When you’re a small business owner, sometimes you ca
n get taken off guard by difficult situations and end up making decisions on the fly that you later regret. Or you may feel backed into a corner and not know how to get out.
Case in point: if you live in a small town (and maybe even a big one) you likely get approached at least once a week with a request for donations to a worthy cause. I know because I’ve been on both sides of that request.
Unless you are wildly successful you can’t afford to give to every worthy cause that comes knocking on your door. But you don’t want to come across as a tightwad either. What’s the solution? Create a policy.
The next time someone comes requesting a donation you can respond with, “Our policy is that all donation requests must be made in writing. Furthermore, we’ve already allotted all our donation funds for this fiscal year. We’ll be doing our next year’s budget in September (or whatever month you actually do it). If you submit your request before then, we can consider your request for next year.”
Odds are the majority of people will say thank you very much and that will be the last you hear from them. A small few will submit a request in writing and then you can work them into your budget if you wish. Of course you can always make an exception to your policy for a cause you really love, but you’ll never be backed into donating more than you can afford.
Policies don’t just work for donation requests. You will want a return policy; a payment policy – do you accept cheques or offer credit; an employee dress code policy; a sick leave policy. In fact, any situation where you’ll be required to make a decision and is likely to recur, create a policy you can refer people to.
This not only helps you with your decision making today, should you ever wish to sell your business, having written policies and procedures makes your business more saleable because the running of the business is not dependant on you.
Andrea J. Stenberg
