesses are so well connected with their communities, they are in a position to do a lot of good! Giving back doesn’t have to mean a large financial outlay or donating hours and hours of your time. By connecting how you give (and to whom) with your interests, skills, services or products, you can contribute in a meaningful way and have a large impact.

giving back

Here are some ways that you can contribute – and some San Francisco Bay Area business owners who are doing just that!

Mentor other small business owners

There is a strong possibility that your success is due in part to the people that helped you along the way. You, too, can help others be successful. Do you have business expertise that could be valuable to someone either inside or outside your industry? Heidi Gibson, owner of The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen has made mentorship a priority. She offers internships to new food entrepreneurs and volunteers her time to help small business entrepreneurs in Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center’s Business Planning Class with their business financials.

Organize a volunteer day for your employees

This can foster increased engagement and team-buildinghelp and also boost employee morale. You don’t have to have employees to volunteer. My volunteer experience with fellow Potrero Dogpatch Merchants Association members at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank was a fun bonding activity for our local merchants association.

 giving back

Share your knowledge/skills with local organizations

Create a partnership with a local organization that is in alliance with your business and offer your expertise. Avital Food Tours offers unique culinary adventures in the Mission District, the Haight Ashbury, North Beach and Union Square. Owner Avital Ungar volunteers with the Legacy Bars and Restaurants Project run by SF Heritage. She has helped train tour guides for SF Heritage’s Haas-Lilienthal House and organized a pop-up speakeasy to raise money for the Project.

Create customer incentives

Commit to donating a certain percentage of each sale to an organization, offer discounts to customers who support particular causes, or create a contest to encourage customers to engage. Shivani Ganguly, owner of Bom Dia Market in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood supports the non-profit Kitchen Table Advisors. In February, she supported them by donating all proceeds from the sale of prepared foods on one day.

Donate products

Donating products or giving away samples at events can be a great way to reach new customers and support a cause that you believe in. Claire Keene of Clairesquares frequently donates delicious products to support organizations doing good work. She recently donated her treats to a silent auction supporting Techbridge, an organization that inspires girls to discover a passion for technology, science and engineering.

Donate to organizations in line with your values

Supporting organizations that you believe in shows your customers your business’ values. Keith Goldstein, founder of Everest Waterproofing and Restoration Inc. is committed to donating a minimum of 10% of pre-tax profits to charitable organizations, both local and international, He also sponsors Tibetan refugees for jobs, helping them create new lives for themselves and their families in the United States. Neal Gottlieb, founder of Three Twins Ice Cream launched an initiative called Ice Cream for Acres. Three Twins donates money to land preservation efforts every time they sell a cup or pint of ice cream.

Join a non-profit board

Ken Stram, owner of 2Bridge Communications is a board member of the Golden Gate Business Association, the city’s LGBT chamber of commerce. “I’m a bit introverted,” he says, “so being a board member gets me out of the office and keeps me engaged with the LGBT small business community. The board experience is sharpening my leadership and collaboration skills, too. The experience is also good for business—it positions me as a leader and puts me in front of an important audience on a regular basis.” The Volunteer Center helps to match Bay Area non-profits with individuals looking to give back and get involved at a deeper level. Check out their Board Match events.

A Circle of Giving

Your small business can also get a lot in return by giving. The causes and organizations you support will differentiate your business from competitors and can strengthen your ties to customers and clients. Giving back to your community can increase your visibility, increase customer or client loyalty and also increase employee morale. There is no reason NOT to give, and there are so many ways to make an impact!

How do YOU give back? Who are the small business owners that you know who are making a difference?

Business skills and lessons learned

Some of the most enjoyable moments during my years of teaching the Renaissance Business Planning Class were when past students came back to class to share their experiences and business advice. They would talk about their successes and also reveal their struggles and mistakes, and what they might have done differently. They would share how they improved their skills and their capacity to meet the business’ complexity, and also how it was a constant juggling act. Often, they stressed that “learning from doing” was a primary teacher. Their advice always had a profound impact on the students who were about to launch or expand enterprises of their own.

Here are some words of advice from small business owners (and past students) about tackling complex business issues, building on lessons learned and honing your management skills.

business skills

Elizabeth Leu
Fiddlesticks

When Elizabeth Leu started Fiddlesticks, a children’s boutique in Hayes Valley, she thought she was prepared.  She first worked for someone else and learned as much as she could about the retail business.  Elizabeth also took the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center Business Planning class.

She started her business with a solid foundation of hands-on experience, working for others, and thoughtful planning. Yet she couldn’t prepare herself for what it would actually feel like when she was completely responsible for her own business and all its complexities.

“As a small business owner, you have to be the master of all in everything you do, and that’s not easy.  You have to wear ALL the hats and ideally, they should all fit.  I think management capacity is finding the correct fit with all those hats — and that’s hard!  It takes a lot of time and experience to get them all to fit.”

Elizabeth’s advice for small business owners:

LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ABOUT EVERY ROLE IN YOUR BUSINESS.

“You may love only a few of those hats but you have to figure out, master and tolerate them all — at least in the beginning until you can outsource.  Once you get strong enough to outsource, you still need to understand how it all works to keep a watchful eye on the whole operation.”

STAY POSITIVE AND JUST KEEP GOING.

“I have worked very hard to grow my business and I have had some significant setbacks.  With every setback I can either choose to learn from it or become bitter and harbor frustrations.  I have worked hard to learn from them.  All of the setbacks were complex and difficult, especially because it was uncharted territory for me.  But I learned and I am still learning.  What is it they say, ‘two steps forward, one step back’? As long as you move forward, business complexity feels easier because you keep breaking it down, tackling it piece by piece.

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Heidi Gibson & Nate Pollak
The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen

When Heidi and her partner Nate opened The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen they already had general business expertise, people management skills and financial management experience but they were new to the restaurant industry and lacked specific industry skills. Heidi and Nate’s approach was to be honest with themselves about their own abilities and get help. “We took a cold hard look at what we did and did not know how to do, and then we recruited advisers who could teach us, or hired staff who already had the skills we lacked.”

Heidi and Nate took a similar approach when opening their second location. They had never run a multi-unit operation before. They sought consulting from other multi-unit operators, and hired general managers for each store who had come from multi-unit backgrounds. “We tasked the managers in the stores with the responsibility of ensuring consistency across the stores, not just within their own. For us, hiring managers who brought experiences and skills to the table that we did not have ourselves was crucial.” With the added complexity of two locations, Heidi and Nate decided to outsource their bookkeeping, too. “We hired a bookkeeper who had deep experience with multi-unit restaurants, which brought more expertise to our operation and freed up our time to handle other issues.”

Heidi’s advice for other small business owners:

BE BRUTALLY HONEST ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT AND WHAT YOU’RE NOT.

“For the things you are not good at, find a way to outsource them to someone who is good at them. This goes double for bookkeeping and accounting if you are in a high-volume, low-margin business.”

ASK FOR HELP.

“There are a lot of resources out there for growing business owners, including Renaissance, SBDC, ICA and most importantly, other business owners. People want to see you succeed and you’ll be surprised at how much they want to help.”

DON’T SKIP FINANCIAL FORECASTING.

“Many small business owners underestimate their financial management needs and make mistakes with finances when starting or expanding a business. The worst-case scenario is running out of cash, and sometimes growing can really chew up cash. You’re in a much stronger position to secure financing before you run out of cash rather than waiting until you’re down to the wire. Take the time to forecast cash flow, accounting for your growth needs, and start investigating funding options early rather than late.”

business skills

Claire Keane
Clairesquares

Claire Keane, owner of the artisan, handcrafted sweet treats company Clairesquares, says that her business skills did not match the complexity of her business when she started.  She had a steep learning curve.  But Claire gained the skills she needed by seeking out specific business knowledge and support and her daily experiences in business brought many lessons learned.

Claire’s key steps for developing core business skills:

Write a business plan.

Claire took the 14-week Business Planning Class at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and wrote a business plan.  “To this day, I frequently remember key pointers from each class.”

Join an incubator.

Claire joined La Cocina’s Incubator Kitchen and received the help of that community and all their support services.

Attend lots of workshops.

Claire learned from others to increase her skills.  “Whenever there was a workshop relevant to my lack of skills, I made sure to attend it.  I was able to take tips from each training and apply it to my business immediately.”

Develop a support team.

Claire knew that she could not do it all alone.  “It was very helpful to have a business mentor, new business friends with similar start-up business pains and other friends and family to lean on for advice to get me through the learning curve.”

Keep at it, even through failure.

Ultimately it has been Claire’s tenacity and her perseverance that has made her business a success.  “No amount of workshops can prepare you for real world experience.  In the end, I learned from trying, failing, and trying again.”

Check out these additional tips on balancing business skills with business complexity.  What has worked for you and your business?

Mentoring matters

What really matters to us as we move through life? For many of us, it is family, friends, good health and making a difference in the world through the work we do.

I recently read the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and watched a documentary on his life and last few months. Jobs didn’t ever seem to give up. He pushed himself and others to be different and make a difference. He is an example of someone who had a passion for life, a commitment to make an impact, and a curiosity that never went away.

Jobs felt that “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe to be great work.” He went on to say that “the only way to do great work, is to love what you do.” Do we all have this passion and enthusiasm? Are we committed to being a success no matter what stands in our way?

Most small business owners are driven… to do something our own way and to be a success. Yes, we want to be financially successful but other types of success matter to us, too: doing something unique, being remembered, teaching others, and leaving a legacy — something that will last.

But what happens when we get stuck? What if we cannot stay connected to the passion? What if success feels elusive and failures do not all become lessons learned? Innately, we know we must keep moving forward and that we will learn from our failures if we can figure out a different path. (Of course, trying to do the same thing the same way over and over is not wisdom, it’s insanity.) Success usually doesn’t just show up. We have to go out there and get it…tackle it, embrace it, own it.

small business mentor

Sometimes we have trouble figuring out the next steps on our own, though. There may be too many options. We may be spinning our wheels around one particular issue. We may hesitate instead of taking action. When we stumble and panic, who can guide us and nudge us forward? Finding someone we trust to mentor us can be critical.

I have a client who is a long-distance open water swimmer. When his group is on a long swim they have escorts in kayaks, rowboats and inflatable motorboats. As he explains, the escorts “look out for our safety, fending off other boats, telling us where we are, where to go, they feed us. They make sure we are okay in mind and body. They are our cheerleaders and companions in our journey to the goal.”

small business mentor

Small business owners also need guides through rough waters. We need escorts, cheerleaders and supporters as we deal with changes and difficulties in our businesses. We might be forced to move locations unexpectedly, have an important employee abandon us, or struggle to make the business financially sustainable. In these times, mentors are essential.

According to the Startup Genome Report, “having helpful mentors” is key to entrepreneurial success. This survey of 650 internet startups found that “the right mentors significantly influence a company’s performance and ability to raise money.” Though we may not have the data to prove it yet, I believe mentoring matters for all small businesses, both new and established. With great mentor support, we can all become the small business owners we want to be.