5 Creative Ways to Give Back to Your Community

We all grow up in a community, whether small, large, affluent or rural, our community plays a huge role in the way our life pans out. We feel a sense of  connectedness to this community, such that when it falls on hard times we feel the need to contribute, give back, and help build it back up.

Giving back to your community is a great way to contribute to a worthy cause. It can be as easy as just donating money to local charities, which is what most people do. However, donating money can become a little monotonous after a while. Luckily,  there are other creative and super fun ways to get involved in your community. Here are few we find interesting:

Initiate a give-back challenge

Many celebrities have come up with so many challenges over the last few years. Thanks to social media they have been able to push these challenges and get a large number of people participating. In the same manner, you can start a giveback challenge for your community. For instance, you could throw out a challenge that requires people to come out and clean their streets in a particular manner or one that requires people to sponsor a child in the community in a certain way. You just need to come up with a super interesting and appealing hashtag, do the first challenge, share it on social media. Ask your friends and followers to do the same.

Organize a bake sale or cookout and contribute the proceeds

This works best when there is a central cause you’d like to support. It could be that the community needs a borehole, or needs power supply, e.t.c. Sometimes, you might not be able to raise all the money needed to solve a problem in the community, and an easy way to get raise funds for the local cause would be by organizing a bake sale or cookout. Set a date, get a few friends who can bake to bake something for free and donate them for the bake sale or those who can cook popular meals to cook and volunteer, then you advertise and sell it. Donate the proceeds to the cause.

Baking or cooking might seem like a tedious thing to do, but truth be told, everyone loves food. Everyone will respond to food. So, how about you get baking or cooking and support your community?

Write a note to the community

When people consider giving back, they almost always assume that it has to be substantial; however, sometimes all the community and its stakeholders need is a few words of encouragement and tender loving care.

Rather than donate used clothes , shoes an handbags, or signing a cheque that might not go anywhere, pick up your pen and write out a note to the community. You can decided to write random notes of encouragement to important families in the community, or key people who certain people in community, like medical practitioners in the community hospitals, school owners/teacher, the police, and more. All it takes is a pen, paper, and a little bit of your time.

You may decide to include care packages, especially to the police to spice things up. The letter can be anonymous if you want, however it would make more impact is it is signed by someone.

Donate your skills to the community

What skills do you have that could be of benefit to the community? Do you have a company that provides services that can be of benefit to the community? You can easily give back by applying your own skills and talents. For instance,  if you are an editor, you can teach resume writing skills to young graduates who still fighting to get into the labour market;  If you are a movie producer, you could use your community as location for your movie, that way your community benefits from the budget, e.t.c. All you need to do is identify someone or a group of people in the community who could really use what you do, reach out to them and gift it, no strings attached.

Get involved in local politics

How involved are you in grassroots politics? Do you even know the candidate’s campaign to represent your local community next year? What are their values? Have you considered their manifesto and how it could affect your community?  A lot of people are only interested in the happenings at the federal level, forgetting the local communities. A good way to give back is to play your part and get involved locally. You do not have to run for any position, you just need to make your voice heard.  Attend rallies, share your opinion at town hall meetings, and vote!