Corporate contributions

BUSINESSES GIVE BACK TO BUILD COMMUNITY

he mountains, sunshine and trails might have brought us to Southwest Colorado, but it’s the tight-knit community that keeps many of us here.

What is community though? Is it our friends and neighbors? Is it the familiar faces on the street? Or is it the support we receive from area organizations and the local businesses that we frequent?

For Durango local, Carly Van Hof Thomson, it is an ecosystem of all three and her role as co-owner of Zia Taquira is to contribute to the ecosystem through corporate donations as much as possible.

“Zia has always believed in giving back to the community. It is the community we live, work and play in – we love it and want it to be a vibrant, positive place for ourselves, our employees, our families and our customers,” she said.

Her view about cyclical giving is really what sustains the people and places we have come to love, and the generosity of business donations can be seen as the watering cans to our growing and thriving communities.

Keeping the proverbial watering can full, though, is where it can get tricky. Zia receives dozens of donation requests each week and Van Hof Thomson admits they have to be cautious and strategic about who and how much they give to. When choosing, she says Zia tries to focus on organizations that serve causes that are important to their customers and staff such as youth programming, cycling and athletics and environmental causes.

The Payroll Department’s founder, Bryan Dear feels the same way, and even includes his staff when making decisions on which local nonprofit organizations will receive funding.

TDear said each year, The Payroll Department participates in Meet your Match, a grant program run through The Community Foundation serving Southwest Colorado which strategically awards part of the company’s nonprofit giving with grants that will go to three area organizations. The program is a matched donation and Dear said the entire staff gets to decide who will be awarded. And just like Zia, The Payroll Department ultimately and often chooses the organizations that they feel strengthen their quality of life. “One way to do that is to support our nonprofits. Whether it’s education –especially in the younger ages – or arts. It’s also the Durango trails--and other things that we take advantage of. Those are all important,” Dear said. Giving back to the community is a great way to foster the things we enjoy taking advantage of, but it also has some other key benefits, such as unique marketing opportunities. Many times the nonprofit grantees will offer a multitude of marketing outlets for businesses that donate and will help businesses bring in more customers. Or a business to business relationship will be built through generous funding and that, in turn, also brings in more customers for the business. The benefits of giving to a nonprofit looks different in a lot of different ways and doesn’t even necessarily have to be a big cash reward. It can be an in-kind donation, volunteering services, or a small item for a raffle or auction. Either way, if a business owner wants to give back, at minimum, they are guaranteed to feel good about helping to strengthen a community.

BY JENNAYE DERGE