A few years ago, we brought a consultant into our company to help define our core values. In that process, the value that really stood out to me was “Community.” While I wanted to focus on this as a company, I knew that simply talking about giving back to the community would not be enough to create the culture we desired.
Looking at how other organizations approached service initiatives, I was often disappointed to see a tendency to use community service as a chance to get attention, rather than as a way to enrich both the community and the organization itself. I appreciate people doing good things, but I struggled with reconciling corporate service initiatives with my tendency to have a more private approach to serving.
That said, since implementing “Community” as a core value at Versique, I have seen it become so integrated in our culture that we now discuss community involvement when interviewing potential new hires. We have built a company full of people who share a passion for giving back, which has benefited everyone in the company, as well as the community as a whole.
To read more about how giving back to the community helps shape organizations, read my full post on the University of St. Thomas Newsroom website.
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