There are many ways that businesses can get involved in Pay it Forward initiatives.

• Enable employees to help support a ‘charity of choice’ by offering services that might be of value.
• Provide funds to teams in the organizations – they can then report back at the annual conference as to the difference they were able to make in the community
• Encourage staff members to participate in the day and promote it internally
• Have a departmental challenge whereby each department competes with each other to make a big positive contribution to the community
• Donate much needed funds to your favourite charity

The following heart felt email shows the power of Pay it Forward in businesses….

“Quite a while back you sent me about 200 “Pay It Forward” bracelets that my company could use at our sales meeting.  We just returned from our meeting in Indianapolis..it started 4/11 and we came home yesterday 4/15.  My company is a medical/surgical distributor and this is our 9th corporate sales meeting.  We sent 75 of our employees.  For our team building project on Sunday night we made 10 teams and gave each team $1000.  We had a list of charities that might benefit from donations and they could choose any one or more they wanted…we gave them till Wednesday to let us know what they did with the money and we were going to choose the team that did the most with their money, among other criteria.  I won’t go into detail, but the event turned out to have so much more impact than we ever could have imagined.  We were going to give each team 5 minutes to tell brief stories of what they did, but that wasn’t near enough time!!

Needless to say, there wasn’t a dry eye…and as I said before, the whole experience was indescribable…we decided not to choose a winning team and as a matter of fact, the President of our company gave each team another $1000 to give to worthy causes.  When you witness something like it together as a group, you go away feeling so much closer and even though there was sadness, we left feeling that we definitely did something to make a lot of lives a little better.  This is difficult to put into words, but I just wanted to let you know that what you are doing (spreading the word about paying it forward) is a wonderful thing…and I want to thank you for all you do..I know our meeting has made a lot of us think differently about things and has made us all more thankful for everything we have.  Thank you again for spreading the word…I hope you never feel that it’s all for naught…you are doing more good than you know! God bless you, Donna” (Emailed especially to Utah Pay it Forward Co-ordinator and Pay it Forward Wrist Bands Initiator, Charley Johnson)

The possibilities are endless as to the difference each organization can make. Apart from improving staff morale and cohesiveness, Paying it Forward can also attract positive publicity for your organization, which is priceless when attracting and retaining loyal customers.

The team at Pay it Forward would love to know what your organization decides to do for Pay it Forward Day. Please visit the contact us section on the left hand side of the website to let us know how your business is Paying it Forward. Thank you 🙂