Atlanta Business Radio's National Volunteer Month Special

Published: April 2, 2008, 5:48 p.m.

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This morning we had on Katy Elder, Manager of the Employee Volunteer Program at The Home Depot Foundation. And Kate Lee, former Manager of Community Affairs at The Home Depot. They spoke about corporate philanthropy.

Both Katy and Kate spoke at length about the importance of being a good corporate citizen. This does not always mean writing big checks either. There are lots of ways companies help their communities. It might be money, but it also might be having employees volunteer their time.

Katy talked about some of the programs Home Depot is involved in including their KaBoom program that builds playgrounds in under-served communities, their Hands on Schools program and their tree planting program as well. For more information about the philanthropy that The Home Depot is involved in and to see if they can help your group please go to their website www.homedepotfoundation.org.

Kate explained that she now provides consulting in Community and Public Affairs for small to mid-sized companies. She teaches companies how philanthropy can help their bottom line. Being a good corporate citizen shows your customers that you "do good" and customers appreciate that. It also improves employee morale, retention and recruitment. For more information about Kate please email her at katelee @ earthlink.net.

Since it is National Volunteer month you should explore some of the ways your company can get involved. One great resource for companies of all  sizes is the Metro Atlanta Corporate Volunteers Council, their website is www.macvc.org

Next up we had Jim Aden with PlantMakers. PlantMakers has developed a green and eco-friendly way to grow live plants without dirt and water so they can easily be shipped by UPS or FedEx anywhere in the country at prices below a typical FTD offering. Jim was on explaining their brand new fund-raising initiative. Organizations can order plants on-line on a custom portal created just for them and 25% of all revenues generated throughout the year goes back to the organization. For more information about how you can get involved please go to their website www.GoGreenPlanters.Atlanta.com

Also if you know of a business owner in Atlanta that we should know about please email Amy Otto at Amy @ atlantabusinessradio.com and we will try and get him or her on the show.