Businesses Helping Charity Organizations in Hawaii Make Change Happen

Imagine the streets around your business—what do you see and feel? Perhaps it’s a beautiful blue sky day, with gentle sea breezes. Happy customers and clients coming and going. The businesses around you are flourishing, too.

The reality is often not so nice. Yes, we see happy people, satisfied with the goods and services we provide, but we also see people who are struggling. It might be mental health or a lack of safe housing. It might be kids with nothing to do.

Our neighborhoods where we work and live are a mixed bag of hope, desperation, kindness, and the mean streets. But as a business owner, you have an opportunity to provide a bit more hope and make the streets a little kinder, too.

You can make great things happen in your community when you support local charity organizations in Hawaii with your business.

Why it’s important to support charity organizations in Hawaii

Charities come in all sizes. You can find ones with a national or even international footprint, and these often are front and center. But there are also smaller ones, located nearby, that are doing good work, too. And often, these smaller, local charities will have the most dramatic impact on the people around them.

However, they need partners to fulfill their mission. Here are four important reasons why businesses should support local charities.

1. Benefit the community you live and work in

Charities are mission-focused.  They are not concerned with marketing, and selling a product. They exist to solve a particular problem. It might be an environmental, animal, or human issue, But they have identified a problem and they want to fix it. 

National and regional charities have their place. But homegrown organizations have identified the issues that are causing challenges in their communities (and yours). 

2. It’s a win-win for you and the charity

When you support a local charity, the good things that come from it are multiplied. The charity benefits from your direct support. It also benefits when you include them in your marketing because most of these organizations don’t have a big marketing budget. Any love you show them in public furthers their mission. 

There are benefits to your business, too. Better employee morale helps your recruitment and retention efforts. You will find that your brand image and reputation also get a boost in the community. This is probably not your motivation for supporting a charity, so it’s really a value add to something you wanted to do anyway. 

To learn more about this win-win relationship, here’s a blog that goes into more detail. 

3. There are opportunities to connect

When people volunteer, nearly all of them do so close to home. When a business supports a nearby organization, they will have an opportunity to interact with the locals. It’s a great way to find local talent and potential new hires. 

Opportunities within your company might be a great fit for a volunteer that you meet. Every time a person finds a better situation, they, their family, and their community reap the benefits. Nothing lifts someone out of poverty like finding a good job. 

4. It feels good  

Running a business, at its core, is about profit and loss. Supporting a charity, and experiencing the positive impact that follows has an emotional component that making a sale can’t touch. By giving and doing for others through the business, you provide an opportunity for meaning. 

Your employees’ sense of pride will increase, too. Better employee morale will positively affect both recruitment and retention. And attracting people that care about the same things as you is never a bad idea.  Even though it’s not the driving force behind your decision to work with a charity, you don’t have to ignore this nice perk, either.

You will see the impact of your support in your community

Charities are mission-focused organizations. Each one exists to solve a narrow problem that they have identified. In Hawaii, the challenges of homelessness, poverty, and mental health are obvious in our communities.  

These are all big issues—bigger than any one person, company, or organization can solve. But local charities bring focused strategies and programs to address the issues. Often, it is individuals and family units that benefit directly. It may seem small scale, but every time we take a positive action, we make a difference. 

Even if it’s in one person’s life, the world becomes a better place. 

Some charities focus on our youth. Research shows that the formative years of childhood continue to have an impact, both positive and negative, into adulthood. A lack of food, housing, safe spaces, and good role models all contribute to the likelihood of a child following a difficult path as they grow up. 

When you support a local charity, you can walk down the street and see both the need and the solutions used. You can attend events and fundraisers where the organizations will show you how your gifts made a difference. By giving locally, the impact of your support will be evident. 

KT Cares is about doing what we can 

At KT Protection Services, we started an initiative called KT Cares. We empower our employees and local community to identify programs we can support. There are many causes, and we sometimes have to make difficult decisions, but we do what we can.

Our primary focus is on the Keiki. It’s where we believe we can have the greatest impact as individuals and as a company. 

We directly support the Manu O Kei Kai Canoe Club, The North Shore Jr. Lifeguard Program, and the North Shore Menehune Surf Competition because it connects our youth back to their ocean heritage while providing role models, activities, and self-esteem. 

Connecting them with mentors from our local community while gaining knowledge, skills, and appreciation about the sea helps push them toward success as adults. 

This year, we also decided to support Makana No Nā Keiki in the aftermath of the Maui Fires. 

If you’re a business interested in helping out Hawaiian charities, we’d love to hear from you. Check out our KT Cares page for more information on what we’re doing. If you have questions about how to start your own internal process, we’d be happy to share what we have learned.