Touching Others, One Person at a Time

In our line of work, we’re in the business of helping others do business better. As business process outsourcers, we derive our greatest satisfaction from helping our clients operate more efficiently, and thus enabling them to touch more of their clients with their products and services.

One of the most important ways we do this is by supporting a number of community recycling events around the country, where our clients get a chance to set a good example in their communities by collecting IT equipment that has come to the end of its useful life. Some choose to donate a portion of the proceeds from these events to good causes.  

Last month, we took part in another of these events, but this one happened to be a bit more high-profile than most: the first-ever collection of electronic waste for recycling by staff members of the U.S. Congress. As my Redemtech colleague Bart Porter noted elsewhere on this blog, the event on the national Mall highlighted the issue of e-waste for lawmakers and the Beltway media.

What we love most about these events is the way we enable our clients and friends to touch one person at a time in their communities. The Washington, D.C. event ultimately raised funds that went toward a well-known charity. Along with the money and consciousness raised at the event, I’m sure the supporting organizations also raised some new friends that day. And of course they also helped keep our environment a little cleaner, by making sure that some electronic equipment wasn’t simply sent overseas, where it would be crudely dumped into a landfill.

In this challenging economic climate, it’s doubly important to remember that businesses survive by paying attention to the bottom line. But it’s just as important to remember that our societal obligations don’t end there.