The footprint a company leaves on the community in which it thrives is just as important as the product or service it offers to its community members. Establishing a culture of giving amongst team members sets the tone for how the rest of the company will operate. At Ruiz Strategies, embracing and building up the community is an important part of what we do and a vital piece of our company culture.

This past year, we focused our efforts on helping to ensure students started the school year off with the supplies they needed. Working closely with a school in the Houston area and Communities in Schools – Bay Area (CIS), we were able to provide 30 high school students with a backpack, necessary school supplies and a gift card to purchase a pair of back-to-school shoes.

Our team gathered in Houston from all sides of the country to stuff the backpacks, making sure to include notes of encouragement and support for students. What we didn’t know is how quickly those students may need that bit of extra support as Hurricane Harvey made its way through that very community just a few weeks after our company retreat.  

We wanted to make an even bigger impact on the school district, though, and partnered with CIS to help achieve their mission of empowering students to stay in school and achieve in life, a key interest of our founder and CEO of Ruiz Strategies, Michele Ruiz. As a national organization, CIS allows us the opportunity to provide support throughout the country and gives each of our team members the opportunity to be involved —no matter their location.

Through their Sponsor-a-Student program, we were able to help keep the program’s most at-risk students on track through graduation. Programs like Sponsor-a-Student and Adopt-a-School allow businesses, small and large, old and new, to provide community support at a level that makes them comfortable.

Many companies have the ability to make cash donations, and that is an amazing gift that will always (and I mean always!) be appreciated by a non-profit, but showing your staff that you’re personally, as well as financially, invested, will help bring even the most unexcitable team members on board. For example, at Ruiz Strategies, our team members have the ability to take a paid day off per year and spend that time volunteering with a non-profit organization of their choice. That is truly living a giving company culture.

Establishing a culture of giving within the workplace sets a baseline for how employees treat clients, one another, themselves and even the work that they will do. What kind of company culture exists in your workplace? What is done to maintain that culture? Sound off at @RuizStrategies!

Written by Jenny Howard | Writer

At Ruiz Strategies we are passionate about working with our private sector clients and government customers to help them effectively tell their unique story. We help clients communicate, engage and build relationships with the people that matter most.