We live in a fast paced world in tough economic times: focus on the bottom line is just as important now as it is when the economy is flourishing. Yet just as there’s value behind every plan, every marketing strategy and every well thought out business model that drives revenue, there’s value in giving back to the community.

I’m grateful to the leadership at Steketee Greiner and Co. for their encouragement with my interest in engaging the community; ever since I joined the company in January I’ve been encouraged to grow not only as a professional but as a community leader as well. My interests carried over from my leadership position as Chair of Ad 2 West Michigan’s Public Service Campaign for Wealthy Street Theatre, located in East Grand Rapids and blossomed into opportunities with assisting Grand Rapids Whitewater (GRWW) as well as the Cool Cities/Cool Connections outreach program.

Over the last two months I’ve had the opportunity to provide guidance to young adults who graduated or were in high-school in the Ionia School District. It involved touring their town, giving feedback on marketing efforts the young adults had in place to encourage safe driving, meeting with city leadership officials in Ionia and then letting them see the Grand Rapids. After an hour with Mayor George Heartwell and Third Ward Commissioner Elias Lumpkins, we ended the experience by helping the young adults paint bus shelters by Veterans Park, downtown; it was a great way to let them leave a short term legacy of how Grand Rapids looked through their eyes.

During the one hour with city leadership we had a great discussion about some of the Mayor’s passions for community involvement. One of these was the Mayors’ Grand River Cleanup; this event has been such as success, they’ve had to switch the title from Mayor’s to Mayors’, as multiple cities began to participate and follow Grand Rapids in the efforts to clean the river. We were asked at our meeting to find a tangible way to message and or impact the community as a result of our time with city leadership; this post represents one of my steps to do just that.

It’s tough to walk away from the math of billable hours and trying to meet the bottom profit line for a business but there’s no math that can calculate every bit of good that comes from servicing in the community. On a personal level, you will learn to value yourself as an individual. On a professional level you gain the opportunity to become a leader in your community while networking with other passionate professionals that look to become the same leaders of change that you want to. From a marketing and PR standpoint, remember that you need to not only help the community but message that you’re helping as well. On the flip-side, you can’t just message and not help.

Knowing this, I hope you’ll enjoy this list of opportunities for community involvement:

• Contacting your local United Way is a great way to do find something to help out with; if you’re in Grand Rapids you’ll want to use this link: Heart of West Michigan – United Way.
• Grand Rapids locals can also find enjoyment with a weekend building houses for  Habitat for Humanity.

If you care about sustainability, here are a few links you may enjoy:

• A great way to help reduce storm water pollution is to install a Rain Garden. I did work with raingardens.org when I was attending Grand Valley State, they’re a very knowledgeable group of people and the website will get you started!
• West Michigan Environmental Action Council (or WMEAC for short) is the driver behind Rain Gardens of West Michigan and offer sustainability information/solutions from practical to in-depth.
• One that is near and dear to us at Steketee Greiner and Company is the Safe Water Team which works to benefit the humanitarian need for safe drinking water. We work alongside this team to provide ongoing strategy and support – there’s always room for more partners! Look at the team members to see examples of the great company of which you’d be joining.

Last, I invite young professionals to explore the Cool Cities project; I had a pleasure working with my fellow professionals, and I know you would as well.

Talk back to us over here at Steketee Greiner and Co., leave a comment or find us on Twitter @steketeegreiner. We look forward to hearing how you get involved with the community.

We’ll see you for Art Prize 2010!