CGM blog: Being a do gooder is great

20 Oct CGM blog: Being a do gooder is great

Don’t you just hate it when someone spits out the phrase ‘do gooder’ to disparage the actions of altruistic people?

So what’s the preferable alternative for these folks who pretend to hold some sort of moral high ground – to do bad? What’s so clever about that?

Being a do gooder is great. Putting the feelgood factor into your business, home, social life is fantastic for the soul, heart, body, mind and spirit.

Richard Branson coined a phrase ‘doing good is good for business’ which, in my opinion  is true. Good things come from the process of doing good, business or otherwise.

At CGM, we’re committed to giving time to support good causes and community projects.

We aspire to start our own Foundation so we can allocate resources and support worthy projects in a structured way. We see it as an integral part of who we are as people and what we do as a business.

Let me tell you about a fabulous day Teresa and I had recently.

In the morning we organised the national media to cover the launch of an amazing community project we’d supported and got back to the office to discover some prizes we’d offered to a local charity had raised several hundred pounds and that the website of a new fun charity challenge Zero2Hero had gone live.

Teresa then floated off for a meeting to discuss promotional fund-raising tactics for Strictly Worcestershire 2015 which will raise many more thousands of pounds – while I collected our son, Nicholas, who had been planning a school activity for Children in Need.

Days like these make you feel good to be alive. If someone wants to demonise us as do gooders – go ahead.  It’s not so much a case of what do we care as what we do is care.

Business life isn’t just about making money. Author JK Rowling recently said “What is the point of being alive if you don’t try to make a better world for everyone to live in?” I like that sentiment. It rings true.

Only ruthless (and usually worthless and valueless) people fail to appreciate a kind heart.

Most people look favourably on those who do good. You can develop better, richer relationships with people who share a generous spirit. There’s solid footing to work with

That’s why working with people selfless people like Strictly Worcestershire organiser Gerard Smith and Callum Davies, a good-hearted, enterprising young man behind Zero2Hero are a joy to work with. They put a smile on people’s faces and do good work for people in need

Do gooders of the world unite!

Chris Green is CGM’s managing director and an award winning author and journalist. CGM provides a media relations service to businesses and organisations and media training courses to encourage people to maximise their profile.