Turning Crisis Into Opportunity
How we should react when economy slows down.
When the financial market is in chaos all across the world, people consider clinging on to whatever they have and also reduce expenses. And they think that everybody does so, mainly because newspapers proclaim as such.
However, each and every person ISN’T doing so. There are sections of the society which prosper, come what may. Those, who feel surprised about this odd equation, can find the clue for it in a most obvious place where they might have missed it. It might be worthwhile to analyse it together.
When a current is going downward, whatever the reason be, the way to survive is by rowing against the current. If we let ourselves to be swept away by the current, we may sink deep down and survival might become difficult.
The truth is that when we know how to steer ourselves and be our own masters, we will able to stay afloat or swim against the current, come what may. Let us see how we can manage it.
‘Go-getters’ or ‘Go-contributors’
Imagine a scenario where we want to have more – better profits, a higher salary, more leave, better liberty, and wider chances.
When we have a desire for an object, our first tendency is to straightaway go and have it. That just makes us ‘Go-getters’. And a ‘go-getter’ is surely a self-motivated person, an activist and a natural leader. Such a vision is a proven way to succeed in life as we have heard. Still, there is some sort of a snag. When this plan is brought into play, the results are somewhat surprising though in a way it is foreseeable as well.
The gist of the matter is that after ‘getting’ and ‘possessing’ it we tend to ‘get rid of’ it. We might actually jettison it or might become apathetic to the whole idea.
So then we immediately shift our focus to getting more. And here’s the real problem; the more we do that, the more we create a cycle that actually makes us continuously feel as though we do not yet have enough. It’s like a carbohydrate addiction!
Why don’t we turn our ‘getting’ into contributing?
You’ve probably noticed that giving always creates a great feeling. And it comes from gratitude rather than from fear or greed. We can continue to give more and receive more on our now, ever-fulfilling journey.
Our abundant and providing attitude creates abundant and providing clients and team mates while our cost awareness and ‘getting approach’ would draw towards us only similar clients and team mates. And those are the type of people we would not like to be friends with!
Creative capitalism
Many businesses see this now. They are now starting to give more and more in various ways. There’s a veritable ‘sea-change’ going on as more people ‘get’ the role that giving can play in their business. Bill Gates is a class example. In a July 2008 lead article in TIME Magazine he referred to it as ‘Creative Capitalism’.
He said: “Doing good might be the tipping point that leads people to choose one product over another.”
The essence of what he says is that when a business has ties with the idea of giving in one way or other, it is bound to be more tempting to others. It stands out above thousand businesses the attributes of which are similar.
Creative Capitalism is concerned about reaching higher than what we might reconcile for to arrive at where we hoped to arrive. When we can make the most of our design and inspiration in a way that assists and fosters the larger community of nations and continents, we are preventing the wastage of supplies, endeavours and capacities to succeed. Then we are crafting the most authentic success for ourselves and for the financial stability of the countries across the world.
The attraction of effective giving
The initiative of bigger enterprises to contribute back to the society is known as Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. It is fast becoming mandatory for large corporations to do so. Still, when it is done for image building or as a mere compulsion, public may eventually realise the truth. Nevertheless, it is a face-saving mechanism.
Business ventures and people who ‘donate’ become popular. The zeal and sincerity that prods them to act is recognized by the people with whom they interact. This response is on top of what is spun by way of the company’s public relation efforts.
What is likely to be the upshot if some of the capital meant for marketing is apportioned for contributions?
Giving creates something bigger than who we are. Giving creates inspiration. Inspiration can only be created when it resonates with the people whom we want to inspire. And we get inspired when we are involved in the experience. It is not just about hearing the nice stories of others. It’s actually participating in those stories. After all, we all want to feel good in life by making a contribution-to our family and friends, to our company and to our community.
Transaction-based giving causes it to happen on its own
The ability to give just got so much easier too, thanks to an initiative (some would say a ‘movement’) called Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One). Buy1GIVE1 is the home of transaction-based giving. Transaction-based giving changes everything. Let’s use some imagination to see why.
How wonderful is the situation where every time someone buys an ice cream, a child somewhere in an underprivileged country gets a cup of milk?
Equally exemplary would be the situation where whenever someone subscribes to a magazine, a tree would instantly get planted in a barren patch in another continent? Or, if every time one eats a hamburger another would instantly get at least a handful of rice?
Or supposing you are undergoing some training. How wonderful it would be if another eager student far away is also getting the necessary training as a corollary (believe it or not, the training does not cost the training institute more than 60 cents a day).
Where a motivational speaker at a conference is connected with a charity, part of his income might go to helping kids who have speech problems due to facial defects. It will be a matter of great satisfaction for the participants at the conference to know that their very participation is helping a deserving cause.
Imagine now if you could apply transaction-based giving in your own unique way to match your main products/services to engage your customers and team members to be part of the giving story. Here’s how.
The economy where all benefits
As of now, enterprises all across the world are realising the power of transaction-based giving. TESCO, one of the better known supermarket chains of UK, has correlated its sales in such a way that when someone buys a pair of school trousers from them, a child in Kenya gets a school uniform.
Mineral Water Company Volvic also rolled out their transaction-based giving program successfully last year. For every 1 litre of Volvic people buy, Volvic gives funds to build wells in Africa in a program they call Buy1 GIVE 10 (since every 1 litre sold essentially creates a flow of 10 litres in the well.
Small to medium sized companies are now starting to take leadership in expanding this global giving movement through Creative Capitalism. Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com), a Singapore-based Social Enterprise came up with a mechanism that has turned this transaction-based giving into something every one of us can be involved in.
Buy1GIVE1 is the abode of the most powerful transaction-based giving in the world because it ties up any enterprise of any size to any worthy cause in the world. It is creating an international community of entrepreneurial givers and for SME`s, Buy1GIVE1 correlates enterprises, their buyers AND causes in an unsurpassable way. The system has been so perfected that it is automated.
You can enroll yourself as a citizen of this marvel of universal giving by simply getting a Buy1GIVE1 `VISA` directly from the Buy1GIVE1 site at www.b1g1.com. And if you are an entrepreneur, you can become a B1G1 Business through making an online application and choosing the requirement for which you would like to donate and your product or service through which you would prefer to do it to initiate the giving. Buy1GIVE1 forwards the whole of the donation to their international Worthy Cause Partners (with more than 528 projects to choose) making the giving entirely satisfactory.
Have you considered?
* Half the world-nearly three billion people-live on less than two dollars a day.
* Even in the 21st century, which is the age of the internet, there are about a billion people who have never put a pen to a paper.
* Poverty and malnutrition robs the lives of 20 children every minute, 30,000 every day, and 210,000 children every week, as per UNICEF records.
* 85% of the world’s water resources are utilized by just 12% of its population. And of this, even 1% does not live in the Third World.
* About a billion people have no access to minimum health care facilities.
* Every year about 63,000 square miles of rainforests get decimated.
Statistic From Global Issues
Buy1GIVE1 Businesses- take a look at these examples
* Buy1BUILD1 (www.sunsplashhomes.com, www.arkgroup.com.au)
* Education to education (www.kipmcgrath.com.au)
* Medical practice providing healthcare (www.primanora.com)
* Telephone card helping in communication (www.ultimatecomms.com)
* Relaxation to healing (www.meditate.com.au)
* Weight loss to kids’ meals (www.bodychain.com)
* Aesthetic blinds to lights to schools (www.blindscouture.com.au)
* Socks for comfort to feet free of frostbite (www.socksforhappypeople.com)
* Coaching to train social entrepreneurs (www.b1g1forcoaches.com)
* And for an overall look, simply go to www.b1g1.com.
Discovering what we are looking for-Nature has got the answer
So let’s let us return to the starting point-turbulent economics and managing to get what we need. The needs are in fact not all that knotty. They are just a group of three words that begin with the letter S – strong bonds, solidarity and society.
When we can pool resources and not segregate and when we can divine a proper way to augment what everyone has got and not cut down from what each has got, we understand that there is a veritable cornucopia of sources to be had in the world. And when we bond, not just with our physical persona, but with our intrinsic selves, we discern something completely fascinating -that we’re all ONE. Then we comprehend how uncomplicated it is to form a universal community from something as ordinary as giving.
And the truth is there in all its glory in nature.
In earth’s natural workshop, beautiful butterflies fertilize flowers and help to produce gardens that continue generation after generation. It was there even before recorded history.
When a fiasco inundates the world, it should be leveraged to turn it into a benefit to return to normalcy. Now is the time to acknowledge what we have got and forge ahead to succeed.
And when a person chooses to donate now itself, in spite of the financial crisis, he will feel more contended. And with this contentment he will find a hope that is rekindled anew, which will ring a bell on how the ebb and flow of things can change. Today’s charity might be that which will reverse the flow.
Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing. This article, Turning Crisis Into Opportunity is released under a creative commons attribution licence.