How does volunteering make the difference in Business?

By Laure Hussein

Today volunteering can be one the most important part of a business especially in USA.

It’s pretty common mistake to think of volunteering as just something nice that people can do whereas, in fact it has many benefits and therefore, has a huge impact in business.

Let’s take the example of Sweet Beginnings, a West Side company I had the opportuny to visit with my class thanks to my teacher Valerie Beck. This small company makes the family of 

beelove^TM products, an all natural line of raw honey and honey-infused body care products. They extract their honey from their three natural apiaries to raise the bees. Its largest is at O’Hare International Airport. But the mission of Sweet Beginnings is not just to promote locally produced, natural honey-based products, it is to offer up a second chance to ex-convicts by giving them a chance to acquire valuable skills and start anew. For most this will not be a career ; they work with the bees just two and a half months and then try to find a job. 620 out of 2000 people who worked in the company last year get a job at the end.

“The idea behind it was to create jobs for men and women who have really been disconnected from the labor market, primarily because of their criminal backgrounds,” said Brenda Palms Barber, founder and CEO of Sweet Beginnings.

Since Sweet Beginnings started, fewer than 4 percent of its employees went back to prison compared to the national average rate of 67%.

In North Lawndale, a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, where they are implanted, more than 50 % of the population has a criminal background. Crime is rarely more than a street corner away. Besides, when I went there the thing which surprised me the most was that houses’s architecture is beautiful but most look empty.  

This company is a good example of a successful business based on volunteering and helping others. And apparently that makes a big difference. A part of their secret is their belief in people who can do good work and how they can help them doing more. Their success is also thanks to their good reputation with the high end quality of their product. 

An article was recently published in The Guardian about them and it shows how Volunteering can permit to win Publicity when you even didn’t think. Finally, they received a $200,000 check from Bank Of America as a volunteer gift.

“Most of our customers want a quality product – something that feels good and also does good,” Barber said.