One of my favorite things about giving is that you can do it in so many different ways—and it doesn’t always involve breaking out your checkbook.
In addition to advising clients how to save and where to invest, part of my job was to show them how to establish a procedure for giving. Sometimes it’s not the kind of giving they expected, particularly if they’re doing all they can to keep up with their own monthly bills. It’s a simple idea, yet many have never considered it before: give at work.
I often hear from friends and clients who feel frustrated that their job is devoted exclusively to making money. They want more out of their job, more out of their life. You might feel the same way—and I’ve got good news. Within almost any job, there are opportunities for doing good.
“Job purposing” is what Bea Boccalandro calls this principle. She told me several stories that illustrate the point particularly well. In one, an inner-city parking attendant walks around his place of work and systematically measures every car’s tires. If someone’s tires are bald, he tells the owner or puts a note on the dash. He leaves at the end of his workday feeling like he’s made a difference and made it less likely that someone would have a flat tire or blow out on their way home.
Another story Bea told me is a great example of the kind of work that inspired her to write her book, Do Good at Work, in the first place. After a speech she gave in Seattle, a woman came up to her who was an administrative assistant at a regional trucking company. Her colleagues had nicknamed her “TP Tina.” Tina had been working late one evening when she noticed the janitorial staff throwing away partially used rolls of toilet paper and replacing them with new ones. That may have made sense to avoid the calamity of some unfortunate soul running out of paper in the middle of the workday, but tossing half- or three-quarter-used rolls was tremendously wasteful. So Tina asked the janitorial staff to drop them off at her desk. Soon her office was covered with rolls of toilet paper. Now, a few times a week, Tina delivers the toilet paper to a local homeless shelter, which has saved enough money on its grocery bill to be able to host a monthly ice cream social for the families living there.
The world could use more stories like Tina’s. Companies often take the lead for you, in which case joining their pro bono or charitable initiatives is often the easiest way to start feeling good about your job. Many companies encourage their employees to get involved in the same causes they’re promoting at the corporate level, often by asking for donations from employees during a certain time of year. Some companies will offer opportunities to volunteer at charitable organizations during the workday—with pay.
You don’t have to rely on your company to lead the way to doing good in the workplace. Take your cue from TP Tina and think out of the box. Or in the box. Sometimes a way to do good sounds obvious only in retrospect. It can be as simple as where you decide to make a reservation for your team’s corporate luncheon. If you settle on a restaurant that helps local farmers or one that hires at-risk youth or special needs adults, now you’ve shifted an ordinary task to one that makes a difference.
Over the past decade, several hotel chains have started having their housekeeping staff collect partially used soap and shampoo bottles. These items are then donated to a nonprofit, like Clean the World Foundation, which sterilizes them and then provides hygiene to poverty-stricken communities around the world. This is transforming what would be waste into a valuable benefit for people in need, and it has a positive impact on the morale of the housekeeping staff.
Recently a manager at a chemical manufacturing plant, where safety is a big concern, announced that every day the team didn’t have a safety violation, the company would donate ten dollars to a local nonprofit that benefits their community. This company has more than one hundred plants around the world, and the strategy to reward safety with charity has spread to other large companies.
Bea Boccalandro makes the point that it is possible for anyone to go home proud of their work by answering one question: “How can I do one or more of my tasks in a way that is more charitable, equitable, environmentally sustainable, or otherwise more purposed?” She adds that it might take a few weeks, but we eventually come up with a practical answer because, “We’re hardwired to make a contribution. It’s against our nature not to.”
There are as many ways to give back at your job as there are jobs. Be creative. Whatever you’re doing to earn a living—working full-time, in your home or out of it, whether you’re feeling confident in making ends meet or if you’re barely making it, there’s something you can do to introduce your version of good into the world. And that’s a feeling that builds momentum. No longer is all your energy focused on your job and just getting by. Now you’re working with a sense of purpose, of meaning, which will make you work harder, better, faster.
Don’t keep mailing it in from nine-to-five. Work with a purpose.
(To be continued...)
This excerpt is taken from “Good Money Revolution: How to Make More Money to Do More Good” by Derrick Kinney. To read other articles of this book, click here. To buy this book, click here.
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