Excited Utterances

Here's how to launch a successful community initiative at your firm. Make sure you have genuine support from your firm's decision makers. If they are not truly behind the effort, you won't get very far. E verything you do should be strategic – partner with client charities, align with your firm's mission and core values. Define how you will measure your community program's success, and track it.   Community is a very broad concept so start by organizing your initiative into 3 main categories: giving (i.e. financial donations), hands-on involvement, and pro bono. GIVING - Determine an annual budget, identify the organizations that you plan to support, and amount to allocate to each. You may want to support organizations in which your lawyers hold board positions. You could survey your team for organizations they already support. Or, consider forming an internal committee who will consider sponsorship requests on a case by case basis. As mentioned above, look