Red Wagon Properties challenged its employees to come up with their own way of giving back to the community. The results and their journeys have been life-changing.
Red Wagon Properties already has a heritage of supporting the local community through our giving budget. For every property we manage, we make a monthly contribution of $5 per door that gets put back into our locality through different schemes and projects along with contributing to other global initiatives.
For the next two months, we’re empowering our employees by putting them in direct charge of the giving. Company owner Kris Hochart is handing over the budget to his team, allowing the individuals to make the most significant, most profound, most powerful impact in their local community that they can make.
Here’s a little more about how and why they’re switching things up.
The Nudge
This is Red Wagon’s Strategy to Develop A Culture of Giving.
The goal of this project and the motivation behind this initiative is simple. To empower the team to directly impact, and to see and feel the result of their work directly within their community.
When Kris announced the new initiative to the team, he stated:
“My vision for this project is to give you, the team at Red Wagon, a taste for the visceral feeling of what it means to be a great steward of what God has entrusted us with. Not just to know we, as a company, are part of something greater, but for you, the team, to be part of something greater. After all, YOU are the company.”
Each member of the team has been given $500. They have one month to come back with their story and accounting for what they did with their money on behalf of the company.
The documented feedback so far from the team has been nothing short of overwhelming.
The excitement and gratitude from the staff at being entrusted with such an important task have been resounding. Match this with a deep feeling of responsibility and a desire to make the right choice about which projects and causes to invest in, and you can start to understand why this initiative has got everybody talking and feeling inspired to find the most creative and impactful way to spend their share of the company’s giving budget.
So far, all types of local institutions are set to benefit from this scheme, including a local church, high school, clothes closet, NICU, a homelessness project, dress for success scheme, scholarship funding, a children’s home, and more.
The staff has been so inspired by this project that many of them have extended their offer of support by signing up as volunteers with the causes they have contributed to, and many have made plans for future initiatives. Many of the team have recruited family members as well, meaning the scheme hasn’t just impacted the staff at Red Wagon, but their families, as well as the organizations they have chosen to help.
Kris Hochart feels that “as leaders, we are accountable for that little nudge to help people be a good steward of our time, to be a good steward of our money and a good steward of our resources.”
This project wasn’t just about the money; it was about giving people the nudge they needed to be inspired to do more and to be more.
