Charitable Giving

I am looking for ideas on charitable giving for my business. I am interested in what other members of the Onstartups.com community do and what has worked for you.

For my business, I currently support my public library customer’s summer reading programs with book and/or monetary donations. Personally, I volunteer as a reading tutor at my neighborhood school. I’d like to do more.

Thank you in advance for your input.

I give time to any group trying to encourage entrepreneurs. Classes, talks, meet-ups, especially stuff for kids.

I realize that's a little cheesy/cliche, but since I feel like this is, broadly, my expertise, it's where I can help the most.

I also feel like it can make a huge difference, because a person who even just tries a business gains confidence, skills, a resume, stories, and learns more about themselves, all of which taken together is priceless. I don't know anyone who truly gave a startup a good say they regret it or didn't come out ahead in the end, even if it completely failed.

Great question. This is something I'd like to get much better at, and do more of.

I think one of the greatest things about entrepreneurship is the camaraderie, the willingness of 'proven' entrepreneurs to freely help the next generation with advice and encouragement.

You could give money or time to charitable organizations in your area. If you do so, your help has no special 'leverage' over that of anyone else, i.e. the help you're giving is valuable, but it's not making optimal use of your entrepreneurship know-how. I think one of the the best things you can do is to help upcoming entrepreneurs. When you think of it, this is one of the few areas (there may be others) where you have rare and high-impact knowledge which you can give away at little or no cost to yourself.

Some of the things to consider could be:

• Answer questions here, at the BoS forums, etc.
• Become a mentor with organizations like SCORE or the similar in your area.
• Be a frank, energetic and honorable business angel (making a mint along the way is fine).
• Start a monthly meetup for entrepreneurs in your city, or offer to help out with existing entrepreneurship events in your city.
• Serve on advisory boards for upcoming companies.
• Give speeches, presentations, etc. Both at entrepreneur-specific venues, and in society in general fx in high-schools.

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