Lifting the lid on New Zealand’s unsung heroes – small businesses and what they do for their communities

DHL supports lifeguards and Telecom backs Barnardos, but what do the vast bulk of New Zealand business – the SMEs – do for charity and for the community?

BNI New Zealand believes SMEs are very involved in their local communities and that they are, in effect, the unsung heroes because they have no big corporate budgets with which to blow their trumpets.

The only reward for the small and medium business owner is the satisfaction that comes from giving back to their communities — because strong communities mean strong businesses – and perhaps a little networking.

BNI New Zealand marketing director, Colin Kennedy, said that working from the philosophy of Givers Gain, BNI New Zealand is launching the BNI ‘Givers Gain’ survey of New Zealand SMEs to measure just how involved Kiwis are in our local communities, and what we do and how we do it.

Done in conjunction with Wellington academic Allan Cadwallader, the survey is based on a similar one done in Europe and it’s envisaged that more than 2,500 business people will complete the survey.

BNI regional and assistant directors will distribute and collect the paper based surveys during January, February and March, with the results expected near the middle of the year.

“This is also an opportunity to spread the word about how important and valuable community involvement is for local business success, and to raise BNI’s profile nationally – it is a major awareness campaign for us.

“We sometimes have members ask what we’re doing about marketing. Well, for one, we’re a word of mouth organisation so we don’t advertise. But we do maintain a good public relations campaign throughout the year.

“The survey is consistent with good public relations practise, which itself dovetails with our word of mouth philosophy. Public relations – like referrals — is about promoting third party endorsement.

“We’re also about Givers Gain and about promoting a philosophy of community investment and involvement – as our massive involvement with local hospices over the years demonstrates. We’re about the fact that you have to give in order to receive – what goes around comes around.

“This survey will raise awareness about the value of community involvement to business. As a result we hope more businesses will think about local community and charity involvement, and that way both business and the community win,” said Colin.