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Rebecca Wagner, MCM '03
Vice President, Marketing, Liberty Funds
rwagner@lib.com

Making a Big Impact in Small Ways: A Study into the Community Involvement Practices of Small Business

Rebecca Wagner wanted to do something different for her ALP. "I wanted something that hadn't been researched much," she recalled, "and something that wasn't work-related. I wanted to give myself a break." Having once worked in the non-profit sector, she decided to use the ALP as an opportunity to reacquaint herself with the non-profit world.

Initially she wanted to focus on the marketing needs of non-profits but found that a lot of research had already been done. She also considered investigating corporate/community relations but again, a wealth of research existed. While investigating the topic, however, she discovered that not much was written about small businesses and community relations.

Intrigued, she decided to focus on small businesses in Mansfield, MA, the town where she lived. "I had only lived there for a few years and thought it would be a good way to get to know people," she said. "If I did eventually go back to non-profit, this would help me form alliances and relationships." In the beginning, people cautioned her that the topic might not yield much because small businesses were too involved in surviving and have limited resources. Rebecca interviewed 10 small business owners and found that they were deeply involved in community relations and in fact, what they were doing was different from the corporate model.

"I was surprised by how much they were doing and how strategic they were," she noted. "It was enlightening to me as well as the academic community but I suspect it was less enlightening to the small business community. They knew what they were doing."

She found that unlike corporations, small business owners became involved because they often lived in the community, and their friends and neighbors are customers. "They truly want to help," Rebecca explained. "This is who they are. Often corporations get involved because it is good business and good PR. But the business owners said things to me like, 'In the fifth grade I knew I wanted to help out¸' or 'It's because of my upbringing.'"

Because small businesses don't have the financial resources of a large corporation, they need to figure out what the community needs, what they can offer, and what is the most effective way to get involved. A martial arts studio, for example, provided self-defense classes for women on Superbowl Sunday, a day when domestic violence rates increase. The owner charged a nominal fee and donated the money to a local women's shelter. Another example is the beauty salon that routinely offers days when the staff works for free, donating and any tips or pay they receive to local charitable causes.

Unlike corporations, Rebecca found that small businesses typically don't advertise or promote their community involvement. She felt a lesson corporations could learn from small businesses is that their efforts will go a lot further if it is done with sincerity and not as a way to improve the bottom line. Conversely, small businesses can learn from corporations that if done with sincerity, it is okay to get the word out and they shouldn't be afraid of seeming self-serving. There are important lessons to be learned, she felt, by both small businesses and corporations.